Winter Contest Project 1 from MuttonHawg. Category: Custom welded Shop tools
My radial arm saw is an old Craftsman that I bought at a yard sale, probably late 70's or early 80's vintage. The retractable casters on the base are a crappy design (in my opinion) were beat up and barely functional before I got it, and that was 7 years ago. It's always a chore trying to move the saw around the garage because the stand is so flexy, the caster design sucks, and the wheels themselves are horrible, so it's generally not convenient to use.
So I've decided to remove the casters and put the whole saw/stand assembly on a trolley base of my own design made from 1.5"x1.5"x1/8" steel angle, with corner braces made from 1"x1/8" flat stock, with casters from HF (pivoting casters on the front corners, stationary casters on the rear). The corner braces add a bit of strength, as well as capture the legs of the saw stand. I used my PowerArc 140ST and most of the work was done with Lincoln 7018 rod, with a few places where I used 6011 as an experiment (for instance, welding the casters on - that was NOT a graceful operation)
This was my first welding project. Ever. I made a ton of mistakes, and learned a ton. I did a little practicing on the scrap pieces, but welding real joints is quite a bit different from running stringer beads on 1/4" steel. It doesn't look nearly as nice as I'd like, but it seems relatively strong and stable, and the next thing I make will be cleaner and better.
I forgot to account for welding heat metal shrinkage when I squared the whole thing up, tacked, and welded it. It probably would've been less of an issue if it was a complete square (rather than the open front), so the heat pulled the front ends together. Because the span is so long, there's still a bit of flex to it, so once I put the saw stand on it, the saw legs should hold the ends apart a bit and still fit OK.
I also forgot (once) about how long it takes for metal to cool off after welding, and that hot metal looks an AWFUL lot like cool metal. Oops
My fit-up could be a bit better, especially as I'm not very good yet at filling in gaps between 2 pieces.
Anyway, here's some photos of the completed project, before painting. I'll probably deal with pulling the casters of the saw stand and put it on this new trolley sometime this weekend. I purposely tried to avoid the photos of the worst welds - I'll just keep those for myself.
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