Sheet, clamp, and more cart

[Narayan Nayar]

Nothing special here, but something I've wanted (and needed) to do for a long, long time: find a place to keep sheet goods, sheet good cutoffs, and clamps. Most of you with small shops (and some of you with large shops) know the song and dance: to work on something you've got to clear the clamps and scrap off the work surface or floor, then you have to do it again to work in the place that you just moved all the stuff to. In my case, I would lean all my sheet goods up against the garage door and my clamps around the jointer. Here's a pic from last week with the sheet stuff up against the door:

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My criteria for the cart was the following:

I didn't want it to block any of the precious light at the top of the garage door.
Couldn't prevent the garage door from opening
Had to be mobile so I could move it out of the way or move it into a position which made it easy to load.
Had to carry sheet goods but couldn't be 8' long.
Couldn't be too large--I don't have a lot of "working" space


Well, it only took me a day and just about all of it is either construction lumber or scrap. Its dimensions are 18" deep by 6' wide by a little over 6' tall.

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It carries sheet goods inside the "wall" and shorter sheet goods are accessible through the back, where I also keep my long clamps for now. The top of the wall has some cross members so I can keep long boards or things like my Festool guide rail. I generally don't keep a lot of sheet goods full-size for long, but I buy all the sheet goods I can for a project at once, so I generally have to keep things like 5' x 5' sheets of BB around for a while.

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The front holds clamps, obviously, some shorter sheet goods (I've got some MDF in the "pocket" and some stuff on pegs. I'm going to add some shelf supports because this cart will typically sit in front of my bench, and having some place to set stuff will be helpful. No shelves, just the supports and brackets.

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Like I said, nothing special, but I've got a Sketchup file if anyone's interested.

Anyway, next thing I'll tackle is the pile of hardwood cutoffs.

[Don Eddard]

Very nice solution. If I had enough room I'd like to do something like that.

[Greg Cole]

Nice solution there. I'd be interested in seeing the sketch up of it.
Damn nice looking bench in the last shot too... first I've seen of a double twin screw bench on top of that! Don't happen to have a SU of the bench too???

Cheers.
Greg

[George Sanders]

Very nice work. I need to get that organized! My clamps are leaning against the wall where they seem to multiply.:eek: I do have the same rip fence that you have. I agree that you should post some more pics of your bench as is looks outstanding.

[J. Z. Guest]

Nice work Narayan. I have a small shop too, but not even enough room for that. My sheet goods lean against the wall, and my clamps hang under the shelves.

[Lewis Cobb]

Narayan -
Another thumbs up on your sheet goods/clamp cart from up here in snowy Canada :cool:. I was literally out in my workshop last night trying to decide what I will do with sheet goods when I get everything set up the way I want it. I seem to have run out of room (I'll bet people have never heard that one before). I do have a full size roll up garage door that is unused wall space and your solution is perfect for me. Count me in on the ones that would like to have a copy of your sketchup file.

Cheers,
Lewis

[Jim Becker]

That's a terrific solution for your shop, Narayan!

[Narayan Nayar]

Hey guys, thanks.

The sketchup file is all yours. I'll do my best to adjust it more or less to reality (for these projects, I only use sketchup as a guide, not as a set of plans) and upload it to this post before the weekend.

regarding the bench: I've got some drawings for that, but they were done in a design program, not sketchup. I have yet to put the drawer fronts on the drawers and finish the face frame in the cabinet. Who knows. Maybe I'll get that done someday, but sure, a post on the bench is probably in my future.

[tom cooper]

Good grief that is gorgeous!! But isn't it top heavy? how wide at the base?

I am very much interested in your storage solution for the "pile of hardwood cutoffs".

[Danny Thompson]

Nice multi-function cart; and what a great bench.

[Narayan Nayar]

As promised, here's the Sketchup file for the sheet good & clamp cart (http://www.narayannayar.com/images/cart.zip).

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It's pretty easy to figure out, but here are some notes and a suggested build sequence. After procuring the wood from my cutoffs and from the local BORG, the whole thing probably only took 2.5 hours to put together. We're talking construction tolerances here, not furniture.

I used:


12 8' kiln-dried 2x4s
1 4x8 sheet 3/4" birch plywood (something far less fancy would work just fine)
1.25 4x8 sheets of white pegboard
misc plywood cutoffs
lag screws and washers
3", 1-5/8", and 1" drywall screws
4" woodcraft casters


Suggested build order and notes:

build the base and attach the wheels. Everything I consider "the base" is in the "base" layer in the sketchup file
build the 2x4 frames for both "walls". I used a framing square and some drywall screws, predrilling of course.
attach the walls to the base using washers and lag screws into the x-members of the base. space the walls as you see fit--the more space between them the more sheet good storage you'll have. I wanted to store no more than 4 sheets + large cutoffs. I also wanted the front wall to more or less be in the middle of the base so the weight from the clamps wouldn't be too far backwards or forwards (my garage slopes).
attach the "top shelf" supports to the walls to make them rigid
attach the pegboard for the front wall first. If you have help, you can do this while you're building the walls, but the pegboard isn't light and I was assembling this myself, so I waited until the wall was up.
attach the pegboard for the back wall. This doesn't have to be pegboard, obviously; I chose something less than 24" tall so that I could access the smaller cutoffs and "coax" larger sheets out of the wall from behind the cart.
measure for the front "pocket" sides.
attach sides to front wall and base. I used pocket screws. If you want internal dividers, knock yourself out.
Attach front pocket face to base and pocket sides. I just predrilled and used drywall screws. I used 3/4" plywood here to add some weight to the front of the unit.


That's it. Feel free to ask any questions.