Need advice on plywood cart

[Greg Roberts]

I would like to have a plywood cart for my shop. When I get a delivery of plywood, the truck unloads about 30' from my overhead door and where I store the plywood, then when I use the plywood, it has to go another 30' to the table saw. It would be a lot easier for my back if I could unload a dozen sheets off the truck and onto the cart, store the cart and sheets in my usual spot, and then cart them to the saw when I'm ready to cut.

I use 5' x 5' sheets, and I only have room for a 24" wide cart in my storage spot.

I'm thinking of an A-frame cart, 24" x 48" base size, with 48" tall center supports all made of channel steel and welded. Hardwood "shims" attached to the channel steel at the bottom and on each side of the center support to provide the angle (10 degree). 8" polyurethane rubber covered steel casters, two swivel and two fixed.

Figure 1000 lbs., 70" tall, 24" wide base on solid casters. Weight evenly distributed on both sides of the "A".

My question is, will this unit be tippy?

Greg

[Jerome Stanek]

Look at a drywall cart and see if that will work for you I have 2 and they come in handy for moving plywood around.

[Greg Roberts]

Look at a drywall cart and see if that will work for you I have 2 and they come in handy for moving plywood around.

I know, that would be easy but . . .

I found all kinds of drywall and plywood carts for sale on the internet, but none of them are as well built and sturdy as the one I would build. None of them are designed for 60" x 60" material.

Greg

[johnny means]

5x5s stored on opposing sides of a 24" wide cart are going to be awfully close to vertical. Once you account for the width of the center divider and the outside lip on the bottom, with 5 sheets on each side, you won't be tilting the sheets enough to move them safely. Typically the type of cart you have in mind needs to be closer to 4" wide.

[Greg Roberts]

5x5s stored on opposing sides of a 24" wide cart are going to be awfully close to vertical. Once you account for the width of the center divider and the outside lip on the bottom, with 5 sheets on each side, you won't be tilting the sheets enough to move them safely. Typically the type of cart you have in mind needs to be closer to 4" wide.

Thanks, I really need some advice on this.

The sheets would sit at a 10 degree angle, I don't think the sheets would tip off the center support. Actually I'm quite sure they wouldn't tip off the cart unless the cart was going over.

That's what I'm more concerned about, is moving a 24" cart around with 1000 lbs on it of 60" tall sheets, and having it be tippy.

Of course, if you look at the drywall carts, they are not very wide either, and they rate those for 2,000 or 3,000 lbs.! So I don't know. Need help.

Greg

[Jerome Stanek]

This is 1 of the carts I have It is called a door hugger as there is a cut out in the back of the frame. I worked for a drywall supply company years ago and this was the preferred cart very heavy duty and I think you would be happy with it.

http://constructioncomplete.com/Catalog/Carts/Perry-PD-4-Plywood-Drywall-Cart

[ian maybury]

A lot depends on space availability, and on the quantities of sheets/panels you need to handle Greg. I'm no expert, but i looked at this problem recently, and concluded that i couldn't afford the floor space taken up by a cart - but bear in mind i don't use a lot of plywood, only the odd few sheets now and then.

One issue with 'leaned over' storage is that it can very quickly get next to impossible to get out sheets buried in the sandwich. Sheets may warp if not well supported by a flat surface too.

I've gone for a wall mounted 'stood on end' (8ft high x 4ft wide) rack to minimise the footprint, have bought a 'Gorilla Gripper' http://www.gorillagripper.com/ (which works very well) for single sheet handling, and will build a small single panel 'roller skate' like this if needed: http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=5188

One rack idea i've gone for that may work for your cart (instead of leaning the sheets against both sides of a central pillar, which makes removal of inner sheets very difficult, and makes it easy for the sheets to fall outwards) is to place sloped support pillars at both sides of the rack floor - so that the sheets while leaning outwards against the pillars sit in the central channel they form with the floor.

The sheets can't fall out, but can easily be removed from the ends. The big benefit (provided you don't fill the rack past the mid point of the floor) is that you can 'walk' sheets from one side to the other - to get access to buried sheets.

To save space, and to make it easy to move sheets I went for a very shallow 4 deg slope on the pillars since my rack is fixed, and made the central floor from slippery PET plastic bent upwards along the centre line in a 'V' making a 90 deg angle with the sides. You may need more of a slope on the sides for a cart though.

I made the pillars/sides in ladder form so that sheets lying against them can't sag and warp.

