Few tools inspire the raw sense of accomplishment like the welding machine. I can be welding a simple 1/4" nut to a 1/2" piece of angle iron but as soon as I lower the visor on my welding helmet suddenly I am 30 stories up a sky scraper on a windy day welding steel girders without wearing a safety harness. Using a glue gun to stick pieces to plastic floral arrangements just doesn't elicit the same sense of conquest. There are many different kinds of welding machines as well as methods of welding. But why go into all of that now. All we want to do is weld some light gauge tubing together so it won't come apart. This can easily be accomplished with a MIG welder that uses 110 Volt house hold current. From my limited study of welding technology I actually remember that MIG stands for metal inert gas. The great thing about modern MIG welders is that you don't even need to use gas if you use flux core wire. We could talk about welding all day long but I am not a professional welder. I don't even consider myself a good welder. I am what the pros refer to as a dobber. Sometimes my welding looks like a drunk Dirt Dobber tried to make a nest out of molten metal. But I am interested in improving and if you have never used a welding machine before then that is the only direction you can go. Professional welders earn every cent of their paycheck because there isn't a much hotter and dirty working environment in most cases. It takes a lot of practice and skill to be a good welder. As in most professions some are just naturally talented while others have to struggle. I believe that just about anyone with average coordination can learn to weld low risk components acceptably. What I mean by low risk is something not to be used in a critical application like an automobile, trailer or a building structure. That is not to say that a simple go cart is not subject to dangers from deficient welds. But we are contemplating a low speed vehicle and not a high speed Indy Racer.

Prices for small 110 Volt MIG welders range from just over $100 to $1000. The cheapest machine is capable of doing lightweight welding as well as the more expensive machines. It is just a matter of durability. Here is an example of a lower range MIG welder that is perfectly suitable for light useage as required for a small Go Cart.

This is a Chicago Electric Easy Mig 100. You can buy it at Harbor Freight for about $150.00. I have owned one of these and for the money it worked fairly well. If the wire quits feeding then the fuse is probably blown. I sold it on E bay and got a step up.This is my Hobart Model 140. It is a mid range priced model and currently sells at Northern Tools for under $500.00.

Oh what shall we say about the lowly Pipe Bender. The all purpose pipe bender is a pipe dream. I don't know why anyone would want to dream about pipes anyway. But what we have here is a matter of using a round pipe versus a square or rectangular tubing. The terminology can be confusing. For instance, when is it a pipe and when is it considered tubing? To make it worse the term " tubing" can be applied to both round and square or rectangular cross sections. You may ask which is stronger? Some engineers say that a square tubing is just a pipe that has collapsed on four sides. So why even bring pipe into the equation? Why not just use all square and rectangular tubing so you don't need to bend any pipe? The answer is the same as always for us simple men. It is a challenge. It is a challenge to take a foe stronger than yourself and show who is superior. Or maybe it just looks better to have smooth cuves as opposed to obtuse intersections. At any rate bending pipe is a skill well worth mastering. But as I said at the beginning, there is no such thing as an all purpose pipe bender. That is unless you want to spend a lot of money. We want to have enough money to buy the other items we may need so here is an example of a very basic pipe bender capable of doing the few bends required in this project. It is available from Northern Tool and is a 12 ton hudraulic pipe bender. It has a bending die for 1/2", 3/4" 1", 1 1/4", 1 1/2" and 2" pipe. It sells for about $130.00. I have this model.

Metal is often thought of as a very hard durable material. And indeed it is. But it also lends itself to almost artistic conformity with the use of the right tools. Another must have tool is a 4 1/2" angle grinder. This tool is used to smooth any rough surface by removing metal with abrasive wheels. It can take a sorry looking weld and make it look OK. You can also use it to undo tack welds as well as remove metal as needed. This is a Dewalt brand model 28110 and currently sells for about $60.00.

You will need two different types of discs. One is a metal grinding wheel. It is much like a small grinding wheel. In fact it is a small grinding wheel. If you have ever wanted to pick up your bench grinder and try to force it into some odd small space that just needs a little bit of grinding then you will be wondering where the angle grider has been all your life. This is a Norton Metal and Masonery wheel for 4 1/2" angle grinders. Any brand will work but not all 4 1/2" wheels will fit all grinders. It may be best to take the grinder with you when buying wheels to be sure you get the right one the first time.

You also need a wheel made from stiff sand paper often reffered to as a flap wheel. They come in different grits. Generally the coarser the better. This is an Ace flap wheel 9716-002.