For a long time my welders, plasma cutter and welding table were in a line in my shop. It went big stick welder, plasma cutter on old Tek scope cart, Millermatic 252, welding table. All good, except due to the fact that I have been doing more sheet metal projects lately, I really wanted a small 220 volt MIG machine that I could leave loaded up with .023 wire. And there was nowhere for another welder to go. For quite some time it was moot because the market price for a simple 220 small MIG welder was completely out of my budget. Recently, though, I found a guy who had a little MIG in a storage locker, who wanted to move across the country and get married. So he was a motivated seller. He sold me a Hobart MVP 210 machine. It looked like new. When I got the machine home, there was noplace to put it if I took it out of my car, so in the back of my car it stayed while I hurriedly put together a little cart which had to hold both the new MIG welder and also my old plasma cutter.

I had several design constraints. It had to hold the two machines plus a welding cylinder, and it had to have hooks for all of the cords, hoses and guns, and it had to have a sophisticated air filtering system for the plasma cutter, and the air inlet had to be in the front of the machine, and the cart had to roll, and with everything stowed it couldn't be any wider than my old plasma cart. Oh - and it couldn't cost anything! It had to be built from whatever steel I had on hand. Anyway, the cart is shown above. I used 3/4-9 flattened expanded steel for the shelves, and 1-1/4" square steel tube for part of the frame and 1/2" square bar for the superstructure, the framework with the hooks on it. To keep things skinny, I mounted the filters on top, bolted to a length of strut.

Here is another view of the machines on the cart that shows how the whole business is pretty skinny.

One interesting feature of this little cart is the top had to bolt on, because I'm now in my 70s and I didn't want to pick up the plasma cutter and fiddle with putting it on a tight fitting lower shelf. So I built the bottom shelf and the bolted on top shelf, then unbolted the top shelf and put the plasma cutter on and there it stayed while I finished the cart. Some construction details are visible in this image:

Some guys worry a lot if they set a welding cylinder on the back of their cart when the cart's empty, that the cart will tip backwards. I did not worry about that. If I took the machines off, sure, the cart would tip backwards with a cylinder on the back. I plan to take the cylinder off first if I ever experience such a situation. The cylinder just sits on a little platform which consists of a couple pieces of light channel sticking out the back on the bottom. To be consistent, I welded some more expanded metal on. I just used light chain and a couple of hooks to keep the cylinder vertical. The chain is at such a height that I could use a 92cf welding cylinder if I wanted to. Here you can see the cylinder platform:

You can see my plasma cutter's labels in pictures above, but the welder is covered. This cover wasn't free - I bought it because where that welder lives, it would become filthy quite soon. I had a small MIG welder before and bought a cover and never regretted it. Anyway, here is my welder with her skirts lifted as it were:

Here is a photo of the cart in its place. As you can see, there is plenty of room to roll a Millermatic 252 between the MIG cart and the welding table.

I have always built storage into carts for small MIG welders. MIG welders have lots of little bits. Tips, nozzles, spare liners, nozzle gel, you name it. Plasma cutters are even worse! Tips, nozzles, swirl rings and on and on. I have a small Adrian drawer unit which I'd been saving for a cart build. But this time I had to let that go, because I put the plasma cutter where the drawer unit would have gone. The other thing about this cart is that I did not design it for portability. I didn't build in a single lift point, or handles on each end so two guys can manhandle it up stairs. I don't build steel stairs any more!

The last thing I wanted to comment on was the plasma air filtering. I do not have a piping system in my shop. I have a 5hp 2-stage vertical air compressor and several lengths of air hose. One length will easily reach the plasma cart. With the welders all lined up, it is quite congested to get behind the cart and plug in the air, so I designed the air connector to be in the front. It goes into a Motor Guard coalescing filter. After the coalescing filter is an SMG air filter. Then comes the Motor Guard big filter, the kind that people say you can stick a roll of toilet paper in. They are said to be the gold standard in plasma input filtering. I made a short hose to reach down to the back of the plasma cutter's air input. I haven't used this filtering system much yet, so I don't have any comments on how it works.

I'm pleased with this little cart. It was fun to design, and very inexpensive to build. I tried for zero budget but I did buy a short length of light chain so yes, I did have to spend some money on it.

Thanks for reading!