hardox for welding table?

[Munkul]

Daft question, one I've been mulling over.

My fixture table top is slowly wearing out. It's 20mm thick S275.

I can get a plate of 16mm hardox 450 for an ok price... it's quite expensive but good value compared to a seigmund table.
And have the hole pattern either laser cut, or more preferably, dimpled out and cut with magdrill TCT cutter.

Hardox is very flat and very tough and very strong. So instantly it's an upgrade over the s275.

However, does weld spatter stick to it like mild steel? Is there some reason why it's not more popular for use as a welding fixture table, or is it just price and difficulty to make?

I don;t actually have much experience with hardox personally, other than hardox teeth for scallop rakes.

 

[Brad93]

Spatter sticks same as normal.

The red primer may last a while which will help.

If i get time I'll upload a few pictures from the old hardox fabrication guide.

You could have a look at having it nitrided?

 

[hotponyshoes]

Hardox is very flat and very tough and very strong. So instantly it's an upgrade over the s275

my concern would be the condition of the particular piece I was buying.
It might well be flat when it leaves the mill..
I've not done a huge amount with hardox but the bits I have seen have not normally been very flat or in very good condition.
To be fair, the majority of it has been supplied to me by the customer and the customer is normally a farmer who has got it from a mate that works in a quarry....

The nearest place I have that stocks it just calls it wear plate. It's normally stacked vertical outside. Thin sheets are handled by one guy in gloves and dragged across the yard. Thicker stuff is done directly on the forklift tines. I guess the people they supply with it are not fussy about the condition of it

I can just see it being a problem if you order a sheet and have it delivered to the laser cutters then have the cutters ringing you complaining the sheet is rusty or twisted..

If the laser cutters can supply the material then probably not an issue.

Or collect it yourself. I've found that if you arrive at a sensible time in gloves and a high-vis they are normally happy for you to help load and will let you look through the stack for a good sheet.

If you are going to mag drill it I don't know if I would bother sending it off for marking/dimples. Probably easier to make up a template/spacer for the mag drill base so you can do the first couple of holes by hand then use the template to position the next holes from the first ones.
It's also easier to countersink/chamfer the holes if you are doing it that way.

However, most table designs don't expect the sheet as supplied to be flat enough. They normally have some sort of tab/slot construction so you can clamp the top sheet flat during build. I suppose you could still emulate that by drilling holes and plug welding them although I've also thought that drilling for countersunk bolts should work? Then you could use ground steel for the webbing & hopefully end up with a flush surface where the bolts are. Maybe even possible to design it so you could remove any particular bolt and use the hole as a fixture point if it happens to be in the right place for the job you were doing.

As Brad says, splatter sticks to hardox just fine. In fact, it seems worst than normal steel. That may well be because most of the stuff I have done has been with a stick welder, in a rush, in less than ideal conditions. Although it's not often I've needed to clean any splatter off

The nitrading siegmund use is excellent. No idea how much it would cost or who could do it. There must be some sort of DIY method?
The big issue with the splatter is when it gets into one of the fixture holes so another option would be to get a load of blank plugs either turned up from Alloy or 3d printed or something. Probably a pain to use but if you populated the table with them at the start you could just remove them as required.
I though about making them with magnets embedded in so you could fit/remove them on-mass using metal sheets with a handle. But I've never tried it as I think the magnets might cause problems...

Another thought I had that might work for you,
Get some thin sheets laser cut to match the table pattern that you just drop over the top as protection plates. One in aluminium to stop steel splatter, one in stainless for aluminium welding etc...
If your existing table is not really badly worn a sheet of suitable thickness would support itself and might take it back to "flat enough"
They would be cheap enough to be disposable.
Even if you wanted to go with the hardox then a sheet cut in 1mm would (Test with scrap first) probably allow the mag drill to work well enough to at least copy the hole pattern out?

Another option,
If your existing table is 20mm and you think 16mm would be thick enough, find someone to re-face your table?
Someone has offered to do this for me before so there is at least one guy just on this forum that has the capability to do that..

 

[dieselsamurai]

Fireball tools have a coating they cover there tables in that stops splatter sticking maybe its available separately ?

 

[hotponyshoes]

Fireball tools have a coating they cover there tables in that stops splatter sticking maybe its available separately ?

A lot of the fireball stuff is cast iron (or cast alloy) so has an advantage from that.
I think they use a black oxide coating and you can certainly do that diy..

 

[Munkul]

Nitrided would be nice. Would have to call around.
The hardox is direct from SSAB (we have an account with them) and we have our own laser for putting dimples in. They market it as very very flat. Certainly the 10mm plates we get in for fishing teeth are very flat and unblemished (much higher grade though)

 

[Brad93]

I would be buying from a hardox service centre like Pegasus Profiles.

You can also look at Cruesabro

Edit: I see you have an account, not to worry

Hardox plates i've had at 600 square are mega flat with a straight rule.

There's a lot of knock off "abrasion resistant" plate available that is no where near the same specs as hardox or cruesabro

 

[Erie Fred]

Nitrided would be nice. Would have to call around.
The hardox is direct from SSAB (we have an account with them) and we have our own laser for putting dimples in. They market it as very very flat. Certainly the 10mm plates we get in for fishing teeth are very flat and unblemished (much higher grade though)

When Hardox first came to our area, the lit. & salesman said flat within .005", So I had the Blanchard operator (who was grinding it to final thickness)
do a little test on it.
He blued up the first side, and ground it to 100% cleanup, and reported that it happened in .004"

 

[wyn]

My welding table is 15mm hardox.
It's not very big and don't really see that much of an advantage over mild steel.

Spatter sticks, you can weld stuff down to it ok, grinding spatter etc off it still wears it away from flat.