So Close

I’m here to give an update on my welding cart project.

As usual, I am spending a lot of time trying to get materials and tools, and I am also making errors and changing the design. As a result, I’m not finished yet.

The cart will have an upper restraint for the bottles, and it will be steel plate. It will have 4 holes in it for TIG wire tubes. Today I drilled the holes.

I decided to make 2″ holes. I can’t see myself using tubes any bigger than that. I did not have a 2″ hole saw, and my hole saw arbor was lodged pretty well in a 2-1/4″ saw. I would guess it took me 20 minutes to get the arbor out, and then when I went to Tractor Supply to buy the saw their website said was in stock, I got skunked. Had to drive to Ace Hardware, miles away. I’m glad I did, because they had a saw with carbide teeth.

I measured carefully and started drilling holes. Then I looked at the finished work. I had drilled one hole about 1/4″ away from its intended location. It’s not easy getting a hole saw pilot drill into a small pilot hole, and apparently, I missed.

I wasn’t having it. I took a disk of steel I had just cut out of the plate, welded it back in, and ground it fair. Then I drilled a new hole. I guess I added 45 minutes of work to my day. Polishing the holes up took a while.

After that, nothing important went bad.

I made two tabs to attach the restraint to the cart. I drilled holes in them and attached them to the cart. Then I held the restraint in place and marked the locations of the tabs. After that, I had to weld them to the restraint.

With that done, I needed something to prevent the bottoms of my TIG tubes from sliding around. I bent a piece of flat bar on the finger brake, but I could only put one bend in it, and I needed a U-shaped bar with two bends. The required bends were too close together to work on the brake. My solution was to heat the bar with a torch and bend it in a vise.

I welded it to the bottle platform, and it came out pretty well.

I still needed two restraints for the outboard tubes. I cut 1″ pieces off a length of angle iron, cleaned them up and welded them down. Two of them are only tacked. It’s not possible to get behind them to weld, so I’m waiting until I take the platform off to weld them.

What remains? I plan to drill four holes in the upper restraint. I’ll use false links to attach chains to two of the holes, and I’ll use snap links to attach them to the other two. Then I’ll put tabs on the bottle platform to keep the bottles from wandering.

After that, I have to think about brackets to hold cables and cords. I may paint the existing work and finish it first. Once I’ve used the cart, I’ll have a better idea how to handle the cable brackets.

That’s about it. It’s going to work. The next cart should go much, much faster. I’ll know exactly what to buy, and I’ll have it on hand. I’ll also have a finished plan.

My workshop is in chaos. There are chips and filings all over the floor, along with cardboard from the tool chest box and bits of fallen metal. Tools are all over the place. I can’t wait to start shoving things into the new chest.

I may put the Titanium welder and the plasma cutter on this cart. I was thinking of putting the AC/DC TIG on it, next to the Titanium, but I seem to use plasma a lot, and I want this to be my number one cart. I don’t need two bottles for a welder and a plasma cutter, though. Maybe I can use the current shelf on the next cart and make a different one for this one. I could set it up for one bottle and use the extra space for a bracket to hold the plasma cutter’s air filter.

Anyway, success is fun.