Introduction: Wall-Mount Shelf for Flux-Core Welding Machine

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About: If there's one thing I've learned about being an adult, it is this: there's always another project. Over the years, I've tackled a ton of projects and built some cool stuff, and now I'd like to help people wh…

I have a small two-car garage with barely enough room to open the car doors, and in order to keep my welder handy but up and out of the way, I've decided to build a shelf bracket next to my welding table. This shelf is going to be made from 1″ (25mm) angle iron, and the shelf will be placed just high enough that my car won't hit it while I back in to the space. I am building the shelf specifically for my Harbor Freight Titanium Easy-Flux 125 flux core welder. Update: This welder bit the dust, but the process for building this shelf can be implemented for other welders.

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Supplies

  • 8ft of 1″ x 1″ x 1/8″ (2.5m of 25x25x3) angle iron

Step 1: Find Studs and Measure Welder Dimensions

I started by finding wall studs in this empty space next to the window, which is where I want the welder to be mounted. There’s just enough space for the welder to fit in lengthwise.

Step 2: Measure and Cut Shelf Pieces

The idea here is to build a shelf out of angle iron, where the upstanding leg of the angle forms a lip, keeping the welder from sliding off. After marking lengths of the pieces, I cut everything to length with my metal cutting circular saw. The ends of most of these pieces are getting cut in some fashion, and the weld bead can fill minor gaps, so having a perfectly square cut isn't necessary.

Instead of mitering the corners of the pieces that make up the shelf, I trimmed off the bottom leg of the angle so that the pieces nest together.

Step 3: Measure and Cut Bracket Pieces

This shelf will have angled kickers back to the wall, so I also marked for the cuts on those. These all got some sort of miter cut.

Step 4: Weld Shelf Together

I got the shelf pieces laid out and roughly square, and then started tacking things in place.

After tacking, I checked the diagonals to see if it was square, which it wasn't just yet. Putting a clamp on the long diagonal, I tightened it up until both diagonals have the same measurement. Then I proceeded to weld everything up, skipping around so that the welding heat doesn't distort things too much.

And then a bit of grinding to smooth down my poopy welds. After that, I did a quick test fit of the shelf to see if the welder fit (it did), and then it was on to the rest of the assembly.

Step 5: Weld Brackets Together

The angle brackets will support the shelf and get attached to the wall. I welded them up as close to 45 degrees as I could manage (if it’s it bit off, no big deal) and then ground off the excess weld.

It turns out I cut these angled pieces a bit long, so I squared them up with the uprights and trimmed off the excess. For mounting the shelf to the wall, I drilled a couple holes in the upright part of the brackets for some screws.

Step 6: Assemble Shelf and Brackets

Now that the brackets and the shelf are put together, it’s time to assemble all of these. This involved a lot of tack welding, checking for square, adjusting, more welding, and grinding things smooth. Skip around with your welds so that things don't distort too much.

Step 7: Bend and Attach Hanging Hook

To keep the cords of the welder organized and also to have a place for my welding jacket and helmet, I bent a piece of 1/4″ (6mm) square bar into a hook shape, just freehanding it into something that looks right. This hook got welded in the middle of the shelf.

Step 8: Clean and Paint

To finish things off, I degreased, primed with a self-etching primer, and then followed up with matte black hammertone to hide the roughness and imperfections in my assembly.

Step 9: Mount

After the paint had over night to cure, I proceeded with mounting it on the wall. I predrilled for the screw holes so that they wouldn't split the wall studs, and found out in doing so that there's a steel Lally post behind the drywall on the right side. These are steel pipes filled with concrete, so I drilled through the steel pipe wall and the followed up with a hammer drill bit for the concrete inside. I used a lag screw on the left side for the wooden stud, and a Tapcon anchor on the right for the Lally post.

Step 10: Finished!

After mounting, the shelf is ready to use! I added my welder on the shelf, then looped the ground clamp, gun, and power cord to the hook. Then I hung my welding jacket, helmet, and gloves from the hook, and the iron angle proved to be a convenient place to store the magnets. What's more, it keeps everything tucked up away from my car, saving me a lot of space.

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