Harbor Freight Makes Dreams Come True

A major welding project crossed a big threshold today. I finished principal welding on my new welding cart. I’m making it from a Harbor Freight tool chest.

This job should have taken one day, but the chest takes metric fasteners, and I’m using the original threaded holes, so I can’t jam standard bolts in. It took me about 4 days to round up 16 bolts. I had to go to three different stores. Metric may be here to stay, but Home Depot and Lowe’s haven’t gotten the news.

I’m planning to make a second cart, so I’ll need 16 more bolts. I ordered a box from Ebay, so when I get started on the second cart, I’ll have bolts waiting.

Yesterday, I welded the cylinder platform to the two tubes that form the new base, and today I welded two casters to the tubes and painted the area around the casters with truck bed coating. Why didn’t I wait until the project was done to do the painting? I could have painted everything at once. The reason is that I wanted to get the welding over with, and I need to have the cart assembled, on casters, before I can do that. I need to weld tabs on the platform to keep the bottles from moving, and I want to put bottles on the cart when I do this, to see exactly where the tabs should go.

I put everything I have together. Feast your eyes.

That platform is 11-gauge steel, which is slightly under 1/8″ thick. I was concerned it might flex if I put two bottles on it, because there is no transverse member to make it rigid. It sits on two 1″ x 3″ tubes. I got on it and jumped up and down, and it didn’t move at all. I guess it’s okay.

Why did I put the casters way out behind the bottles? On the one hand, it increases the turning radius, which is bad. On the other, it gives 200 pounds of bottles direct support instead of hanging them out on a steel diving board. I suppose a cantilevered platform would work, but I didn’t like the idea. If I change my mind, moving the casters will be a one-hour job. Maybe half of that.

I still have to create an upper bracket to restrain the bottles. There are two bolt holes made for a handle, and I would like to use them because they’re threaded. The problem is that they’re so high, I would have to make a pretty strange bracket to hold an 80 cubic foot tank. I may get rid of the small tank and buy another 125. You can never have too much gas. Maybe I could trade the 80 for something exotic, if I can think of a gas I might use on rare occasions. Or maybe Airgas would give me an allowance for it if I buy a new bottle.

My tendency is to buy small tools and upgrade later. I’m always afraid to buy things I can’t lift, and so on. Maybe I should never have bought a small C25 tank.

Once the bracket is done, I have to make some doodads to hold cables, and I have to attach them to the tool chest. I hate to drill holes in it, but I will. After that, I just have to paint and move everything to the new cart.

This will be great. Two machines will fit on it, and they’ll sit at eye level, where they should be. A great deal of welding paraphernalia will go in the drawers, so I won’t keep leaving junk on my table. I hope. It will be a big cart, but it will hold way more stuff than my old carts, and they have about the same footprint.

It’s always great to reach the point where you know a project will work, especially when you’ve sunk hundreds of dollars into it.