We strongly urge anyone that has never welded before to consider this their first welding project. The cost that is saved by sourcing local steel (instead of us shipping a bolt-together kit) is more than enough to pay for a home welding set up.

All you need is a basic 140 amp MIG welder that runs off regular 110VAC household power, a wire brush to brush off your welds, welding gloves, and a welding helmet.

You can use the standard flux core wire that these welders come with. That just means the wire is coated with a flux that keeps the weld clean instead of requiring an inert gas to shield the hot weld from contamination.

However, we recommend getting a small bottle of 75/25 Argon / CO2 mix and a small spool of ER70S-6 0.030" wire (your local metal supplier very likely has both of these, if not your local welding supply definitely does!).

All of our welding instructional videos are done with this exact set-up, and you will be laying beautiful, strong welds after 30 minutes of practice with this set up and our tips. Plus - nothing beats the feeling of learning and perfecting a new skill!

For experienced welders - well this will be a walk in the park.

Welding and drilling holes account for almost all of the fabrication involved - especially if you will have your metal supplier cut your steel tube for you.

A very basic Harbor Freight / Central Machinery or Amazon special bench top drill press is all you need for the level of precision and depth of holes needed here.

Planning your holes before you weld is the biggest point here - you don't want to weld up a 50 pound frame and realize you forgot to drill a hole to mount your wheels or your winch cable, for example. All holes are called out in our build plans, follow it carefully!

Lastly - most of the holes are for retaining pins that hold telescoping tube in place - for removable extensions, or the rear wheels (if you choose to make those modular / removable per our design).

You have a choice here - do you want to buy longer pieces of steel tube and cut yourself, or have your local metal supplier cut the steel tube to your specific lengths?
If you plan to do the cutting yourself, we recommend a metal horizontal bandsaw (the most basic Harbor Freight / Central Machinery one works great!). A chop saw can work as well, just be prepared for more post-cut cleaning and deburring.

Use our cut list calculator - included with our plans & instructions - to calculate your full cut list. Just take that list to your metal supplier and save a ton of time if you don't already own a band saw!

We also recommend an angle grinder. Every garage should have one! We love our corded (lower cost, never runs out of power!) DeWalt grinder with cut off and flap / sanding wheels. You'll use this to clean up the metal after cutting (deburring), clean up your welds after welding, and general trimming / sanding of metal wherever it may be needed.