My little welding trailer

[BGL990]

In the thread “What can you expect from a plasma cutter”, sassafraspete commented on wanting a welding trailer. His description was almost exactly what I happened to have built for myself a couple years ago. Here are some pictures of it ….

First picture is of the front. You can see the red TIG and MIG welder (MIG on top) and the green oxygen tank propped up at an angle. Across the front are some of the bit and pieces that are usually just tossed on top of everything – gloves, safety glasses, wire cutters, angle grinder, etc.

 

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Next is looking at the back where the 10,000 watt generator sits. The black power cord goes to the air compressor and the white one is 220V going to a set of 3 receptacles where the rest of the stuff is plugged in.

 

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This is the right side, where everything but the oxy-acetylene tanks are accessed. From left to right are: 10Kwatt generator, air compressor, plasma cutter, argon tank for the TIG welder, argon/CO2 tank for the MIG welder, and the MIG and TIG machines. Some lengths of 2x4 and some hangers make a place to hang all the cables and store vice grips, clamps, and helmets.

 

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The left side with the oxy-acetylene tanks. The acetylene has to stand upright of course, but it doesn’t matter for the oxygen. The tank was pretty tall so I leaned it over to keep the overall height down and make the trailer more stable. At the lower right you can also see a blue metal bender that I didn’t have any other good spot to bolt down.

 

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The oxygen tank is quite heavy and needed some lateral support. I welded up a length of pipe with flat plates on each end. One end is bolted to the 2x4 tank support and doubles as a place to hook one of the tie-down straps holding the tank in place.

 

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The pipe goes across to the other side of the trailer and just bolts to the deck. This addition made the tank support solid as a rock.

 

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Here are the electrical outlets. Yes, they need to be flipped over so the power cords hang down properly. The plug on the left is from the plasma cutter. It is a 110V/220V unit (auto-senses what it is plugged into) and has a standard 110V plug on it. I made an adapter to plug into 220V.

 

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Instead of fighting with 3 different ground cables, I used a piece of 3/4" copper water pipe as a common place to attach all the ground cables. At one end I soldered a cable with clamp to the pipe so I have one common ground for the whole setup.

 

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A little closer view of the generator, compressor, and plasma cutter. If you look closely you can see the U-bolts holding the generator down. I put a splitter on the compressor so I can have an air hose with blower nozzle as well as feed the plasma cutter.

 

[BGL990]

Last one.

Closer view of the gas tanks and welders. You can see the red tie-down strap that is holding the compressor, plasma cutter, tanks, and welders down. I just put eye bolts in the deck and ran the strap over each machine and through the eye bolts between each one.
There are a couple of strategically placed bits of wood screwed down here and there, but basically the one strap and friction hold everything in place quite nicely.

Still to do: add fenders and some sort of canopy so I can take it out in bad weather if necessary. I’ve thought of adding removable hard sides and top so I can register it and take it on the road, but I’m not sure I trust the axle which is probably carrying double the weight it was designed for. As it is, I tote it around with the quad. It’s a little heavy (probably close to 1500 lbs) but the quad moves it around OK in low range.