I got the inspiration for this project from posts on this newsgroup and used some images as basic design inspiration. I was tired of the dis-organized pile of ply and lumber that was impossible to sort through (you always need what’s on the bottom) so I made this over the last few weekends.
First step was the torsion box base – made with ¾” ply and 2x2’s (with 2x8’ blocks at the wheel attachment points). The wheels are rated at 750# each and were on sale for <$20/wheel so it should be able to roll ok even when fully loaded. I decided to use plywood vs melamine or MDF to save on weight of the cart itself. I got the ply at the borg – about $22/sheet (labeled as ‘cabinet grade’) and while it looked great on the rack most sheets started curling within 2 days even laying flat in a stack on the bed of my truck! Lucky this design was pretty tolerant of misbehaved ply – all the larger pieces were braced or re-enforced the rest was small enough that it didn’t matter. No regrets as I saved about 180$ over shop grade ply at my local lumberyard.
I arbitrarily chose a 10 degree lean angle for the sides after a few days goofing around leaning 4’ scraps against the walls. A shallower angle would have left more interior room for board/scrap storage but also would have meant sheets more likely to tip off as the cart was moved. I spent way too much time trying to remember 7th grade trig to figure out size of the interior shelves to calculate how many sheets I’d need before I put it all into a spreadsheet to make it easy to recalculate when the angle changed (pm me and I’ll email you a copy).
This project was the first real use of my new festool domino (torsion box frame) and TS75. I was a bit too casual on one or two of the loose tenon hole cuts as it was a rough frame not visible and my experience with biscuits was that you could muscle them some to make minor corrections – not so with even the smallest of domino tenons! The TS75 was not as fast as a table saw, but even with my Robland slider it takes 2 or 3 guys who know what they are doing to safely cut full sheets and things like a 10 degree angle right on the long edge of a full sheet is a real pain. I did all the cutting for this entire project solo – slide sheet from truck to work top and cut – nice tradeoff of a bit slower process vs being able to do stuff without having to start calling your buds for help.
The other mistake I made was in cutting the interior shelves to fit – each was cut after the shelf below was installed and I was worried about gaps and structural integrity so each one was maybe a 1/16 or so over. That made sliding them in a bit of a struggle (pull tops of sides apart while assistant shoves them in) and the result was a VERY strong box BUT the sides have a bit of a bow. If I was doing this over I’d be more concerned with a flat side but as this is intended for temporary storage and the bow is minor I don’t think it that big a deal.
Final step was to install the side boxes for small scraps with pocket screws, the side lips to keep the bottoms of panels from slipping off and shoot 2 coats of water poly to make it easier to slide stuff around. Thanks for looking.
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Nice job!
