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Practical guides for the decisions that come before an order: table size and height, hole system, flatness, surface treatment, accessories and RFQ preparation.
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Each guide covers one decision and states what it depends on. No catalogue padding — if a number is not confirmed for your application, the guide says so.
Pick the hole system from the workpiece, not from the table. D16 suits small parts, jigs and fine positioning. D22 covers mixed job sizes on one table. D28 is for large frames, thick plate and heavy structures where holding force matters more than a fine grid. If you are unsure, send the workpiece size and weight and the decision takes a few minutes.
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Flatness is specified as a deviation over a reference area, for example 0.1 mm per square metre. Standard tables are machined to 0.1 mm/m², precision to 0.05 mm/m² and high precision to 0.02 mm/m². Choose the grade from the tightest tolerance on the assembly being built, not from the tightest figure available, because each step up costs machining time.
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Nitriding is a heat treatment that diffuses nitrogen into the steel surface, producing a hard, wear-resistant layer. It is not a paint or coating, so there is no film that can flake off or transfer to the workpiece. On a welding table it protects the machined faces and the hole grid where clamps and pins are used every shift, so the working accuracy lasts longer.
Read the guideAn enquiry that gets an accurate quotation contains five things: the workpiece size and weight, the required hole system, the table size including the working height you want, the flatness grade, and the accessories needed. Send those and the supplier can quote a configuration instead of asking you to choose from a catalogue.
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A 3D welding table on its own is a flat, drilled surface — it cannot hold anything until tooling is added. Start with a kit covering clamping, squaring and connecting in matched sizes, then add single items once you know which operations repeat.
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Start with the largest workpiece, then add clear space for clamps, stops and hands on every side that needs access. Choose the working height from the operator elbow height minus the workpiece and fixture stack above the table. Check the result against cranes, positioners, trolleys and seated work before fixing the leg or base height.
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A 2D table gives you one working plane: the top face and its hole grid, so everything is held down onto that surface. A 3D table machines and drills the four side faces as well, so fixtures can also mount at 90° to the tabletop. Choose the side faces when a job needs a vertical reference, side access or a square edge to work against; choose a top-face-only surface when all the work is clamped from above on a flat part.
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Start a D28 station with four groups: clamps to hold the largest frame at four to six points, angle squares and stops to set the datums square, pins and bolts that fit the 28 mm holes on the 100 mm grid, and support blocks for overhanging members. Around twenty to forty pieces covers most daily structural work. Order them as a kit matched to the hole system, then add single items once the repeating jobs are clear.
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In a robotic cell the fixture table does the same job as in manual work — locate and clamp the part — but every error it introduces is reproduced every cycle. Plan it around three things: a datum scheme the programmer can rely on, clamping that stays out of the torch path, and tooling positions that can be returned to exactly at every changeover. A modular 3D table with a known hole grid serves all three; the hole system, table size and flatness grade are then chosen from the workpiece family like any other station.
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A welding table stays accurate through three habits: keep spatter off the surface and out of the holes, clean the grid so pins and clamps seat fully, and protect the machined faces with oil when the table is idle. Spatter control starts before the arc, with anti-spatter applied to the surface and tooling around the joint. A nitrided surface resists wear and rust but does not remove the need for any of this — it stretches how long the grid stays accurate, it does not make it maintenance-free.
Read the guideA 3D welding table is a steel platform whose machined hole grid is carried on the top face and all four side faces. Because clamps, stops and supports can mount anywhere on those faces, the table can be reconfigured into a different fixture for each job instead of welding dedicated tooling for every part.
Read the guideThe material and the construction are two decisions that travel together. BECO builds fabricated platforms: welded steel bodies from Q235 or Q355 plate with internal reinforcement, machined after the structure is complete. HT250 or HT300 cast iron is available on request. For large-format tables with a five-face grid, fabricated steel is the construction that carries the size; the material is confirmed on the quotation against your workpiece.
Read the guideSpacing is a separate decision from hole diameter. BECO tables are machined with 50 mm or 100 mm hole spacing: a 50 mm grid lets stops and clamps sit closer together, which suits small parts and fine positioning, while a 100 mm grid leaves more open surface between holes and suits general fabrication. Choose the spacing from how close your tooling actually needs to sit to the part.
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Hole type is the third specification after diameter and spacing: holes come as plain bores, metric M16-M24 threads or imperial threads. Plain bores take pins and locating elements; threaded holes take bolts and threaded accessories. The type must match the tooling you intend to use, and it is confirmed at quotation alongside the hole system.
