A while back, I built a nice cart for my off cuts and short pieces of material. It has been great, but lately it has been getting pretty difficult to move – it rolls fine, but takes a lot of effort to get it moving. I had a long weekend for Labor Day, so I emptied everything from the materials side, and piled it all on my welding table.
There was more there than I expected, and of course the cart is much easier to get moving. When I buy cold rolled steel, or a specialty steel like 12L14, I have to buy a 12′ stick. I usually leave a 7′ piece standing against the wall, then the remaining pieces go into the cart. My local metal supplier also has a good remnants section where I can pick up 18″ – 36″ pieces of DOM (drawn over mandrel) tubing, so I tend to grab some when I see a size I don’t already have, or a size I use often. I didn’t really have a good place to store these shorter pieces.
I looked around the shop, and decided I could relocate the parts containers that were on the floor under my shelving unit. This would give me a volume about 60″ long, 18″ wide, and 8″ deep. After trying out a few ideas in Fusion 360, I came up with a design using the V type wheels often used for gates. I had a stick of .120 wall 1×2 tubing that I used for the frame, so it got cut into some mitered pieces for the sides and ends. I didn’t need or want much floor clearance, so I used the mill to cut some 3/4″ wide notches into the end pieces to give me a solid place for welding the axles. I needed to have room for wheels, so the final dimensions for the bed were 48″ x 18″ (exterior dimensions)
I cut some 3/4″ cold rolled bar to the appropriate length, and used the lathe to cut grooves for snap rings to retain the wheels. I then welded the axles to the end pieces and got the frame ready to weld. My welding table was covered, so I used a vise I have mounted on a brake rotor to hold one of the rails, and a pair each of my Fireball Tool 6″ and 8″ Mega squares to get everything squared up and ready to weld. I picked up the idea of the vise mounted on the brake rotor several years ago, and it’s seen a lot of use – it is heavy and stable enough for welding and grinding, but still pretty easy to move.
These squares are really nice to have. I’ve been using them since they were introduced. I have a pair of each size and style in aluminum, and most of the larger ones in cast iron as well. They get used on almost every welding project, and quite a few woodworking projects as well.
I tacked each corner, then rotated it around so I could get each weld in a flat position, and then cut and welded on a piece of expanded metal for the bottom. I like expanded metal for this since it doesn’t allow dirt and grit to accumulate inside.
One end of this will be pretty close to my lathe, so I just dropped down a piece of 1 1/2″ x 1/8″ angle to let one pair of wheels roll easier, and got ready to load it up.
I feel like I should put some sides or at least some stops along the length to keep stuff from falling off, but I’m going to use this as is for a while before I make any decisions. I have drawn up some ideas in Fusion, but nothing that really screams “must have” yet. This was the last day of my holiday weekend and I wanted to get everything cleaned up, so I decided to just load it up as is.
Almost all the steel from my welding table is now on the cart. No sagging, and it rolls without too much effort.
It fits well, and is out of the way when I don’t want it, and pretty easy to get to when I do. I’ll probably move the angle that the far side rolls on a bit closer to the lathe, and figure out something for a handle. I’ll probably have some tweaking to do, but for a v1.0 project, I’m quite pleased with it.