Grinder stand - I had 2 grinders sitting on tables.  One with grinding and deburring wheels, and the other with polishing and wire wheels.  Constantly moving them around on the tables and the mess they left on my table's work area meant it was time for stands.  I wasn't too concerned with design, just that there was a little storage space under them and that they had a stable foot print.  They needed to be easy to relocate and I added the option of screwing them to the wall for extra stability.  I had another person with me as a trainee, so after laying out the design and prototype, and cutting up the stock, I let him weld the stands up and paint them.  They are very stable, and once again were made out of 1" and 1½" angle iron and 1" steel box tube.

     Helmet rack - We had lots of welding helmets that usually ended up in being in the way because we had no specific spot to store them.  They ended up on hooks, tables, welders, gas bottles, etc, all over the shop, and they also got broken as they fell off of whatever it was that they were hastily stored on.  Very simple and fast design, some aluminum flat stock and a few bent pieces of aluminum sheet rivetted to it.  5 or 6 years, and still seems to work fine. :)

     Keyboard tray - An old desk, and a desktop PC meant there was little room to actually do paperwork without trying to shove/jam/prop up the keyboard.  I wanted to make something that would stow the keyboard but still have it available for use.  I took some pieces of .063" 2024 AL and made a tilting keyboard tray and used #10 machine screws with lock nuts and flat washers to screw it together.  4 or 5" of the base slides under the front of the PC's case to act like a big paper-weight and hold it in place without having to screw it to either the PC or the desk.

     MIG welder rack - I inherited a MIG welder from another organization at my work.  It initially sat on my work table with the bottle attached to it, and while I was learning how to use it, it quickly became apparent I needed to make it far more mobile than it was.  So, I learned how to MIG weld while I built the MIG welder's stand.  I wanted to make it small so it could get through, and into, tight floor spaces.  I also wanted to make sure I had good storage space in it for more wire spools, gloves, helmet, etc and I wanted to come up with a method of handling the gas bottle that didn't involve one person having to try to lift it onto the rack.  I came up with rails that I could slide the bottle up, and then once the gas bottle was in the rack, the rails would pivot up and hold the gas bottle tightly in place.  It worked very well and managing a full size gas bottle was easier than I planned.  It was made out of 1" and 1½" angle iron, a few pieces of .040" 2024 aluminum and 4" casters.

     Paint thinner tank - In our paint shop, we had a solvent recycler.  What benerally happened, was we would recycle the paint thinner, collect it in 5 gallon cans, and then it would usually evaporate as the old 5 gal cans didn't have the proper caps for the spouts, and they were sort of unweildy to try to transfer the solvent into the empty 1 gal cans.  At the same time, I felt we were going through inordinate amounts of new thinner to clean our paint guns.  I decided to make the paint thinner tank to actually put the recycled solvent to use, and hopefully cut down on the waste of good thinner.  A new co-worker named Jay helped me cut the metal and with some of the initial welding.  The tank is made out of 1/8" 6061 AL because it could be welded.  The bottom of the tank is sloped to the front so all the thinner is directed toward the spout in the center.  I welded a thicker 2" x ½" 6061 piece to the front, drilled and pipe tapped it, so it would accept the tap off of a 45 gal drum.  I had a 12" piece of clear teflon tube, so I used it as a fluid level sight gauge on the left hand side at the front.  I reasoned none of the solvents would be able to disolve or discolour it, and it was sealed with structural adhesive at the bottom where I welded a piece of ¼" OD AL tube to the tank.  A large scrap piece of 6061 AL tube was welded to teh left handside at an angel and was used as the filler spout.  A larger piece of AL tube fit over the spout and I welded a piece of AL over the end to act as a cap and prevent solvent evaporation.  I made a rack for the tank, that would fit inside the exhaust hood where we cleaned our spray guns and made a shelf as well as a small hanger for paint brushes and cleaning brushes.  It holds between 10and 15 gallons of recycled paint thinner.  The hole under the tank is a small "sink" that collects the thinner used for cleaning the guns, which is then put back in the solvent recycler to go through the cycle again.  After cleaning with the reused solvent, a quick rinse with a small amount of fresh thinner, and the spray guns are ready to go.

     Painting supply rack - In our paint shop we had a small mixing table with a suction plenum, to exhaust fumes, behind it.  All the small items required for mixing paint and prep immediately prior to painting, were spread over a number of places, and usually not neatly.  I wanted to centralize all the immediate supply needs where they were actually needed to speed things up and to reduce the clutter in other places in the shop.  A new co-worker named Donny helped me cut out the initial pieces.  Some .040" 2024 AL was used to make individual storage for Scotchbrite pads, mixing cups, paper towels, tack rags, latex gloves, wooden tongue depressors, small paint brushes, paint filters and metal paint stir sticks/can openers.  The whole things was rivetted together with solid rivets, and then rivetted to the glavanized steel plenum.

