Welding Tips and Tricks

I am going to purchase a strong hand table soon, I am wondering if it is worth the money to go with the Nitride coating. Most of the fab work we do is aluminum.
Any opinions?

I have moved this to the General Shop Talk section.

Mick.

Toolman27 wrote:I am going to purchase a strong hand table soon, I am wondering if it is worth the money to go with the Nitride coating. Most of the fab work we do is aluminum.
Any opinions?

So, what was the answer?

I don't think it's BEEN answered yet.

I'll suggest this, though. Is your car a "trailer queen", or a daily driver?

If you actually plan to use and abuse your welding table (why else own it?), the nitride is "window dressing", because you'll be buffing, wire-wheeling, or grinding crap off your table for years, so good-bye nitride...

Steve S

I've wondered the benefit of the nitride coating too. They don't do a very good job of playing it up.

How about the base metal - does anyone know what alloy they use? Stainless? It does a good job of staying rust-free for a good ground.

For what it's worth, I use a couple of these tables in a public shop where they take some abuse. Weld spatter usually comes off easily with a cold chisel followed by a flap disc cleanup. I recall seeing a YouTube of a guy sharing his technique using polishing stones. Net: I don't know what the nitride coating would do, unless the spatter just falls off it. It doesn't take much to keep the table clean without a special coating.