Start To Finish -- My Welding Cart Built Around A Harbor Freight Toolbox

hi everyone I recently picked up this Harbor Freight 14 and a half inch in cabinet and in this video we'll try to make this into a welding cart for my new Lincoln square-wave 200 let's get started I have most of my materials already cut up to length I had some left over inch and a half square tubing from another project and we'll use that on this base for the cart this is 0.125 wall we have some quarter inch plate that we'll use I have some 3/4 inch tubing that is 0.095 wall some Castor's I picked up at Harbor Freight I've got a couple more I'll need to get for the front of the cart we'll need to cut up a few more things later on but we have enough to get us started so let's get this squared up and talk together first we'll bevel the edges where we need to make a weld [Music] I used my fireball tool monster square to keep the tubing out of perfect 90 and then clamping it down to the tabletop before I started attacking the corners of the tubing each joint had one spot it couldn't quite reach to tack-weld so I had to flip the base over to finish all the tack welding now that the base is tacked together on both sides we'll go ahead and weld these joints up [Music] now that the base is done we need to build a piece in the back to hold the gas bottle we'll have two vertical pieces and then a cross piece up at the top we'll also weld in this flat bar so we have a spot to bolt that Harbor Freight toolbox on this backrest which will be vertical we'll end up welding a piece of quarter-inch plate that will secure our bottle to and at that point here where the plate comes up we'll weld in a gusset so I didn't forty-five these joints on purpose I wanted to but well that then I won't need to grind this 45 area where I'm gonna weld my gusset in okay the backrest is all squared up and clamped down tight to the table I took our flat bar quarter inch flat bar that will attach the toolbox to I pre-drilled some 5/16 holes this lower plate is in place ready to be tucked in and to get this upper one in we'll have to remove this clamp after everything is welded and then I'll be able to slide it up far enough so we can weld that in as well okay our upper piece of quarter-inch plate is in place and clamped down let's get it welded in all right I just want to see how this fits up looking good next we'll work on the three-quarter inch tubing that will weld on here will come up and have another piece that comes across here that'll tie in here in the piece that goes across here we'll drill some holes in it evenly spaced and I have some weld in threaded nuts and that way I'll be able to build some different style mounts if I want to hang my ground cable off of here or my torch whatever I want to hang off of here we'll be able to do some different things I found these on Amazon they're a quarter twenty thread so this is our top rail and we'll need to mark our locations where we're going to drill holes to weld these in I just want to test the fitment of one of those welding nuts before we move on [Music] next we have our top rail and our vertical piece that will go in front it's all squared up and clamped down so now we're going to weld that corner up since this point where these two pieces of tubing meet will kind of be exposed and out in front of the welding cart I wanted to make sure I put a nice rounded edge on it now we'll go to the scotch-brite now I need to duplicate this for the opposite side of the cart okay it's time to tack the backrest onto the base this is where the toolbox will go and this back here is where the gas bottle will go so we're gonna get that tacked in place and then we'll work on our 3/4 inch getting that tacked in place as well and then we'll weld everything together solid we have our base our backrest the 3/4 inch tubing we welded together earlier everything is square and clamped in place now we'll need to tack this 3/4 inch tubing to the base and the top of the headrest there [Music] okay we have our second side clamp down in place so let's get that welded in [Music] a plan on powder coating this cart so I took the time to smooth and blend the welds as I went along rather than have a bunch of grinding to do at the end of the project okay I made a couple of little plates here that more well bond both ends get those capped off and then ground down and cleaned up it's gonna be locked I started out my sanding with an 80 grit disc and then I transitioned to a 120 and then finally finished off my sanding with a 220 grit okay I've got a couple of plates made that the front casters will bolt to so we're gonna go ahead and weld those up in the front corners we'll get everything clamped down and then weld those in place after tacking the plates on I went back with some heavier stitch welds okay I have a few three-inch gussets with a few holes drilled in it we're gonna weld those on up here on each side once that gusset is welded up in there we'll have a second one that will bolt on and then we'll weld our handle to it so we can take