Welding cart fabrication

Well, with the arrival of my new TIG machinE:



It became obvious I need another cart. I needed a TIG machine with some good punch to do some intake manifolds for my Vette and this mean mamma jamma carried a full 250 amps (AC) but still dials down to a trickle at 5 amps. 250a is enough to punch through 1/2 cast aluminun and 5A is low enough to weld pop cans and razor blades together without turning them into a melted pule of goo.

I was not relishing the thoughs of spending good money on another cheap cart when I thought to myself, “why buy a cart when you can weld?”

So I sat down and did some thinking about my needs, some imagining, some drawing and some cyphering and came up with this:






Certainly not done, but its a good start. Thats all steel I had left over from other projects. I need to sneak out tomorrow and pick up some more 1 1/2” eight wall square tube.

The very bottom space will hold the tank and rad for the TIG torch cooler. There will likely be a small storage space in front of it. There’s a big gap between the MIG shelf and the TIG shelf for a reason; there will be a full length drawer there split into compartments to hold my TIG stuff (collets, tungstens, cups, etc).

The rest comes down to some brackets and holders for cables, torches, gas lines, etc. I’m undecided on filler rod storage. Not sure if I want to put tubes on the outsides of the cart or through the shelves (like the one in the pic).

Still to do;

Bottle holders
Shelf “floors”
Drawers
Tig cooler
Front caster wheels
Add a small grinder for grinding tungstens
Paint
And: dream up anything else I might want/need

Nice, looking pretty high tech. New TIG machine looks fancy too.

Made some decent progress today. Welded on the shelf floors, added vertical supports, front casters, cut some horse stall mats to fill the space in the shelves (rubber keeps things from sliding around, adds heft and keeps the metal from clanking/ringing), started building the tank retainers and built the drawer:







Still have a long way to go, but making good progress.

I originally wanted to leave the shelves open and have that "floating" look, but once it was together, there just seemed to be a touch too much flex in the assembly for my liking. I had no problem dropping my 200 lbs on a shelf and it not moving much, but I just couldn't get that "warm and fuzzy" without adding support to the front parts of the shelves. I think it still looks pretty good, even without the "cantilevered" shelves.

The drawer came out OK, but it's about twice as deep as it needs to be. Probably could have put two drawers there instead of the one. I may make a hinged panel (or maybe a "lift out" one might be a better way to go) to create an upper and lower section in the drawer.

Next is to build the cord storage hangers. The angle cuts need to be closed up on the supports and the bottle holder needs to be filled in and a clamp built to retain the bottles (the chain is only temporary). The drawer needs to have dividers built and installed to keep the assorted bric-a-brac organized. Still have to sort out some filler rod holders.

I also need to figure out some sort of "handle" for moving it around the shop. I'm only a hobbyest in his two car garage, so everything has to go in/on the cart and it needs to be "moveable" with relative ease. As it sits, it still rolls around easily. We'll see how it goes once it's fully built and loaded up.

Next up will be building the tig torch cooler, which will fit under the TIG machine. It's going to be fairly simple: an aluminum container, a submerged pump (from a tile saw) a radiator and a fan. Plan it to build it right into the cart itself which will, hopefully, leave enough space in front of it for some consumable storage (wire, etc).

Probably have to start thinking about a color to paint the thing. Red jumps to mind, mostly because the Lincoln is red and I have a gallon can of Tremclad (IE: Rustoleum) red. Green Everlast will stick pretty good out though. I suppose black is always and option too.

At this point, I'm into it for about 100 bucks. That's for a 3x8 sheet of 18 Ga sheet metal and a couple casters. The rest is all left over and scrap bits. Not too shabby so far!

More work:





Those are holders for the TIG filler rods. Most guys go vertical with them, I went horizontal so I could put shorter used rods in the tubes and still be able to get them back out. I may change them to vertical mounted though. They take up quite a bit of space this way, which makes it harder to find a corner to store the cart in without the rod holders sticking out...

@Tourmax you are quite the fabricator.  I wish I had half the skill you have.

Coming along:




I changed the rod holders to vertical because they just took up too much room in the garage in the horizontal postion. With a 2 car garage, space is at a premium, hence the two welders in one cart.

I added a handle to the top to make it easier to move around. As the weight was going up, it was getting harder to roll it around. So, the handle was added and things got much easier. As a side bonus, I left the square tube ends open and it works great as a MIG torch holder. It a welcome addition as I’m always looking for somewhere to put my hot torch. I’ll be making a magnetic torch holder soon too.

I’ve never liked the look of the cables hanging loose. It just looks so....messy. So:



Left over M/C front brake rotors that have been hanging around forever. So I tacked them on and they cover the cables nicely. But I’m a little back and forth on whether I like the look of them or not. Maybe I need some kind of design insert to fill in the empty space in the center so they don’t look like someone just stuck a couple okd brake rotors on there...

Looks good!