Read the guideThree finishes are available on BECO tables: rust-preventive oil, plasma nitriding and black oxide. The choice follows duty cycle — an occasional table does well with oil, a table in daily production justifies nitriding, and black oxide sits between. None of the options changes the geometry: treatments are applied after machining, so the hole grid and flatness keep their specified dimensions.
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D36 is the largest hole system in the range — 36 mm holes that take the heaviest pins and clamps available. It suits large frames, bases and thick-plate structures where holding force matters more than grid density. The trade-off is positioning: bigger holes mean a coarser grid, so the decision starts from the workpiece, not from the biggest number on the list.
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A batch order means one confirmed drawing repeated: every table in the batch is built to the same hole system, size, flatness grade and treatment, so tooling bought for one table fits all of them. Standard models run from BECO-1000x800 up to BECO-4000x2000, custom sizes to 4000 x 2000 mm, and delivery is typically around 10 days from confirmation per configuration.
Read the guideJudge a welding table supplier on signals you can verify: whether the tables are manufactured in-house, whether the hole system, flatness grade and treatment are written into the quotation, and what guarantees attach to a batch. This page collects the questions worth sending any supplier — and how BECO answers them.
Read the guideRound work needs its axis located before anything is clamped: supports carry the pipe, stops and angle squares set the axis position, and only then do clamps hold it. On a 3D table the support blocks and U-shaped boxes do the carrying, the side faces give a vertical reference for long or tall assemblies, and a dedicated fabricated cradle takes over when the same round part runs every week.
Read the guideBECO tables stand on legs or a fabricated frame with levelling feet or castors. Choose castors when the station moves — shared bays, cleaning access, changing layouts. Choose levelling feet when the table has to hold its flatness under real clamping loads, because a fixed, levelled station is the reference condition. The choice belongs on the quotation drawing, because it changes stability and finished working height.
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Welding leaves residual stress locked in the plate. If bores, pads and faces are machined into a stressed body, that stress releases over time and moves the features. Stress-relief annealing lets the structure settle first, which is why BECO runs fabrication, annealing and shot blasting before any machining on custom weldments.
Read the guideA new welding table deserves twenty minutes on arrival: the paperwork against the order, the table against the drawing, a test pin in the holes you will actually use, and the accessories against the kit list. What you record that day is what any later conversation about a claim stands on.
Read the guideMost first-table mistakes come from five decisions made in the wrong order: a hole system chosen by prestige instead of workpiece, a table sized to the room instead of the clamp plan, a platform ordered without accessories, flatness paid for but never used, and support and treatment left to installation day. None of them are expensive to avoid on paper - all of them are expensive to fix in steel.
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The machined faces are the product, so export packing exists to protect them. At BECO the sequence runs verify, protect, lift, crate: the table is checked against the confirmed drawing, the working faces are protected, the platform is lifted onto its transport base and crated. Delivery is typically around 10 days from confirmation per configuration.
Read the guideA welding table works only if the space around it works. Plan four things before ordering: which sides of the table must stay open for access, how parts arrive and leave the station, the working-height envelope from floor to the actual weld, and whether the station is fixed or mobile. All four belong on the layout sketch that accompanies the RFQ.
Read the guideA shop that outgrows its first welding table is really asking two different questions. If the workpieces have simply grown beyond the envelope, a bigger table answers it. If the table is busy while jobs wait in line, that is a throughput problem — and a second station, with its own operator and its own fixtures, answers it better than any amount of extra surface.
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Q235 and Q355 are the two standard structural plate grades in the BECO range. The designation rises with the strength of the steel, so Q355 is the higher-strength grade of the two. Neither is universally better: the grade is one input that sits alongside construction, internal reinforcement and support, and the choice is confirmed on the quotation against the workpiece.
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Squaring is a locating job, not a clamping job. Angle squares and locating stops fix two datum edges of the part at 90 degrees to each other on the table grid, the part is brought against them, and only then do clamps apply force. Because the accessories mount into holes at known positions, the same setup returns to the same positions job after job.
Read the guideLevelling puts the machined surface into the condition its flatness grade describes. On levelling feet, the sequence is simple: set a level on the surface, adjust the feet until the reading settles, and work foot to foot until the surface reads level in both directions. A table should be levelled after every installation and after every move.
Read the guideModular fixtures are reconfigured with tooling; dedicated fixtures are built for one part and changed by machining. Modular wins wherever the work changes — new products, repairs, short runs. Dedicated wins at maximum repetition of one mature part. Most workshops run both: modular tables for everything that moves, and dedicated fixtures where a single part runs long enough to earn them.