the handle on and off so we can slide our box in so let's flip this over on its side and then we'll clamp the gusset in place and weld it in after attacking these gussets on I stitch welded them as well okay it's time to make the handle that we're gonna weld on here and loop around to the other side I made a cheater Bend 90 degrees and I marked along the seam of the tubing every inch so I can figure out how many inches of material is used up in a bend I'm new to to bending I'm still learning so I went along the seam of this tubing and I marked every inch and that'll help me try to figure out where to make my Bend so that things kind of match up in the end I'm gonna mark where the beginning of my Bend is set the dial at zero alright looks good now you trim the center pieces up to our width [Applause] all right we got our handle bent and I'm surprised I was able to pull that off and get it done and get it accurate as well so I just took my time and marking the tube down the seam every inch really helped in figuring out where to make my bends we have our gusset bolted to the gusset that's welded on to the cart our handle is all propped up in place we're gonna go ahead and weld it on now awesome okay now we need to make two L brackets to weld on here to hold the casters in place and then we also need to make a tray thats bent drops down and it'll hold our tank down low and come back up this other side I have some 12 inch wide quarter inch plate that we'll be using for this now my drawing is not to scale I just drew something up I wanted to see what it would cost to go onto a fabrication shop and just have them bend the plate I already have so this will be the plate that holds the tank it's four bins and then the ends would need to be plasma cut to length so I needed one of those and then two L brackets that are six inches wide and the fabrication shop I went to you just for bending and the plasma cutting they quoted me 315 dollars so I've never had any work done by a fabrication shop like that before it that seemed like a very excessive price to me so we're gonna go ahead and try to bend this plate ourselves I thought I'd start out using a cutting wheel trying to score lines in this quarter inch plate where I wanted to make my bins I quickly realized I needed to transition to a thicker grinding wheel which would allow me to bevel the edge of the groove [Applause] during my first attempt of heating up the metal and trying to make this Bend I found out that my groove that my beveled edge wasn't quite deep enough I was able to use my cutting wheel to get a little more material off of that beveled edge and then heat the metal up again and continue the bend now that I had a better idea on the process of scoring the quarter-inch plate I went ahead and got started on my second Bend this time I was much more aggressive in beveling the edge of the groove it still took a couple of times heating the plate to be able to bend it to a 90 [Music] so I'm gonna modify this plan and cut the quarter inch plate off there and instead of having a lip up here I'll just stitch weld it along here and that should be plenty strong with the quarter inch plate bent to shape I've clamped it on to the base of the cart so I can lay in some heavy tack welds I bought some three inch gussets on eBay to weld in the back of this tray it may not need it but I like the way it looks so I don't have a plasma cutter but I was able to go over to a buddy's house and borrow his and I cut two of these plates out which will hold the tank in place after laying down some tacks to hold this plate in position I finished it off with a few stitch welds [Music] [Music] and then I used my angle grinder to knock down any welding splatter okay I use a more quarter inch plate and I made these little L brackets with some gussets in the corner the caster wheel will bolt in that will get these L brackets in place where we need them then we'll tack them in got this one we'll go over here and then we'll be able to bolt the casters on and roll this thing around well I just welded these on and forgot to turn the GoPro on sorry about that once I got the cart flipped over I laid down some stitch welds where the bottle cradle meets the square tubing now it's time to install the second plate i plasma cut to hold the gas bottle in place next I tacked in these four inch gussets I found on eBay [Music] lastly I put in some heavier stitch welds on this upper plate and gussets [Music] instead of using a chain to secure my bottle to the cart I decided to cut my version of a strap out of quarter-inch plate and first order of business was to drill a hole to install a bolt as a pivot point my hope is to be able to remove a bolt from one side and then pivot the strap out of the way when I need to change out my bottle yes it works next I used a pair of vise grips to secure those weld on nuts to the upper rail as I welded those in place [Music] well I wanted to make my own tube holder to go on the side here I went to town and went to a couple of stores to look at sheetmetal to buy