Portable Welding Shop Mounts On Old Garbage Truck

Portable Welding Shop Mounts On Old Garbage Truck FARM SHOP Welders/Torches 64 Brian Esser Minnesota Lake Minnesota operates a portable welding service that serves farmers and truckers among others     Over the years he s put together six different rigs to haul tools and power to welding sites I ve put them on trailers and smaller trucks but I never had one that would handle everything I might need I was always running back to the shop for something he says     So for his newest portable welding rig Esser found a 1981 C70 2-ton Chevrolet truck cab and chassis and went to work The truck had been a single axle garbage truck so it already had a good set of springs under it he says      The first thing I did was to extend the frame making it 30 ft long from bumper to bumper he says     Then he built a utility bed on it that s only a 20-in step up between the wheels I made shelves and compartments all around it that are accessible from the ground as is all he says     With the exception of one tool cabinet he made all the cabinets on the truck from aluminum deckplating All have hinged locking doors     Besides welding tools and supplies his cabinets hold the equivalent of a small hardware store I have large quantities of the most common sizes of screws bolts nuts steel rod flat steel angle iron etc on the truck he says It s often a 20-mile round trip or more to the closest hardware store so having the truck stocked saves a lot of time and expense A trip to the hardware for four or five bolts costs the customer an hour of my time or more     Most of the welding equipment and storage is centered around a 50-ton iron worker that he uses to cut and shape steel on site     Then there s an 8 000-watt gasoline engine-powered generator a 250-amp stick welder and a 250-amp wire feed welder He mounted oxygen and acetylene tanks on one side with 100 ft of hose that lets him get his torch into just about any place where he needs it     The generator provides power for the welders and several other power shop tools including a drill press Tucked into one of the cabinets is 200 ft of 220-volt power cord so he can take the welders off the truck if he needs to     Other components include portable and fixed lighting so he can work any time of day or night Some of his portable lighting draws power from the generator For the truck mounted lights though he replaced the stock alternator with a heavy-duty 100 amp model which keeps the truck battery and a bank of back up batteries well charged     Tucked into one cabinet is a 220-volt air compressor with 150 ft of hose The compressor is plumbed into outlets on both sides of the truck so he doesn t have to run the hose over or under the truck to get to his work I had another smaller compressor on the truck at first but it didn t put out enough air for my plasma cutter he says     There wasn t room for the plasma cutter on the truck and Esser says he doesn t usually need it When he does he takes it along on a pallet that fits into the receiver hitch on back of the truck     While he spent a lot of time designing the truck he says he had to make some changes and it took quite a bit of on-the-spot engineering to get it all to fit together One of the main concerns in the design was that the truck fit inside his shop which has a 96-in doorway     He figures he has more than $50 000 invested in the portable welding shop including his small rolling hardware store     Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Brian Esser 53478 250th St Minnesota Lake Minn 56068 ph 507 462-3651; email: bndesser@bevcomm com

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