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Portable Weld coupon stand?

8.2K views 16 replies 8 participants last post by  slow6i  
#1 ·
I want to make a light weight stand that is portable just like the kind that we had in our welding classes. I have 1”square aluminum tubing but not sure if it would be too light and just tip over after chipping slag or putting a heavy coupon on it.

Pics would be helpful.
 
#2 ·
I have pics on my laptop of a steel one that I made for training and demos a while back. It can be clamped to a bench top, tailgate, or on something like a workmate. Adjustable height, Adjustable reach. 360° Rotation from base. 360° Rotation on coupon.

Good for 1F, 2F, 3F, 4F, 1G, 2G, 3G, 4G

I'll post them tomorrow.
 
#5 ·
If you want it light weight and portable but stable, think about removable "balast" you can add to the base. Same idea as umbrella stands or the mobile basketball hoops. Water is usually a good choice, easy to add and remove, but a bit messy. Then theres sand or block. We used to drop hollow block down over the tops of scaffold to balast the back side when running outriggers. A standard 8" hollow is usually about 60lb IIRC, a hollow 12 is about 80lbs. Solids and caps are signifigantly heavier. You could always fill a bucket with concrete and either bolt the upright to that or make some other easy attachment to it. I've got a bunch of concrete filled buckets with loop anchors we use for tieing down tent canopies in rocky ground. They are sort of "portable" at close to 100lbs each.

The 2nd thought is simply a large base. One poster recently did this to the grinder stand he bought. Long legs, large flat plate, tire rims and so on have been used for years to add stability to pedestals. I've got a "portable" bender I've bolted to a large sheet of plywood for bending bar at the job site. Bender is bolted to one end and you park the truck tire on the other to keep it from moving.
 
#16 ·
Be it ever so humble...

Yeah, it doesn't look like much but its where I spend the bulk of my time 6 days a week. This is a typical booth at our CC where I'm enrolled. You can't see the detail of the coupon holder because I hung my leathers on it so its really not that much help. But, its basically the same deal that Black Wolf has posted but it has a couple of different attachments. The most basic one is a pipe with a C-clamp welded to it but there's another one with a Vise-Grip and a third that is just a flat plate table-top arrangement.

It seems to work well but being left-handed I'd rather have it on my right. Some smart-*** welded the arrangement into the left side holder so I'm kind of stuck with it but you get the idea.
 

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#17 ·
The image that welding_swede and blackwolf posted is very similar to the ones that my CC uses. The only difference is that the coupon holder is actually a piece of angle iron that you clamp your work to (still able to roll 360 degrees.) Makes it fairly versatile as far as positioning goes. Make sure the angle is long enough, if you go this route, to ground to. I have problems grounding the table and working on the stand sometimes...