two piece of sheet metal was 54 to 56 dollars and that was too expensive so I had a little piece lying around that I wanted to try so I bent this up welded it together that would go on here so that worked great for the two tubes I have but I'd like to use more I'd like to have three or four here so I had a big piece of aluminum it's a lot thicker than I wanted and this was my basic idea once to bolt it on there and then be able to drop my tubes in there but I had a heck of a time bending this I'll show you some footage I ended up having to score the backside of all my bins just to struggle with it I even used heat on them to try to bend it and that really didn't make it much easier so it ended up cracking all the way along here so I'd probably have to get some different aluminum some thinner aluminum so I didn't want to spend the 54 or 56 dollars for a 2x2 piece of sheet metal maybe one day down the road I'll be able to maybe buy a bigger sheet it'll probably be far less expensive in terms of amount of material you get for the cost so for 21 bucks I picked this up online and I think we can make this work will make we'll make some modifications we'll have to fix this warp in it but I think this will work for now to get this project done so I can move forward but eventually I would like to make my own rack just because I want to do it myself so let's work on getting this warp fixed and we'll get it mounted first we needed to fix the warp in the rack for my tick rod storage container I accomplished that by sandwiching the warp piece of sheet metal between a two inch wide piece of flat bar on the back side and a 1-inch piece of flat bar on the front next I bolted a piece of one inch flat bar to the top rail this is where we'll weld on the brackets for my TIG torch cable and ground cable I wanted to build it as a removable bracket so that down the road if I change my mind on configuration or equipment it'll be a easy swap I decided to use more than one inch flat bar to make a few hooks for hanging the cables on trying to bend eighth inch flat bar was definitely exceeding the limitations of the sheet metal break and I did a little bit of damage to one of the fingers but that's okay we'll have to go finish this off in the vise [Music] [Music] with the hooks clamped in my desired location I made sure they were square before welding them in place I needed to weld in a horizontal piece of 3/4 inch tubing which would allow me another mounting location to fabricate a bracket to hold my foot pedal and the attached cable [Music] all right I need one more well then nut that's on order this is all I had but I can go ahead and finish a few other things up before that comes in in a couple of days I bought this foot pedal holder online from ZT fab and it was about 26 bucks after getting the hook and the foot pedal holder welded in place I use a scotch-brite wheel to knock down some of the welding splatter [Music] the card is back from powder coating so it's time to get it assembled we'll start by putting the caster wheels on for the rear we'll use a 3/8 bolt and up front we'll use a 5/16 bolt and on both of these will use a nylock nut remove the dolly now with these all tightened up now got the wheels on starting to look like something now let's get this piece on that holds the foot pedal next we'll install this other bracket I made for a lead holder now on this piece I'm not very happy with because they didn't sound blah sit before they powder-coated it so they just powder-coated over other powder coating so it's really rough and you can see where I sanded down to bare metal and a few spots I'll probably end up sandblasting this and taking it back to have it reap outer coated now we'll install this strap for the bottle holder [Music] okay now it's time to put on this handle I'm really happy with how it turned out I think it looks great so let's get it on there okay I had to switch you a little longer bolt so that this nylock nut would actually work now we'll get these tightened up I love how that turned out I used some painters tape on the inside of this three-quarter inch tubing so that hopefully I don't scratch it when I'm trying to slide the Box in but see if I can get this in there I think I got it well it feels good to have this welding cart project done I had been thinking about it for quite a while hopefully I gave you some ideas that you might like to incorporate in your welding car build and maybe I gave you some ideas of things that you definitely don't want to do either way that's good please drop a comment below and let me know what you think of this project and thanks for watching

Channel: 57moto

Views: 82,091

Rating: 4.9099264 out of 5

Keywords: 57moto, 57 moto, harbor freight, fabrication, welding, welder, welding cart, toolbox, tool box, metal working, metalworking, cart, tool organization, tig, mig, arc, plasma cutter, tool cart, welder stand, welding project, powder coat, powder coating

Id: YwkW8SeiGsM

Length: 29min 18sec (1758 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 09 2019