I've been thinking about buying a fixture table, I think these are cool. But the Fireball Tool table is just on another level. It's not much more money to get the machined cast iron.
Fireball makes some beautiful tables. No doubt! But there are a lot of different kinds of tables which meet different needs, and there is no single solution that fits everyone. For example, customers who only do aluminum or stainless fabrication would be better off with a stainless steel welding table.... But in fairness, their tables are absolutely not "on another level". They are "on par" with many other Chinese manufactured tables (just like theirs) as well as German made tables from Sigmund, and tables made by Blueco and many others. Manufacturers who choose to start with a cast iron base and then machine it all have the exact same benefits, and drawbacks. The benefits they will always promote, you can count on that! But there are downsides to everything. 1. Weight: Cast tables are heavy, which can make transportation, installation, and repositioning more difficult compared to fabricated steel tables. 2. Brittleness: Cast iron is more brittle than steel, meaning it can crack or chip under impact or extreme stress, especially when subjected to heavy loads or dropped tools. Failures are often catastrophic and explosive compared to steel failures which generally would give lots of warning. 3. Cost: Cast iron tables tend to be more expensive due to the casting process, especially if precision milling is involved. 4. Customization: Cast tables are less flexible in terms of customization compared to fabricated steel welding tables, which can be designed and modified more easily to fit specific needs or accessories. 5. Corrosion: Cast iron is more susceptible to rust in humid environments unless it's treated or coated properly, which could require additional maintenance. Also, when it comes to fixture tables and fabrication in general, whatever coating comes from the factory will absolutely be damaged over time and expose the underlying surface. 6. Limited Repair Options: Repairing a damaged cast iron table can be more challenging and expensive than repairing a welded steel table, which can often be fixed by welding or patching. Any damage is essentially permanent, but with a steel table almost anything can be fixed. Finally, cost differentials are subjective... if you're loaded like John P. then just get whatever you want! :-) But for the rest of us, why spend quite a bit extra for the SAME flatness, and strength, and functionality... plus deal with something that weighs three times as much, AND uses non standard tooling, meaning you're locked into only what they have to offer versus the entire industry? Either way, it you get a Fireball table, or one of ours, it's going to elevate your game, so we support your decision either way!! Good luck! :-D
@@texasmetalworksIn my opinion Fireball has better fixture selection and designs then the texas metal works. All the fireball fixtures are machined square pieces. I'm not really a fan of the weld together fixtures.
@@Needfor_speed Certainly, when weight and price are not a problem it's nice to have machined parts (assuming quality machining - BIG assumption). I think we'll have to disagree about the fixture selection or designs of either "being better". Both companies have products that the other doesn't, but perhaps in your case their selection better matches your needs. Which is fair. The good news is that ALL other manufacturers 5/8" tools will fit on any of our tables, so things can be mixed and matched. So if a lighter weight, less expensive, steel table will work for some people and their concern is somehow the accuracy of the tooling or whatever, it's nice to have industry standard options. Of course, a small machined block runs around $500-600 and you can have multiple laser cut fixtures for that price. And if the accuracy is there, it can be a hard sell to spend several times more for a fixture. Plus they're much heavier, so if you're working with them all day it'll contribute to fatigue. As far as I'm concerned, if I'm going to beat up some tools all day every day, I just want something that will be durable, accurate and cost effective. And if it can be lighter weight, that's a huge bonus.
We don't do metric versions of our tables because we're currently only selling in the US. There's not really much market for that here since most shops work on imperial sizes.
It’s great to see the comments and hear engineering insights that help inform the industry. Flatness +_0.001 per foot? Hopefully an American owned company as well.
Nice tools but the problem with a "sheet metal " design is that the holes will enlarge and become loose after time. It may start off great but eventually wear out. The better option is a thick cast iron .
