MAPLE CREEK, Sask. – Farmers who spend a lot of time in the shop know the value of a good welding table.
Ken Sawby operates Skyline Farms near Maple Creek with his son Jason. They also run High Desert Enterprises, a custom manufacturing business for the farm and oil industries. The Sawbys’ welding table got its start in the newspaper business.
“The welding table was off the big offset printing press in Maple Creek,” he said.
“I got the press just for taking it out of the building, but it was heavy. This part that my welding table was made out of is three feet by seven feet, and seven inches thick. It pretty near flattens the tires on my front end loader tractor to lift it.”
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Sawby said his welding table uses the plate where the lead type was laid out before a newspaper was printed.
“It’s perfectly flat and perfectly square. When you want to make something flat and square, you clamp it on to that thing and it’s flat and it’s square.”
Nearly a dozen seven inch steel bars on the underside of the table keep it flat, level and true.
As well, Sawby has added attachments to make it more versatile.
“I’ve got a vise welded on one end and a V-trough at the other, so you can weld pipes or square tubes together. There’s a circle cutter that fits in there so you can stand in one spot to cut circles,” he said.
“Underneath, there’s a storage tray to hold jigs that helps you build things perpendicular, upright or whatever.”
On the same end as the circle cutter Sawby fashioned a spring-loaded lever with a hole through the table top to hold bars, pipes or other long, thin pieces of metal.
While the table is heavy, it is somewhat portable, with heavy steel wheels on one end and straight steel legs on the other.
