Wondering folks thoughts on this design. This cart is both a cart, but also can be used as a dolly to increase speed and easy of transport over distance or uneven terrain. Built to house my Hobart 190 and plasma cutter.
Also wondering if it would be a good or not super useful upgrade to add a fireball 12 x 24 fixture plate above the welder for small parts fab. I don’t have a fixture table, only a minion square pair and one mutant square, doing mostly hobby welding of randomness (or patching up rust buckets here in the salt belt)
Space is sort of at a premium. My shop is a 2 car detatched that is every changing configurations from automotive/small engine (6,000lb scissor lift), carpentry (Cabinet saw, bandsaw, 16" planer, Jointer, etc), small time fab, and general chill out spot (courtesy sound system and cold snacks).
I have a pneumatic lift table that is as flat as a crinkle chip, so the fireball squares help a lot there, but I’m rarely operating in a large part AND high precision scenario so my thought on a “mounted” table to the top of the cart was for small parts the squares really don’t handle well or for repeat fit up of joints. When I do need to do large parts, I c-clamp the stock to the table and then use the fireball squares to get a degree of precision out in space off the table.
Biggest concern with creating a separate weld table is it will turn into the transmission disassembly station just as easily as a weld station!
Those wheels are awesome Jason, but I can’t really afford that level of epicness unfortunately! Pair of $9.99 HF solid wheels and some generic amazon casters for me on this project!
As for the tipping back, yes that is the primary aspect, but also I found by integrating the cylinder inside the down tubes and cantilevering the tray and welder past the front casters, I could shrink the wheelbase dramatically, greatly improving turning radius as a cart and general nimbleness.
If you build one, hope its a video build you share! Would love to watch! Your squares were integral to the build of this cart for me so thank you for having a kick ass product that just works perfectly!
At first I thought the small fixture plate would be too small for anything I would use it for. I got it for a pretty good deal I thought on Black Friday with the foldable legs which is pretty much just a Harbor freight table that says stronghand on it and I think theres minor differences in the pins. Its actually been extremely useful for the smaller projects. I would not put it directly over top of the welder on the cart but thats just my opinion. If you get the folding table, if its in the way fold it up and stuff it in the corner. drag it out anywhere when you need it.
I’ve built rocket stoves, rail road spike coat hangers, mounts and brackets, motorcycle dolleys, and some other junk on mine. its even useful for small little dumb stuff you don’t really need a fancy table for but once you have it you might as well use it, like setting up practice joints to weld and break apart. Usually I would just slap a plate down and hold the other one up with one hand and it would just get stuck where ever but since I had the table and didn’t feel like holding a plate with all the holes in my glove one day I set up fixtures for it. Who else welds practice plates that are perfectly centered and perfectly perpendicular? It is a bit too small for a lot of the stuff that I do build but it is also really nice having a small table for the precision stuff so when I have large drawn out or messy projects on the bigger table I have the option of just setting up on the small table and getting smaller things completed in a timely manner. I once had my big table taken up for an entire year almost when I was building a vactor jet skid for some dude. I wish I woulda had the smaller table then to work on other projects since I was back to welding on the driveway till we got a skid steer to take that thing off my big table.
Always always always understand a ‘problem’ from a perspective stepped as far back as possible. Understanding the scenarion will give you an answer more appropriate than one from a random guy or girl on a forum.
In this case, I’d give advice to contemplate and recognise the functions / aspects of a workspace. And what you end up doing with your particular cart will automatically come from that. Generally people need :
a place for (packed up) tools
a place to un-pack tools
a work surface (like a fixture plate), which you try to keep most functional by excluding all but the necessary for the current task. By also having :
a dump surface (place to put things from parts to next tasks to consumables like cleaning agents, and task/ job specific things).
Open floor space to shift into. whether rolling a welding cart out into, or moving moving other machines from to create work space, or a place for your friend’s bike while he’s out of town without it stopping you from any form of use of the workshop.
And there are more divisions, like dirty and clean areas; stainless only; etc.