Hey Dan, we're not sure who told you this, but it just simply is not true. (Also, we assume you mean "plate steel" as opposed to "sheet metal" because we don't make tables out of sheet metal.) A hole is a hole whether drilled or laser cut. Differences in material composition and thickness would impact the durability of a hole, but regular cast iron is much softer and far less durable than the steel we use. Even the toughest cast iron is a joke compared to the toughest steel - which is not only far more abrasion resistant, but also far more impact resistant. The harder you make cast iron, the more brittle it becomes. you could take a sledgehammer and break it. So durability and repairability are both vastly inferior. Which sucks considering that the cast iron tables are usually 2 to 3 times as expensive. You could've had a free backup table... But back to the hole argument, one could argue that laser cut holes also have a small heat affected zone which hardens them further. At the end of the day though, we have thousands of tables that are in hard use all over the place for years and years and we've never had a single customer report problems with the holes. We also use tables in our own shop that we build and we've never had a problem with a hole. Two last things to consider: - There are THOUSANDS of holes on these tables. If you're doing a variety of projects on a table you're rarely going to be using the same holes multiple times. So it's not like your even putting a tool in a hole a thousand times over. If you're doing the same thing a thousand times over, you absolutely have to use a jig for that. Otherwise you're wasting so much time and money it's not even funny. - Since sheet metal tables are made out of steel, you could literally completely weld a whole shut, then grind the surface flat and drill a new hole if you wanted to. The material is infinitely repairable. You absolutely cannot do that with cast iron. Finally, as we said before, there might be 2,000 holes on the table. If one of them got damaged, just use a different one! So if a hole is "the problem", with this type of table it absolutely doesn't justify spending twice as much money on a heavier, more delicate version of a table. At least that's our take on it. Much love!!
Pretty basic for the "worlds finest" welding Table. If you're really looking for something durable and thought through then look for Siegmund or Demmler weldingtables, completely machined, hardened and plasmanitrited. Mine is over 10 years old, heavily used and still looks like new. 27mm thicknesses on top and all sides.
We agree! Sigmund does make nice tables. ...We do take issue with the fact we had a chemical analysis done on one of their tables and caught them in a lie about the material: texasmetalworks.com/2024/10/17/what-kind-of-steel-does-siegmund-use-for-welding-tables/ We also don't like that their marketing department spreads other lies and exaggerations, and we don't understand why a market leader needs to resort to such tactics? Maybe Germans still just really like propaganda? There's also the fact we watched with our own eyes how the plasma nitriding disappeared just from a piece of plywood being left on the surface of one of their tables for an hour accidentally.... But at the end of the day, as far as machining is concerned, who cares about the technique of manufacture? A badly machined anything is not as good as an otherwise handmade version if it's done right. We would argue that the American a572-50 steel we use is as good or better than their basic table lines, and our tables are within thousandths of an inch of flatness of theirs. Yet they cost half as much. Let's say someone began offering a Welding Table that was flat to within .00001 of an inch, and it was made out of electrically conductive diamond, but it cost $1M! Would that be a great table? Or not? Sure, on one hand it serves the function. But if people can't afford to put it to use then it's not really doing any good. Setting ego aside, we think once a Welding Table is strong enough, flat enough, and has everything needed to get the job done, everything else is wasted. So, if by basic we mean super strong, very flat, with thousands of tooling holes and tons of options - made in the USA, in an ISO9001 facility, from US and North American materials, then we agree! It's a pretty basic value equation. :-)
Yes! It's a bold claim for sure! But you'll have to tell us... how exactly did your comparison go? We have a $100,000 laser flatness measuring tool, and we've also compared our tables to the Sigmunds. Basically the same... We had a third party independent lab run a sample of material from a Sigmund table and found that on their normal line the "special steel" they're claiming is basic plain old steel. Our American A572-50 crushes it. Their plasma nitriding, which is the biggest selling feature they have, is incredibly weak. One fraction of a second of a flap disc touching it will remove it. Oh, and we accidentally left a piece of plywood sitting on a Sigmund table for about an hour and when we went back all of the plasma nitriding on the surface beneath it was gone! Perhaps you were comparing the casters that come with the tables? Except, can't be that... because they offer wimpy 4-in casters with 500 lb ratings compared to our much beefier 5-in casters with 1,000 lb. ratings. They have 4" sidewalls and far fewer ribs compared to our 6", meaning their tables will sag and twist easier (we tested it). Their tables are heavier, harder to move, and vastly more expensive. Plus, YOU pay for shipping. You could get 2 of ours for every one of theirs. What they ARE great at is MARKETING! Since they have global scale and a massive marketing department, they produce really cool videos of dump trucks pouring rocks on their tables and fun things to see like that. They don't show you the actual results of what happened when they did that, but just take their word for it... Hey, Sigmund, Blueco, and others, all make great tools - and we encourage everyone to buy them. Whoever you choose for your Welding Table, we're sure it's going to up your game big time, and what we care about is everyone getting the tool they need and generally having a better life. But we don't want unethical marketing practices to make anyone believe that some of these tables offer a massive benefit over others. There are small differences, and there are personal preferences. And at the end of the day you've got to weigh what the best value is in your particular instance.
