- Product: Welded steel table leg
- Type of work: Fabrication design, fabrication drawings, manufacturing documentation
- Materials: Steel box section and plate
- Process: Cutting, welding and finishing
Project overview: the welded steel table leg
This welded steel table leg is built from box section and plate. It wasn’t a one off. The fabricator needed to make it in batches, with every leg matching the last.
The challenge and the thinking behind it
However, fabricated parts are easy to get slightly different every time. If a drawing leaves anything open, each person on the shop floor fills the gap with their own judgement. Cut lengths vary, welds move and the finish changes.
On furniture, those small differences soon show. Legs at slightly different heights make a table rock. Similarly, uneven angles or welds look poor once you assemble the table.
So the real job wasn’t only designing a leg. It was designing a welded steel table leg, and the information around it, so that anyone could make it the same way every time.
Design solution: the welded steel table leg
First, I designed the leg using standard steel box section and plate, joined by welding. Alongside the 3D model, I produced a full set of fabrication drawings and manufacturing documentation.
The drawings set out what to cut, how the parts go together, where each weld goes and how the leg should be finished. As a result, nothing is left to guesswork.
Design considerations
- Repeatability: every leg in every batch should match
- Standard materials: stock box section and plate, so materials are easy to buy and quick to cut
- Weld access: welds placed where a welder can reach them comfortably
- Distortion: heat from welding pulls steel out of shape, so the weld layout needed to keep that under control. It is a well known problem, and organisations such as TWI publish guidance on it
- Finish: a part that looks right once finished, as it is on show
Engineering rationale behind the welded steel table leg
Box section is stiff and strong for its weight in every direction, which suits a leg that has to resist knocks and sideways loads as well as carrying weight down to the floor.
In addition, plate gives a flat, solid face for fixing the leg to the tabletop. Welding it to the box section makes the leg one rigid piece with no joints to work loose.
Above all, putting the cutting, welding and finishing detail on the drawings is what makes the welded steel table leg repeatable. It moves decisions from the shop floor back to the design stage, where I can make them once and make them properly.
Deliverables
- 3D CAD model of the leg
- Fabrication drawings with cut details and weld information
- Manufacturing documentation covering how to cut, weld and finish the leg
Outcome
The result is a table leg designed around how a fabricator really makes it, with clear drawings and documentation behind it. The fabricator can now produce it consistently from one batch to the next, without needing to come back with questions.
Services used
Talk to Ben about your project
If you have a part or product that needs designing, drawing or improving, I’d like to hear about it. The first call is free, and you’ll get a clear quote before any work starts.