The plastic floor is gilding the lily a bit (i've a friend in the plastics fab business), but the floor arrangement is worth thinking about to ease handling, and reduce the risk of splitting veneers away when sliding ply sheets in and out on edge.

A decent radius at each end of the floor is at least advisable, as (in the case of a rack) is raising it a bit above the floor to avoid problems with e.g. water leaks/spills...

ian

[NICK BARBOZA]

We have one of these for work that helps us get drywall/plywood around on jobsites. A bit spendy but works great

it is not tippy with 4'x8' sheets, and i wouldn't expect it to be too much worse with 5'x5'.

[/URL]http://images.grainger.com/B315_35/images/products/450x450/Drywall-Cart-3DRF3_AS01.JPG
[url]http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/MARSHALLTOWN-Drywall-Cart-3DRF3?cm_mmc=Google%20Base-_-Hand%20Tools-_-Drywall%20and%20Plastering%20Tools-_-3DRF3 (http://images.grainger.com/B315_35/images/products/450x450/Drywall-Cart-3DRF3_AS01.JPG)

[Greg Roberts]

This is 1 of the carts I have It is called a door hugger as there is a cut out in the back of the frame. I worked for a drywall supply company years ago and this was the preferred cart very heavy duty and I think you would be happy with it.

http://constructioncomplete.com/Catalog/Carts/Perry-PD-4-Plywood-Drywall-Cart

That looks like a nice one. Do you think the 5' tall sheets would upset the balance?

Greg

[Ryan Hellmer]

I would look closely at drywall carts. 54" sheetrock is extremely common and I would imagine that there may be carts that are just a hair taller than normal to accomodate. Either way, sheetrock is very dense, moreso than birch plywood. I think that your weight estimates give you plenty of wiggle room.

As for casters, I would strongly consider smaller (maybe 4 or 5") to lower the center of gravity. Also, I would put swivels on all four corners. I've made carts and mobile bases with 2 fixed and 2 swivels before and hate them. It is so nice to be able to move in any direction and with a little caution you shouldn't have to worry about tipping.

Lastly, with tipping being your primary concern, have you considered some sort of outrigger? If you could temporarily widen your frame while moving then fold it back in for storage you could get the best of both worlds.

Ryan

[Mitchell Andrus]

Swivel on all four corners. Eliminates the need to turn around to steer into tight spots.
.

[Greg Roberts]

A lot depends on space availability, and on the quantities of sheets/panels you need to handle Greg. I'm no expert, but i looked at this problem recently, and concluded that i couldn't afford the floor space taken up by a cart - but bear in mind i don't use a lot of plywood, only the odd few sheets now and then.

One issue with 'leaned over' storage is that it can very quickly get next to impossible to get out sheets buried in the sandwich. Sheets may warp if not well supported by a flat surface too.

I've gone for a wall mounted 'stood on end' (8ft high x 4ft wide) rack to minimise the footprint, have bought a 'Gorilla Gripper' http://www.gorillagripper.com/ (which works very well) for single sheet handling, and will build a small single panel 'roller skate' like this if needed: http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=5188

One rack idea i've gone for that may work for your cart (instead of leaning the sheets against both sides of a central pillar, which makes removal of inner sheets very difficult, and makes it easy for the sheets to fall outwards) is to place sloped support pillars at both sides of the rack floor - so that the sheets while leaning outwards against the pillars sit in the central channel they form with the floor.

The sheets can't fall out, but can easily be removed from the ends. The big benefit (provided you don't fill the rack past the mid point of the floor) is that you can 'walk' sheets from one side to the other - to get access to buried sheets.

To save space, and to make it easy to move sheets I went for a very shallow 4 deg slope on the pillars since my rack is fixed, and made the central floor from slippery PET plastic bent upwards along the centre line in a 'V' making a 90 deg angle with the sides. You may need more of a slope on the sides for a cart though.

I made the pillars/sides in ladder form so that sheets lying against them can't sag and warp.

The plastic floor is gilding the lily a bit (i've a friend in the plastics fab business), but the floor arrangement is worth thinking about to ease handling, and reduce the risk of splitting veneers away when sliding ply sheets in and out on edge.

A decent radius at each end of the floor is at least advisable, as (in the case of a rack) is raising it a bit above the floor to avoid problems with e.g. water leaks/spills...

ian

Thank you for the good information. On the cart idea with the side pillars, I would be concerned that the cart would become even more tippy with sheets leaning towards the outside.

