Project #1 from Spike : Polished Aluminum Welding Cart

[Spike]

Spike here,
Got my first project rolling on the forum. I recently relocated my shop from Denver, CO to Fresno, CA... and as i was standing in the shop i decided it was time to finally make a new welding cart for my old Everlast Tig welder.

I have some scraps of this corrugated aluminum panelling that i used for making some display shelves for an art gallery (that will be another project ).
The stuff is 1.5" thick, and polished aluminum diamond plate on one side, corrugated aluminum filler in the center, and then bare aluminum on the backside. Shiny, and pretty. Perfect.

Granted there's not a lot of 'welding' in this project except for the railings, but it's an important one to start with, because it holds the welder.

Project Start Date: 1-20-2012
Project End Date: 1-23-2012

First attached images... one of the old welding cart that has served me well for the last 5 years... and another of the new one, that will hopefully put many more years of service in.

[Spike]

Day 1

My pieces of aluminum are mostly 13" wide, which is wide enough to fit my bottle and welder onto without a problem. Making some quick angle marking i cut some parallelograms for the the vertical supports on the side, and cut appropriate length pieces for the bottom and the welder shelf.

To cut the panels, the best thing i found was just to use my circular saw with a metal cutting blade in it. Because the panels are mostly hollow, the blade metal blade cuts through them easier than MDF, and leaves a nice straight cut with no burr or panel warpage.
I had tried to use a sawzall when i first was working with the material on another project, but the sawzall just beat the panel all the heck and caused the honeycomb core to separate from the outside panels.

Now, the tricky part... the panels' sections (outside, honeycomb core, and inside) are glued together with some industrial strength epoxy... the melting temp of the glue is somewhere between 400-500 degrees.... so welding these panels causes all the pieces to separate. It can be done (as i'll show in another project) but it's a pain, and i really didn't want to go through all the trouble. So for attaching the aluminum pieces together i used the tried and true mechanical attachment method. I used some steel stud framing 2x4's I keep in the shop, with some self tapping screws to attach it all together and bam... easy and strong attachment.

At the end of the day, here's the welder perched on it's new stand for the first time, sitting next to the old welder.

[Spike]

Day 2

Today is the day for making it from just a shiny shelf into a welding cart, mostly. It's also the day that i cannibalize my old welding cart for it's parts to put on the new one.
First things first... it needs some wheels.
Conveniently, i have a perfect set of swivel wheels rated at 250lbs a piece on my old welding cart... time to bust out my port-a-band bandsaw and cut the base off of my old welding cart.
Chop-chop, and it's off, and i used some 3/4" electrical conduit hold downs with the self tapping screws to attach the tubing base of the old welding cart to the aluminum base of the new welding cart. I use swivel castors on my welding carts because i need to be able to push and pull the cart around with one hand. Being in the custom motorcycle and hot-rod business, many times i'm welding parts in jigs and fixtures, or on the vehicles or projects... which means i am constantly having to move around the workpiece and re-situate the welder, so i need it to movie in all directions without having to stop, get up, and 'wiggle' the welder into a new position. I can just put one foot on the cart and take it with me when i roll around on a chair... or i can quickly push it out of the way if i'm switching off to grinding and want to get it out of the way of metal dust... so i get high quality swivel casters, and attach them at the corners (making sure all the weight of the bottle and welder is *inside* the square footprint of the casters.

For a little 'finishing touch' i put black acrylic strips into the edges of the aluminum panels. It hides the corrugation, and gives it a nice sleek professional touch. I hammer back the corrugated center, and then tuck the 1/4" thick aluminum strip into the edge, and then hammer the tops and bottom of the aluminum together to gently pinch the acrylic so it's held without any fasteners or glue.

Some 3/4" Thin-wall tubing makes the bulk of the railing for the bottle holder. I wanted more than just something that looks like it was stuck on as an afterthought, so i made a nice curve at the top that covers over the top of the valve on the bottle... An important feature to me... the rack is TALLER than the bottle, so that if someone does something like swing a steel bar over their shoulder, or a forklift turns around too close, it whacks the top of the welding cart, and does not sheer off the valve on the top of the bottle.
The tubing is secured to the aluminum with the same double screw conduit hold-downs i used to secure the base to the cart.

[Jake98]

That's pretty cool looking, strange scraps.. How old is the Everlast?

[Spike]

Hey Jake,
The scraps came out of an aluminum scrap yard. They were the walls out of an automated welding clean room.
I got the 160P back in... 2007. It's an oldie, but it's worked like a champ with only minimal repairs.

[Spike]

Day 3

Last day for cart making. I probably would have gotten this done in one day if that were all i was doing, but i only had a couple of free hours to work on it each day between working on other projects and jobs in the shop.
Last day is details... strengthening bits here and there, adding accessories, safety pieces, stuff like that.
Started off by adding some bars off the back of the main bottle rack out of 1/2" tubing. These are welded to the tubing of the base that the wheels are mounted to, and welded to the main hoop of the bottle rack.

Now, i had to make some curved bottle supports to hold the bottle in place, so i ran some of the 3/4" tubing through my roll bender and cut it into a couple of sections and welded into the main hoop. Also added the chain-holders for the bottle hold-down.

I threw the welder back on the cart to take a look and make sure everything was still straight... and i attached the air filter and regulator for the Plasma Cutting process to the welding cart.

Now for measuring the hand-rail for the Important point here, i like the rails on my cart to extend *past* the connectors on the electrodes, it keeps the leads and connectors safe from getting broken off from things bumping into or hitting the welder.

[Spike]

Got a photobucket account so that i could post better pictures on the forum without having to fiddle with all the attached images.
Here's a bigger better picture of the welding cart!

and another

[charger891]

Nice work man!! you must have a fetish for alluminum checker plate

[blasphemy000]

Cool cart man. Nice work!

[Powertig]

This looks like a great project. I am not familiar with the diamond plate material you used, is it layered? it looks like it is honeycombed.

[Spike]

Nice work man!! you must have a fetish for alluminum checker plate

It's shiny... sometimes I just can't help myself.

[Spike]

Cool cart man. Nice work!

Thanks!

This looks like a great project. I am not familiar with the diamond plate material you used, is it layered? it looks like it is honeycombed.

Yep. It's diamondplate on the outside, honeycomb in the center, and plain aluminum on the inside. The layers are held together with some sort of epoxy.
Very strong stuff, and very light. I found it all in an aluminum scrapyard.