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Welding table, 3D welding table, fixture table, clamping table and welding platform mostly describe the same product from different angles: a rigid steel platform with a machined hole grid that holds work for welding and assembly. The useful distinctions are not in the names but in the specification — the hole system, the machined faces, the flatness and the surface treatment.
Read the guideA D16 table gives you smaller holes on a closer pitch, which means clamps, stops and pins that sit nearer to the geometry of a small part. That is the whole argument: not more strength, but finer reach. The trade is at the top end — the same finer grid takes the lighter tooling, so heavy frames and thick plate belong on D22 or D28.
Read the guideA platform alone cannot hold a part; accessories turn it into a fixture. So the order of decisions matters: sketch where the datums and clamping points fall on the part, and the size, hole system and accessory families follow from that sketch. Buying the table first and the tooling second is how buyers end up with a surface that fits the room but not the work.
Read the guideTwo quotations for a similar table rarely differ because one supplier is hiding something. They differ on four visible lines: how many faces are machined, which flatness grade is specified, the size and thickness of the platform, and which hole system and tooling are included. Read those four lines side by side and the gap in price explains itself.
Read the guideThe three surface treatments do three different jobs. Rust-preventive oil protects in transit and in store; plasma nitriding hardens the surface for a table in daily production; black oxide takes the middle path with a darker, corrosion-resistant finish. The right choice comes from duty cycle and cleaning routine — how often the table works and how it is cared for between shifts.
Read the guideA flatness grade is a measurement made under stated conditions: the table levelled on its supports, an instrument accurate enough for the grade, and deviations read over the agreed reference area. When a reading disagrees with the inspection report, one of those three conditions was almost certainly different — and the first things to check are floor, level and reference area.
Read the guideAfter the configuration is confirmed, the sequence is fixed: the drawing, fabrication, stress relief, shot blasting, five-face machining, inspection, treatment and packing. Delivery is typically around 10 days from configuration confirmation. Nothing new is decided once the drawing is signed — the remaining days are spent making the table match it, then proving that it does.
Read the guideThe second tooling purchase is a different decision from the first. A kit makes sense when you are opening a new station or adding a family of work that repeats, because it arrives complete and already matched to your hole system. Single components make sense when one specific operation is blocked and one part closes the gap. The deciding question is not price per piece — it is how often the operation will repeat.
Read the guideRepair and rework is the job a modular table was built for. When the part changes every time, a dedicated jig has nothing to repeat against, but a 3D table is reconfigured with tooling rather than rebuilt — the grid holds the known positions, and stops, clamps and supports move to wherever the next part needs them. One table with the right hole system covers most incoming repair work; a dedicated fixture only earns its place when one repair repeats often enough to have become production.
Read the guideA setup repeats when it can be described rather than remembered. On a hole grid every stop and clamp has an address instead of an approximate place; write down the datum faces, the holes used, the elements in them and the check taken before the first tack, and the setup can be rebuilt by anyone holding the card. A pin dropped into each named hole then tells you whether the card can still be trusted.
Read the guideClamping force does not decide where a part sits — it decides how firmly the part stays wherever it already is. That is why the order on a modular table runs support, locate, check, then clamp and tack: every step before the clamp sets the position, and the clamp only preserves it. Force applied out of order holds the part just as firmly in the wrong place.
Read the guideRound, raised and awkward parts do not sit flat on the grid, so they need the support family: support blocks that lift work off the surface and U-shaped square boxes that hold round stock and raised sections. The accessory range counts 188 SKUs across five families - clamping, locating, connecting, support and maintenance - and support is the family that prepares a resting position before any locating or clamping happens.
Read the guidePlatform height is the body of the table — 100 mm or 200 mm as standard, with custom heights available — and it is one link in a chain that also includes the support, the fixture and the part. The body height changes how the whole stack adds up and how much room the reinforcement has; the finished working height comes from the chain, not from the platform alone.
Read the guideA custom weldment enquiry needs four things: a drawing that shows the finished geometry and which surfaces carry tolerance, the material grade required, the features that must be machined after fabrication, and how the part will be used or loaded so the fabrication sequence can be planned. BECO fabricates custom steel weldments in the same workshop as its welding tables and fixtures — controlled fabrication, post-weld stress-relief annealing and shot blasting, with machined features cut after annealing so the geometry holds. Send the drawing with the tolerance-critical surfaces marked, state the material (Q235 or Q355 as standard, HT250, HT300 and other materials on request), and the enquiry can be confirmed on a drawing before production starts.
Read the guideHave a workpiece in mind?