In my situation, I use only two sizes of material, 3/4" and 1" thick baltic birch in 5' x 5' sheets. I suppose that could change someday, but for now that's it. So getting to sheets behind other sheets is not the concern for me. I'll keep 3/4 on one side of my "A" and 1" on the other.

The real question for me remains, will a 6' tall by 2' wide cart be tippy. Or too tippy. I know it's going to be subject to tipping if I'm not careful about what I drive it over. But can it be handled safely, or is this just going to be a disaster?

Greg

[Jerome Stanek]

The cart I have has swivel casters on al 4 wheels plus 1 that locks straight or 90%. I have hauled 6 foot tall panels and it is not tipsy. one of mine has the cut out back and the other doesn't. I like the cut out to get around doors and columns.

[Greg Roberts]

Someone once told me that two swivel and two fixed will roll easier than when all four swivel. Less likely for the casters to get locked up working against one another. This would be a safety feature to reduce the chance of tipping the whole cart over.

Greg

[johnny means]

Not to muddy up the waters, but:D Keep in mind that a 24" wide cart with 4" casters only has a 20" wide foot print.

[Greg Roberts]

Not to muddy up the waters, but:D Keep in mind that a 24" wide cart with 4" casters only has a 20" wide foot print.

You're killin me!

Actually, I thought about this. If I locate the wheels right on the outer corners, the swivel wheels will stick out a little if they are not perfectly straight. But I think I can live with that.

Wouldn't the fixed wheels be 24" from outside to outside? Is that not the footprint?

I asked a friend about this and he suggested I put together a quick and dirty cart out of scrap wood, put some 5' sheets on it and see how it feels. He also thought it might be a little tippy if the wheels ran over something like a piece of wood, or the low-threshold of my door to the shop, but that it would be controllable and not bad overall.

Greg

[Alan Schwabacher]

I have a 24" wide cart like that, with 5" casters. It is very heavy so I don't move it around much, but it would take an extreme push to tip it over. If your floor is level, you think about what you are doing, and you don't take it out in a high wind, I suspect that you are fine.

[Mike Cruz]

Greg, I know that you said that you only have a certain amount of space for your rack, but may I suggest that you make a plywood table for storing the sheets? The table can double as an assembly table (with a sacrafice sheet on top). That is what we did at my old job. Loved it! Loved it so much that made one for my shop, too. It is on casters, so it is mobile.

[Greg Roberts]

Greg, I know that you said that you only have a certain amount of space for your rack, but may I suggest that you make a plywood table for storing the sheets? The table can double as an assembly table (with a sacrafice sheet on top). That is what we did at my old job. Loved it! Loved it so much that made one for my shop, too. It is on casters, so it is mobile.

I like that idea.

Greg

[Jerome Stanek]

Like I said mine has four wheels that swivel but there is a pin in one to lock it in the straight non swivel position. I would never go back to the cart that I made after having a real drywall cart. The guy that helps me on some jobs started using my carts and he gave up two of his smaller A frame carts and bought a drywall cart.

[Greg Roberts]

I decided to build a plywood cart. I have not loaded it yet, but it's very sturdy, easy to move around the shop, and not the least bit tippy.

The oak cost nearly $200! Yikes! The wheels about $100. My nephew made up the metal T-braces for me. Six hours labor.

It has space for twenty four, 3/4" x 5' x 5' sheets of plywood. I'll have to see how much weight it will hold.

Greg

http://www.voltiaudio.com/a/plywoodcart1.jpg

[Rick Lizek]

The UK Panelmate or US version Shopcart or the Hafele version for $700 is what you need. They've been around for many years and are the best options bar none. The photo is the panelmate which wouldn't be hard to make.
Tips for horizontal or vertical use and jack allows one to bring it up to table saw, rack or delivery truck height. Simple!

[Doug Carpenter]

wow.

Nice shop! oak fixtures and leather couches.

You know how to live. ;)

[Greg Roberts]

wow.

Nice shop! oak fixtures and leather couches.

You know how to live. ;)

LOL. That's actually the automobile part of my shop, believe it or not.

A few months ago, my mom called and asked if I would take her "old" recliners to the dump. She's funny sometimes. So I got two perfectly serviceable leather (cheap leather, maybe vinyl, not sure) recliners, and it's been great this summer sitting in them, in front of the big overhead garage door, sipping something cold while watching the traffic go by. They've cut into my work production a little though!

Greg