@@texasmetalworks I have a hard time believing that a weld together table is as close to what you claim. If I buy the table and check it in house and it doesn't meet your claim will you take it back?
@@Builditboy-nv8ts We get it. There is so much BS marketing being thrown around about the absolute dominance of milled tables that it's hard to comprehend there's even an alternative. If all anyone ever heard about were Mercedes S Class sedans, and how awesome their German engineering is, and all they are capable of, it would be hard to imagine that anyone else could come up with something 98% as good for less than half the price. But other excellent, different, cars exist. We've just taken a different approach. The reality is that the big lasers we use are as expensive, or MORE, than the milling machines others are using. We rely on them to cut material extremely accurately, and then if we take great care and use good processes (we're ISO9001), we get repeatable results that are almost indistinguishable from other manufacturers, for a lot less money. We do guarantee our products, FOREVER. (texasmetalworks.com/guarantee/) And if a table were defective, of course we would take it back! If there is that much concern though, we can just map the table with our laser and provide the results before shipping so no one has to worry! TMW is a small company, owned by a couple of brothers (I'm 1/2 of them) who truly care about making people happy, helping other businesses succeed, and doing what is right. Our entire team follows that philosophy, and we all sleep well at night knowing we make the world a little better every day.
Very interesting job on explaining your table and it's options. Hope to see more videos on your products in the future.
Wow that looks like one hell of a good table.
Great video 👍 looking forward to seeing more
Looks like quality stuff. 👍
I've been thinking about buying a fixture table, I think these are cool. But the Fireball Tool table is just on another level. It's not much more money to get the machined cast iron.
Fireball makes some beautiful tables. No doubt! But there are a lot of different kinds of tables which meet different needs, and there is no single solution that fits everyone. For example, customers who only do aluminum or stainless fabrication would be better off with a stainless steel welding table....
But in fairness, their tables are absolutely not "on another level". They are "on par" with many other Chinese manufactured tables (just like theirs) as well as German made tables from Sigmund, and tables made by Blueco and many others. Manufacturers who choose to start with a cast iron base and then machine it all have the exact same benefits, and drawbacks. The benefits they will always promote, you can count on that! But there are downsides to everything.
1. Weight: Cast tables are heavy, which can make transportation, installation, and repositioning more difficult compared to fabricated steel tables.
2. Brittleness: Cast iron is more brittle than steel, meaning it can crack or chip under impact or extreme stress, especially when subjected to heavy loads or dropped tools. Failures are often catastrophic and explosive compared to steel failures which generally would give lots of warning.
3. Cost: Cast iron tables tend to be more expensive due to the casting process, especially if precision milling is involved.
4. Customization: Cast tables are less flexible in terms of customization compared to fabricated steel welding tables, which can be designed and modified more easily to fit specific needs or accessories.
5. Corrosion: Cast iron is more susceptible to rust in humid environments unless it's treated or coated properly, which could require additional maintenance. Also, when it comes to fixture tables and fabrication in general, whatever coating comes from the factory will absolutely be damaged over time and expose the underlying surface.
6. Limited Repair Options: Repairing a damaged cast iron table can be more challenging and expensive than repairing a welded steel table, which can often be fixed by welding or patching. Any damage is essentially permanent, but with a steel table almost anything can be fixed.
Finally, cost differentials are subjective... if you're loaded like John P. then just get whatever you want! :-) But for the rest of us, why spend quite a bit extra for the SAME flatness, and strength, and functionality... plus deal with something that weighs three times as much, AND uses non standard tooling, meaning you're locked into only what they have to offer versus the entire industry?
