New welding cart (sort of)

[s219]

Been looking at welding carts for a few months and thinking about building one, but ultimately realized I needed something enclosed due to all the woodworking activity and sawdust in my workshop. So I have been looking around at rolling tool chests that would be good to support a welder and hold all my gear. Finally saw a price drop on a Husky tool chest at Home Depot and grabbed one. After looking at several brands, I think there must be one company making a lot of these tool boxes and cabinets. This Husky is very much like a higher-mid-grade Craftsman except for the paint job.



Nice to have a drawer just for clamps, almost a luxury to have it nearby when welding:



Top drawer has doodads and supplies:



Middle drawer fits helmet nicely:



(similar draw on bottom will eventually hold my angle grinder and other metalworking tools)

I added some hooks to store the welder leads. Combined with the main handle, they also do well to hang stuff while welding



Finally, here's a 40+ year old chop saw my dad gave me, along with two packs of 14" blades (dozen in each pack). I think I am set for life. That saw has taken a lot of abuse over the years on various job sites, and at one time was used to cut hundreds of steel studs every day on drywall jobs. This was made back when B&D was a good product.

 

[Shield Arc]

I know what you mean about Black & Decker! Their old Wildcat 7" / 9" grinders you could lean on all day, and it wouldn't bother them at all.

 

[Ed of all trades]

Looks like a good idea, have to keep it in mind.

 

[Sodo]

Thats a great idea. Add a low shelf to hold the bottle.

 

[Big Barn]

Thats a great idea. Add a low shelf to hold the bottle.

And one of these to secure the bottle. If you do you may want to add a backing plate on the inside wall of your cabinet where you bolt it on.

Terry

 

[k0ua]

Does this look familiar?

 

[zoedog2012]

Very nice, I now know want to do with my old tool chest setting out in the storage shed. Thanks

 

[Shield Arc]

Those little roll away tool boxes are very handy! I picked one up at Wal-Mart to hold the dies for my tube / pipe bender.

 

[bigtiller]

I like your cart idea but the numbers on your wall calender sure are small.

 

[SIMassey]

I like your cart idea but the numbers on your wall calender sure are small.

I really don't care about the size of the numbers.:licking:

 

[s219]

I like your cart idea but the numbers on your wall calender sure are small.

The Stihl art people sure don't work too hard to justify it as a calendar. Pretty much 12 months of posters with teeny digits at the bottom....

Nice to see all the other cart photos here! I was just starting to plan how I was going to attach a bottle. So far I have been running flux core and thinking how much easier it is than stick welding 20 years ago. Need to step up my game with shielding gas next....

 

[Scooter78]

Thx for reminding me I need to go to my dealer and get a new calendar.

 

[BukitCase]

"just starting to plan how I was going to attach a bottle"

If your rollaway is like the Husky I put my plasma on, both ends have threaded holes for the handle - on mine, those holes AND the ones for the casters are metric 6mm. What I did was to cut a piece of 1/8" steel plate big enough for the cyl's AND deep enough to mate up with the 4 holes (each side) for the casters -

I blocked up the box (already had stuff in it, otherwise I'd have laid it on its back), removed the casters, made slightly larger holes in the plate (too hard to match exactly, and the caster plates make good washers), found some slightly longer bolts, and bolted the plate (sandwiched between the casters) on.

If that's all I'd done, the plate would definitely have sagged under the weight of the bottles - so I took a piece of 1/4" flat bar and drilled it for the (spare) set of holes (handle), welded 90* pieces on both ends of the flat bar with holes drilled in them, drilled holes in the OUTER corners of the plate and used light chain and turnbuckles to support the plate.

It worked well, but at that time I was using that cart for my MM211 - when I sold that and got the MM252 that cart got "re-purposed" for the plasma and the plate was just in the way.

Sorry, no pix of what I described - but if you click on this pic just below the yellow handle on the ball valve, it should enlarge so you can see the upper chain support AND the upper end of UniStrut where the two METRIC bolts are attaching it to the end of the cart. (The bottom ends of unistrut were "sharpened" so they would sit in the small groove where bottom and sides of the cart meet)

Also, the upper add-on for support chains is high enough to do double duty for bottle tie-downs.

If I didn't explain this well enough, feel free to ask... Steve

 

[Big Barn]

A few years ago I added a tank platform to a tool cart for my wire feeder. I made it 'convertible' so to speak so that the platform was out of the way if the tank wasn't needed. I won't be able describe it as well as BukitCase so here's a few hopefully self explaining pictures. I used a propane tank clamp assembly for securing tank to the cart. Sorry no pic. It got repurposed. Terry

Edit. Just noticed I didn't have the platform 'bottomed out' for the photo op in last frame.

 

[Shield Arc]

That is a really slick idea there Big Barn!

 

[Big Barn]

That is a really slick idea there Big Barn!

Thank you,SA. But truth be told I didn't realize it WAS convertible until a year later when the bottle platform wasn't necessary.

Terry

 

[Shield Arc]

Thank you,SA. But truth be told I didn't realize it WAS convertible until a year later when the bottle platform wasn't necessary.

Terry

Doesn't matter how you get there, as long as you get there!

 

[Big Barn]

Doesn't matter how you get there, as long as you get there!

Usually encounter this on my route....




Terry

 

[BukitCase]

Terry, that is a really cool idea - you're welcome to borrow one of my "rules" - any mistake that turns out to be useful (and nobody's looking) automatically becomes a "feature" ...Steve

 

[Big Barn]

Terry, that is a really cool idea - you're welcome to borrow one of my "rules" - any mistake that turns out to be useful (and nobody's looking) automatically becomes a "feature" ...Steve

Thanks Steve. That'll probably work on the Internet but doubt it would fly with anyone that actually knows me.

Terry