If you're never welded before, today's easy-to-use wire-feed units speed up the learning process.

Time to spark your creativity.

1 Before You Start

First, practice handling the gun without actually welding. Rest its barrel in one hand, and support
that hand on the table. The other hand operates the gun's trigger. Stand in a comfortable position
and move the gun steadily over the work surface. Adjust your posture and gun movement so that
they feel natural.

Position the Pieces

When building a project like our C table, you'll need to form exact 90-degree angles. Clamp the
mitered surfaces together, leaving enough room to put down a tack weld. The pieces should lie
flat and fit neatly without a metal burr interfering.

Check the assembly's position with a square. Use a carpenter's aluminum triangle square on the
inside of the joint, or a steel carpenter's square on the outside.

5 Tack Weld
Tack the pieces together at a couple of places along each joint. Check again for square corners; if
anything shifts and puts the assembly out of square, grind away the tack weld, reposition the
parts, and try again.

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6 Finish Weld
After you've tacked everything into place, lay down your final weld beads. As enjoyable as it is
to create nice, smooth welds, resist the temptation to overdo it. The more metal you deposit, the
more you'll need to grind off.

7 Post-Weld Cleanup

Chip off the slag with a welding hammer, and then use a 36-grit grinding wheel to knock the
beads down to the surrounding metal. To ensure a flat, flush surface, move the grinder along the
weld, not across it. Remove any marks with a 60-grit zirconia flap disc.

Finishing Tip

Prime and paint the steel, buff some clear wax over it, or spray on a coating of clear acrylic. But
do it sooner rather than later. You don't want a layer of rust to form.

8 Make This Metal C Table

Senor Salme

Our C table is an elegant reduction of furniture to an industrial form. Two 16-inch-square frames
are joined by two 15-inch-long uprights. Use the structure to support a top of wood, stone, glass,
or metal.

It's an ideal project for a first-time welder. All 10 pieces of steel are cut from 1-inch-square steel
tubing with a 1/16-inch wall thickness. The pieces for the top and bottom frames are joined with
45-degree miters. The two uprights meet the frames with butt joints. And the welding couldn't be
simpler: Flux-cored arc welding with a low amperage setting and a slow wire speed is about as
easy and forgiving a process as you can learn.

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