Either way, it you get a Fireball table, or one of ours, it's going to elevate your game, so we support your decision either way!! Good luck! :-D
@@texasmetalworksIn my opinion Fireball has better fixture selection and designs then the texas metal works. All the fireball fixtures are machined square pieces. I'm not really a fan of the weld together fixtures.
@@Needfor_speed Certainly, when weight and price are not a problem it's nice to have machined parts (assuming quality machining - BIG assumption). I think we'll have to disagree about the fixture selection or designs of either "being better". Both companies have products that the other doesn't, but perhaps in your case their selection better matches your needs. Which is fair.
The good news is that ALL other manufacturers 5/8" tools will fit on any of our tables, so things can be mixed and matched. So if a lighter weight, less expensive, steel table will work for some people and their concern is somehow the accuracy of the tooling or whatever, it's nice to have industry standard options.
Of course, a small machined block runs around $500-600 and you can have multiple laser cut fixtures for that price. And if the accuracy is there, it can be a hard sell to spend several times more for a fixture. Plus they're much heavier, so if you're working with them all day it'll contribute to fatigue.
As far as I'm concerned, if I'm going to beat up some tools all day every day, I just want something that will be durable, accurate and cost effective. And if it can be lighter weight, that's a huge bonus.
Nice
What are the hole size?
Holes are all made for 16mm tooling, and set 2" apart.
Do you manufacture tables and accessories which is in metric sizes?
We don't do metric versions of our tables because we're currently only selling in the US. There's not really much market for that here since most shops work on imperial sizes.
It’s great to see the comments and hear engineering insights that help inform the industry. Flatness +_0.001 per foot?
Hopefully an American owned company as well.
Yes, Texas Metal Works is 100% owned by my brother and I. And you can call and reach either of us any time you like. :-)
So a 50" x 100 will cost ???
Website link is in the description.
Nice tools but the problem with a "sheet metal " design is that the holes will enlarge and become loose after time. It may start off great but eventually wear out. The better option is a thick cast iron .
Hey Dan, we're not sure who told you this, but it just simply is not true. (Also, we assume you mean "plate steel" as opposed to "sheet metal" because we don't make tables out of sheet metal.)
A hole is a hole whether drilled or laser cut. Differences in material composition and thickness would impact the durability of a hole, but regular cast iron is much softer and far less durable than the steel we use. Even the toughest cast iron is a joke compared to the toughest steel - which is not only far more abrasion resistant, but also far more impact resistant.
The harder you make cast iron, the more brittle it becomes. you could take a sledgehammer and break it. So durability and repairability are both vastly inferior. Which sucks considering that the cast iron tables are usually 2 to 3 times as expensive. You could've had a free backup table...
But back to the hole argument, one could argue that laser cut holes also have a small heat affected zone which hardens them further.
At the end of the day though, we have thousands of tables that are in hard use all over the place for years and years and we've never had a single customer report problems with the holes. We also use tables in our own shop that we build and we've never had a problem with a hole.
Two last things to consider:
- There are THOUSANDS of holes on these tables. If you're doing a variety of projects on a table you're rarely going to be using the same holes multiple times. So it's not like your even putting a tool in a hole a thousand times over. If you're doing the same thing a thousand times over, you absolutely have to use a jig for that. Otherwise you're wasting so much time and money it's not even funny.
- Since sheet metal tables are made out of steel, you could literally completely weld a whole shut, then grind the surface flat and drill a new hole if you wanted to. The material is infinitely repairable. You absolutely cannot do that with cast iron.
Finally, as we said before, there might be 2,000 holes on the table. If one of them got damaged, just use a different one! So if a hole is "the problem", with this type of table it absolutely doesn't justify spending twice as much money on a heavier, more delicate version of a table. At least that's our take on it.
Much love!!
Pretty basic for the "worlds finest" welding Table.
If you're really looking for something durable and thought through then look for Siegmund or Demmler weldingtables, completely machined, hardened and plasmanitrited.
Mine is over 10 years old, heavily used and still looks like new.
27mm thicknesses on top and all sides.
We agree! Sigmund does make nice tables. ...We do take issue with the fact we had a chemical analysis done on one of their tables and caught them in a lie about the material: texasmetalworks.com/2024/10/17/what-kind-of-steel-does-siegmund-use-for-welding-tables/
We also don't like that their marketing department spreads other lies and exaggerations, and we don't understand why a market leader needs to resort to such tactics? Maybe Germans still just really like propaganda?