I’ve had absolutely great use of a surface layer above the machine(s) on my carts. But i would not want this to be the place that serves the fabrication station function. I don’t want the dust etc directly at my machines. I don’t want another thing to have to keep thinking about in the form of where my electric discharges are going (HF; what i’m grounding through when i forget to clamp to the workpiece). Etc. I made a cart (machinery and associated tooling station) for that purpose. To perform that function. And there are so many advantages to keeping the functions seperate. Especially when the additional layer above the machine(s) in a cart can perform one of the other functions in a workspace, and thereby free up area for the dedicated fabrication station. So yes, great idea to have a top layer. yes, great idea to have a fabrication station like a fixture plate. But they don’t have to go together.
Tick one of those bullet point boxes and indirecly make possible one of the others. Which is why i say a stepped back perspective helps. You can see things like the indirect way round to the same capacities if you step back and think about what you’re really trying to achieve, and not just about one choice in a cart build.
Here’s a really de-cluttered version of my very rectilinear welding cart.
I left in the pivoting filler rod storage tubes, because someone will inevitably ask themselves ‘where’s the gas bottle on that cart?’ and the answer is that i substituted it. When i realized that i wasn’t going to be able to get everything welding related on one cart (and therefore would have to move multiple things anyway). I chose to be semi tied to a separate bottle’s position, which can also be moved if necessary. Roaming within a hose reach, and with quick disconnect of that hose. In trade for having all the items i might actually work with more directly at hand at the cart. (I also moved the flow control off the reg at teh bottle and to the machine / cart)
Which i’m showing just to give example of how the changes you need to make all fit into place when you think in the broader perspective.
You absolutely could add a fixture plate over the top. Either the 24" x 12" or the 14" 12 sided octagon would work. Only you can tell what is best for you, but I’d probably think the 24" would fit best.
That is exactly the mindset I’m having to get in my shop, I have far too many hats that I can wear but needed to step back and embrace a more focused picture of what the core mission is in my shop and banish anything that does not fit it. Just because the ability exists does not always justify the associated bits taking up space and dragging down the whole system.
Without derailing Brandons’s thread, has any ever seen a welding cart that will handle 4 T sized bottles? I’d like to get all three of my welding systems onto a single cart. I’ve got OA, MiG and Tig with all the usual stuff to go with them. I’ve got a smaller cart for the MiG, but my gas supplier has given me T sized bottles, rather than K sized. The bottle doesn’t fit the cart and I have to keep it strapped to a table to keep it from turning over when unattended. I’d like to get everything into one cart, as I will be using all three processes in the same location almost every time I weld.
This is probably the near perfect way to answer the question. Thank you so much for pushing for the clarifying thoughts and comments. Sometimes when you’re too close to the design, you fail to see the bigger interactions. Thank you!
I’ve no real experience here, but you’re talking something like 600lbs of tank and probably another 200-400 in machines, and bits and bobs. That is not necessarily something I’d see as a mobile assembly given the prohibitive weight. Also not sure you would see a major space savings over going 3 or 4 individual carts.
Another option could be gas quick disconnects and put all 4 on some independent cart/storage station, and then build a multiple machine cart that stacks all 3 one over another.
Massive grain of salt, no experience in alternate processes other than MIG. (Self taught) or larger cylinders.
Feel free to hijack though. This is kind of a cart thread anyways haha
Brandon: It’s only two machines and a pair of torch bodies. Total weight is around 800 pounds, plus all the other stuff that goes with them. It’s not too hard to move, but I’m used to pushing around a 6 bottle nitrogen cart at work, that tips the scales at about 2800 pounds. My plan is to use 4 power chair motors to drive this thing, as eventually, I will be in a hangar that’s just too big to be pushing a lot of weight around in, and not wanting to grab the forklift every time I need to move the cart.
Setting it up as two carts would make things a bit easier to move, weight wise, but then I’d have to disconnect everything for every move. That would be real time suck when trying to weld up a fuselage in a 25 foot long fixture, where you swap ends and sides you are working on after each weld.
One of the guys that welds for one of the Amish guys around here made a welding cart out of a full size Snap-On toolbox. I don’t buy snap on but did make a welding cart out of an American General 7 drawer bottom section. It would be very possible to build a cart for a tool box like that and then also have 4 bigger or smaller bottles on that same cart.
