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I was much in need of a portable TV stand that was not wall mounted. I raided my scrap metal pile and welded one up with an old planter stand base with a few nicely bent scrolls welded to it, a fence post and the wall mounting bracket that previously mounted the TV to the wall.
This is the old configuration of the TV and it needed to be moved from the wall to the floor stand.
After unhooking the TV from the wall mounted metal plate it was time to unscrew it from the wall and patch the holes in the drywall.
Here's a look at the old planter base before getting welded to and painted. At this time I wasn't 100% sure it would even work as far as being able to adequately support the TV.
My Lincoln PROMIG 140 wire feeder will do the trick. I used mixed gas along with solid wire. Before I started welding on my project I dialed in my wire speed and heat on a scrap piece of metal.
I didn't need the stand too long and didn't want a bunch of extra top heavy weight so I chopped a section of post off the top and off of the bottom but left is pointed flat plate section in order to weld the metal TV bracket to.
To cut both sections off the fence post I used a hand held angle grinder. Here's a paid link to one if you'd like to pick one up.
This shows the fence post after I hacked off the end with the grinder and cutting wheel (disc).
The fence post, luckily, fits perfectly down into the base. It's like it was meant to be. I'll weld it in place later.
I took my hand held angle grinder and planed or flattened out the surface in order to have a flush surface to mount (weld) the mounting plate.
I ground off the paint on the mounting plate to clean sound metal in order to get good fusion between the plate and the fence post. I ground the paint off the front as well because it will bubble due to the heat from the welding.
Time to get it tacked in. I held it in place with some magnets I purchased from amazon. If you'd like some, here is a paid link to the magnets I purchased as they work really well for these kinds of fit up applications for metal fabrication.
This is actually the easy part welding it all up. The hard part is figuring out how it's all going to fit together and making it work.
This shows welding the fence post to the planter base. In the background you can kind of see that I clamped my ground clamp to the base of the stand. The importance of a good ground connection in welding cannot be overstressed. If you have a bad ground, it's possible your welding will suffer.
I threw some weld beads on here to secure it into place permanently. I welded this all out in every place I could to make sure it was strong as well as long lasting.
Once the welds cooled off I set it out in the yard and painted it with rustoleum black metal paint. Right now it's about $5 a can at Lowe's or Home Depot. I then let it dry in the sun and it didn't take more than an hour or so.
I moved my newly fabricated stand into it's desired location for a test run.
It had a nice hard place in which to set upon and it handled the weight of the TV perfectly fine. I was very happy with the way this turned out.
