Building a weld cart.

Have been working on this in my spare time in my home garage with scrap metal. I have posted a couple threads asking about details/ideas for this cart on the forum. In this thread: http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=121829 I hammered out how I wanted to make the cart mobile and stationary. In post #16 is a sketch of how I made the legs retractable.

Below is a pic of the current state of the cart, nothing is quite done yet but it's getting there. The top and bottom shelf are (2) pieces of 10" channel welded together. The legs are 3x3x1/4" angle. The cabinet the welding machine is sitting on is a vidmar cabinet that I chopped down shorter and shallower to fit on the cart. The wheels are mounted inboard of the feet. The feet are in the mail, so they aren't mounted yet.


This pic shows a side view. The bottle is just laying there waiting for me to make a mount to hang it from the bottom of the top. Will probably make a bracket to coil the leads around mounted to the side of the vidmar.


This pic shows my 18v impact driver fits in the corner to run the 'foot bolt' up and down. Can't wait to get the feet in to test this out!


And finally this pic shows some homemade wrenches I made to tighten the wheels down with. I didn't consider how I was going to tighten them down when I welded the channel in. The black piece of channel with (2) pieces of flatbar welded to it is a 'wrench' to hold the nut on the top of the wheel, while that is a 'close quarters' ratchet to fit under the channel the wheel is mounted to.


I will update this thread as I continue with the cart. I have plans to make a drop leaf on the front with a grate for plasma cutting. A drop leaf on the back that folds up to a 90 degree angle to the top outta sheet metal to catch sparks from a grinder and protect the wall.

Any good ideas on an easy to 'load' bracket to hang the bottle from?

today i finished weld filling the 3/8 bevel i put on the two pieces of channel for the top. then ground it flush. now i need to finish the top. I want a shiny uniform steel finish. A grinding wheel doesn't take the mill scale off very well. I am thinking of trying some sort of acid? Then follow up with a belt sander to give it a flat-ish/smooth finish? I'm open to suggestions.

Looks good, Is the top of the cart going to be used as a work table?

I used a cheap Craftsman roller box as the base for my welder (Hobart 187), and added a platform for the gas tank behind the box.

Here's a link w/ pic's.

http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=111535

I want a shiny uniform steel finish. A grinding wheel doesn't take the mill scale off very well. I am thinking of trying some sort of acid? Then follow up with a belt sander to give it a flat-ish/smooth finish? I'm open to suggestions.

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Look for a flap-wheel disk. It's a hybrid of a flap wheel sander and a grinding disk, it makes a smooth bright surface. They're a little pricey, but worthwhile.

Looks great....should look good in bear metal, are you going to clear coat it too?

bad_idea said:

today i finished weld filling the 3/8 bevel i put on the two pieces of channel for the top. then ground it flush. now i need to finish the top. I want a shiny uniform steel finish. A grinding wheel doesn't take the mill scale off very well. I am thinking of trying some sort of acid? Then follow up with a belt sander to give it a flat-ish/smooth finish? I'm open to suggestions.

Click to expand...

Acid alone will give it a dull gray finish. You can then run a fine sanding pad on it and it will be smooth, not too brite, cold steel. If you use an electric sander it will make it brite, new looking, steel.

You will definately have to clear coat or paint it, otherwise it will rust and look like it does in the pictures above within a month or two.

mike13u said:

Acid alone will give it a dull gray finish. You can then run a fine sanding pad on it and it will be smooth, not too brite, cold steel. If you use an electric sander it will make it brite, new looking, steel.

You will definately have to clear coat or paint it, otherwise it will rust and look like it does in the pictures above within a month or two.

Click to expand...

I am not so concerned about a light surface rust. What it has now is a thick rust w/ mill scale. The mill scale affects the grounding/welding. The thick rust is just gross. It is going to be a working bench, not for show so much. I read a bit about acid etching it and think I will avoid that. A lot of what I read made me nervous. I am heavily leaning towards a belt sander.

bad_idea said:

I am not so concerned about a light surface rust. What it has now is a thick rust w/ mill scale. The mill scale affects the grounding/welding. The thick rust is just gross. It is going to be a working bench, not for show so much. I read a bit about acid etching it and think I will avoid that. A lot of what I read made me nervous. I am heavily leaning towards a belt sander.

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Ok, its your shop. But, your table is going to look like it does now within a few months if you dont coat it somehow. The top can remain bare and just be whipped down periodically becuase it will see use and shouldnt form too much rust. The rest of it will not get used and handled and will rust. If you want the bare metal look to remain for a while use Flood Penetrol and it will keep its metal look for some time. But, it will eventually rust again. The Penetrol will protect and prevent rust for longer time than untreated. I have made some furniture peices that remained indoors and I used Penetrol. No rust yet for eighteen months. But, a garage is a different environemnt.

Also, nothing to be scared of with acid. Buy pool acid at HD and spray all over your bench. Let sit 15 minutes. Hose the entire bench with water and towel dry immediately. If any rust is still present use a sanding spunge. Then soak a rag in Penetrol and rub on the entire bench. Leave it coated to eveything but the top. Whip off the excess on the top. Your ready to go.

Again, I would paint. But the Penetrol will get you the look you want.

Best of luck.

ohh... i did not mean to mislead you. sorry about that. i intend on the top being bare and the rest of the table being painted blue to match my other bench.

Put some time into the bench tonight. I spent a while with a grinder cleaning the mill scale off of the top, that is slow going. I also got the swiveling/leveling feet mounted. I used 8" 1/2-13 bolts rather than cutting and welding all thread. I had to run a die nut down the bolts to increase the threaded portion. The 'retractable feet' work great. The Dewalt impact driver makes quick work of extending and retracting the feet. The adjustability of the feet really helps with my sloped floor, leveled the bench and made it rock solid.