     Phone rack - I had a trainee working with me, named Eric, who needed some projects to do to learn the trade, and I needed a place to hang my phone.  I wanted something out of the ordinary for a phone rack, and also something that would challenge the trainee.  I thought an extending phone rack would come in handy to allow the phone to be used around the corner to the right, (where the noise would be lower) as well as about 6' away at the work table.  The only semi-suitable material we had at the time was 1" angle iron and we used some small pieces of ¼" steel rod.  After some initial cutting and layout, the trainee did most of the welding.  The phone rack pivots both at the wall and at the phone.  It extends to a little over 4' and a paper pad holder and 2 pen holders were added to keep track of messages.

     Picnic table - I've gone through more picnic tables than I care to count.  I wanted to make a table that didn't wobble, was plenty wide enough (because most are too narrow once plates and condiments are on them) and had nice wide comfortable seats.  With some spare pieces of 1" steel box tube I came up with 2 end pieces that could be lag bolted to any length of lumber, and would support up to two 2" x 8" boards for seats and six 2" x 6" boards for the top.  The only thing that will ever need to be replaced are the table top boards and seats which are fastened with 2½" x ¼" lag bolts.  I was considering making the whole thing collapsible, but decided against it in the same of simplicity.  I'm also planning to add two small booster seats, one at either end, for my two little ones to sit on as a full size picnic table isn't really designed for small children.  More on that later.

     Recumbents - I got the bug for building recumbents a friend, and the first one I made was for his daughter.  After that one, through a process of trial and error, and gaining experience, I built (and still am building) more tadpoles, deltas and two wheelers.  More complete details can be found here.

     Squeeze rivetter table - We had a nice big sqeeze rivetter, but there was no support for the work piece while rivetting.  Consequently, unless you were paying very close attention, it was possible to damage the work piece due to it not being level.  Additionally, awkward, heavy or oversize work pieces were very difficult to rivet and would often require two people to keep it properly aligned.  Initially, I took a piece .125" 6061 AL sheet and mad a table about 1½" square. It is adjustable to move up and down so that the table top can be kept even with the top of the snap or anvil being used and help keep your work piece level.  Folding leaves add about an extra 2' on each side to help stabilize oversized work and are made out of .125" AL too.  A piece of ½" ID Sch 40 pipe was fastened to the bottom of the table and two pieces of ½" steel round stock were fastened to the underside of each leaf.  The round stock slides through holes in 1½" angle AL, towards the center and into the Sch 40 pipe to lock the folding leaves in the up position.  The total table width is over 5' and turns big work pieces back into one man jobs while minimizing the chance of damage during rivetting.

     Transmission stand - We had a small helicopter transmission on a portable stand.  It was used to identify components for students.  The original (on the left) was made out of wood, was top heavy, and unstable due to a small footprint.  Additionally, the transmission, which is pretty heavy, could rotate back and forth as well as shift from side to side.  This increased the instability of the stand as well as providing opportunity for the transmission to pinch fingers and hands. I used some 1½" and 1" angle iron as well as the old 4" casters to build a new, stable stand.  The new base is 12" longer and 12" wider than the old one and I made a small custom bracket to prevent the transmission from rotating fore and aft, and moving laterally.

     TIG welder rack - I got a nice little 150A TIG/ARC machine, but the rack that was illustrated with it was very small and very expensive.  I thought I could do better, for far cheaper.  With my always ready supply of 1" angle iron and 1" box tube, I added a few small pieces of 3/8" steel round stock and some new 4" casters.  I made a bigger footprint on this stand than on the MIG stand because it has very long cables with it, so I don't need to move it around as much while welding up projects.  I used the same bottle ramp/bottle clamp design as on the MIG rack so I could slide full size gas bottles into the stand without having to lift them.  I got 50' of AWG 6 cable and made myself an extension cord for working at extended distances from the 220 V outlet.  I made the extension cable rack out of 1" box tube as 50' of #6 is pretty heavy.  There were 4 bolts on top of the welder that hold the cover on, so I used them to mount a small triangular rack that holds the foot pedal and cable on one side, and the torch cable on the other.  I wrapped the grounding cable around the 1" box tube handle and used scrap pieces of .040" and .032" 2024 AL to make two compartments and their sides.  The 2 swivelling front casters have wheel locks on them to stop the stand from rolling around on me.