Finished the frame to support the top! I actually already made this out of wood, but it turned out to be to weak. I could have remade it with thicker wood, but there would still have been a chance it was to weak, so metal was the safest bet.
Tip: Despite the name, dont use the grinding wheel on the angle grinder to clean up welds. Use the sander attachment. Turns a 2 hour job into a 15 minute one.
Plasma cut these long holes in the side so i could attached the heater later. In hindsight, should have either bought the heater first, then drilled holes exactly where i needed them, or used the angle grinder to hand cut. This plasma cutting was difficult and not perfectly clean.
I wanted the bolt head to fit on this side to look cleaner, but realized the holes on top didnt allow space for a wrench to fit. The small holes also make tightening these hard. next time im a just cut a square hole on top.
Also found out that the top doesnt sit perfectly flat on the frame because of slight plywood warping. So next time iām using metal pipe for the frame so that i can carve a small divit on the underside of the plywood for the pipe to sit into. This would also help align the top to the frame whenever you put it on
Nice work! Can you handle the plywood warping with shims? I tend to get some bowing with steel tubing, particularly after welding, but Iām mostly using pretty thin-walled 1āx1ā square tubing.
The shims would be slightly visible. I could glue the shims to the bottum, but currently it stays on good enough, and iv already sunk enough hours, so eh. If i was making it for a client, then absolutely. But its fine enough for me.
I used 14 gauge 1x1 square tubing and it worked out great for me. Didnt notice any bowing
