Domenico- cross contamination from the steel plate. That's why you don't use a steel wire brush or steel wool to clean ss. If you do it will rust. Plus, alot of it is #8 finish which is like a mirror. I build alot of boat rails and I layout the the foot print on the table ,top screw the pads down , that would be difficult on a steel top. If I'm building a frame of some sort, I just use wood or alum blocks and screw them down. I built the same one at home as I have at work.

 

I went to a local scrap metal yard, was looking around for some odd pieces for various projects, among them a welding bench, when some guys in a pickup truck pulled in with scrap to turn in.

On the back of their truck was my welding table. It was about 36x50x40inches tall, made of square 3/16" steel tube legs, the top shelf was framed with 1/2"angle iron and the top shelf was 1/4" plate steel with rows of 3 1/4" holes drilled into it. About 8"lower there was another 1/4 plate welded to the legs. The legs themselves also had some angle welded front to back across the bottom.

At scrap yard prices, I was looking at about $150 worth of steel, but along with the other stuff these guys were turning in for scrap, I offered them $20 bucks for the table and helped them load it from the back of their truck to mine. They threw in two galvanized 30 gal trash cans with lids that were beaten up, but still made excellent weld area scrap bins for my new side yard-automotive-welding area on one side of my house.

Moral of the story, be patient, keep your eye on a local scrap yard, someone will be bringing in "junk" metal, possibly even your new welding table...