There's also the fact we watched with our own eyes how the plasma nitriding disappeared just from a piece of plywood being left on the surface of one of their tables for an hour accidentally....
But at the end of the day, as far as machining is concerned, who cares about the technique of manufacture? A badly machined anything is not as good as an otherwise handmade version if it's done right. We would argue that the American a572-50 steel we use is as good or better than their basic table lines, and our tables are within thousandths of an inch of flatness of theirs. Yet they cost half as much.
Let's say someone began offering a Welding Table that was flat to within .00001 of an inch, and it was made out of electrically conductive diamond, but it cost $1M! Would that be a great table? Or not? Sure, on one hand it serves the function. But if people can't afford to put it to use then it's not really doing any good.
Setting ego aside, we think once a Welding Table is strong enough, flat enough, and has everything needed to get the job done, everything else is wasted. So, if by basic we mean super strong, very flat, with thousands of tooling holes and tons of options - made in the USA, in an ISO9001 facility, from US and North American materials, then we agree! It's a pretty basic value equation. :-)
big claim to call it the finest table in the world !
compared to a siegmund u and even close !
Yes! It's a bold claim for sure! But you'll have to tell us... how exactly did your comparison go?
We have a $100,000 laser flatness measuring tool, and we've also compared our tables to the Sigmunds. Basically the same...
We had a third party independent lab run a sample of material from a Sigmund table and found that on their normal line the "special steel" they're claiming is basic plain old steel. Our American A572-50 crushes it.
Their plasma nitriding, which is the biggest selling feature they have, is incredibly weak. One fraction of a second of a flap disc touching it will remove it. Oh, and we accidentally left a piece of plywood sitting on a Sigmund table for about an hour and when we went back all of the plasma nitriding on the surface beneath it was gone!
Perhaps you were comparing the casters that come with the tables? Except, can't be that... because they offer wimpy 4-in casters with 500 lb ratings compared to our much beefier 5-in casters with 1,000 lb. ratings.
They have 4" sidewalls and far fewer ribs compared to our 6", meaning their tables will sag and twist easier (we tested it).
Their tables are heavier, harder to move, and vastly more expensive. Plus, YOU pay for shipping. You could get 2 of ours for every one of theirs.
What they ARE great at is MARKETING! Since they have global scale and a massive marketing department, they produce really cool videos of dump trucks pouring rocks on their tables and fun things to see like that. They don't show you the actual results of what happened when they did that, but just take their word for it...
Hey, Sigmund, Blueco, and others, all make great tools - and we encourage everyone to buy them. Whoever you choose for your Welding Table, we're sure it's going to up your game big time, and what we care about is everyone getting the tool they need and generally having a better life. But we don't want unethical marketing practices to make anyone believe that some of these tables offer a massive benefit over others.
There are small differences, and there are personal preferences. And at the end of the day you've got to weigh what the best value is in your particular instance.
@@texasmetalworks I have a hard time believing that a weld together table is as close to what you claim. If I buy the table and check it in house and it doesn't meet your claim will you take it back?
@@Builditboy-nv8ts We get it. There is so much BS marketing being thrown around about the absolute dominance of milled tables that it's hard to comprehend there's even an alternative. If all anyone ever heard about were Mercedes S Class sedans, and how awesome their German engineering is, and all they are capable of, it would be hard to imagine that anyone else could come up with something 98% as good for less than half the price. But other excellent, different, cars exist.
We've just taken a different approach. The reality is that the big lasers we use are as expensive, or MORE, than the milling machines others are using. We rely on them to cut material extremely accurately, and then if we take great care and use good processes (we're ISO9001), we get repeatable results that are almost indistinguishable from other manufacturers, for a lot less money.
We do guarantee our products, FOREVER. (texasmetalworks.com/guarantee/) And if a table were defective, of course we would take it back! If there is that much concern though, we can just map the table with our laser and provide the results before shipping so no one has to worry!
TMW is a small company, owned by a couple of brothers (I'm 1/2 of them) who truly care about making people happy, helping other businesses succeed, and doing what is right. Our entire team follows that philosophy, and we all sleep well at night knowing we make the world a little better every day.