Edward Keogh

May 8, 2019

Scrap Wood Storage Cart, Workshop Project

Scrap-Wood Storage Cart : Phase 1

Edward Keogh

May 8, 2019

Scrap Wood Storage Cart, Workshop Project

This is the section of the cart that I will be working on first, The Vertical Storage Shelves. Its the brown highlighted section.

As I mentioned in my previous post I will be tackling this project in 4 phases, this is the first of 4. Before I head into this part let me first breakdown what I will be writing about in this post.

Research & Design
Materials & Tools
Left Side Panels
Shelves
Pocket Holes
Vertical Shelf Unit Assembly

The cart has a ton of storage within a small footprint, this shelving unit that I am making has a decent amount of work to make it, I will be using pocket hole joinery ,dadoes, screws and glue to assemble it. So lets start.

RESEARCH & DESIGN

I wish I could claim credit for this design but I was not the one who designed it. I came across this project on Pinterest and the original design came from DIY Montreal, you can find her website in the link and she also has free project plans to help make it. She also documented a project video on YouTube and you can wtch it below.

As far as design I did also complete my own set of plans for this project and I will also post these free plans on my site after the project is completed. But you can see my Plans Cover page below. I designed my plans on Sketchup like I almost always exclusively do.

MATERIALS NEEDED

This project requires the following materials & tools in order to make the cart. Ask the home center to break down the 2 big plywood sheets, they are available in both sets of plans.

(2) Full sheets of 3/4” plywood
(4) 3” Casters
Wood Glue
1-1/4” wood screws
1-1/4” pocket hole screws
#12 3/4” Hex Head Slotted Sheet Metal Screws (I use these to secure the casters to the base)

TOOLS NEEDED

Tablesaw
Dado Stack
Skill Saw
Router
3/4” Straight router bit
Router Dado Jig
Pocket Hole Jig ( I used the Kreg K4)
Drill & Driver

Here is the 2 sheets of plywood cut down to manageable pieces, I had this done at the home center.

Here are the 3” casters & Screws. I also have my trusty plans to help me build this project especially to help me with dimensions of the various parts of the cart.

VERTICAL SIDES

The vertical storage sections is basically made up with 2 sides and 4 shelves, the shelves are secured with glue and screws into the dado’s that were cut using a dado stack installed into my tablesaw

LAYOUT

When I was at the home center I had the plywood boards cut into certain sizes, I did this to cut down on the work I had to do and this is one of them boards, this boards measures 48” x 36” this was cut to these dimensions as I could cut the dado’s all at once, the dadoes are placed 8-1/4” away from each other into 1 panel and then cross cut the panel into the 2 sides. I did this because I wanted to guarantee that all the dado’s measured up when it came to installing the shelving. As you can see I used pencil marks to position where I wanted the dado’s to be cut on the tale saw.

CUT THE DADO’S

Here you can see the same panel with all the dado grooves cut into where I had previously made my layout marks. These dado are places 8-1/4” away from each other, thus giving me equally spaced shelving. But still notice that it is still one panel. To cu the dado’s I used my 23/32” wide dado stack in my table-saw and cut the dado to a 1/4” deep.

CROSSCUT THE SIDES

Now that the dado grooves were cut into the board I was able to crosscut the boards that will ultimately become the 2 sides of the vertical shelving unit on the cart. I installed my 60 tooth table-saw blade into the saw and crosscut and as you can see the dado grooves all line u with each other.

COUNTER-SUNK TIME

Since I will be using glue and screws to secure the shelves into the dado grooves, I decided to place all these holes now as it would be a quick process. So I used my drill installed with a counter-sunk bit to place 2 holes on either side of the panel.

POCKET HOLE TIME

I will be using pocket hole joinery in certain parts of this project, here I am placing pocket holes in the bottom outside faces of the vertical side panels, this is how I will be securing the shelving unit to the base of the cart. Here you can see me using the Kreg K4 jig , I like using this method sometimes as it is quick and I don’t need a lot of big clamps to secure the workpiece as I wait for the glue to dry. This method allows me to keep working on the project.

SIDE PANEL

Here you can see one of the side panels all outfitted with counter sunk holes and pocket holes all ready for the assembly phase, which will be soon.

DRY ASSEMBLY

In this image you can see that all the shelves have been cut, there is nothing to do with these panels other than to cut them to the plan dimensions which is 24” x 11’. I am putting them into the dado grooves that were cut earlier and making sure that they all line up.

ASSEMBLY TIME

All that was left to do was to assemble the shelving unit. These are the steps I took to assemble the unit.

I place one of the sides flat onto my assembly table with the groove side up, I placed glue into all 4 grooves and then installed the shelves into the grooves, but no screws yet as I don’t have access to this side as it is laying on the table.
Next I placed the mating side piece onto the shelves this time with grooves facing down, after adding flue to the edges of the shelves I use my 1-1/4” screws to secure the side panel onto the shelves.
All that was left was to flip the shelf unit over and secure the other side panel with the 1-1/4” screws, and that was it.

Here you can see the shelves sitting in the dado grooves, these shelves are not going anywhere. I will need to sand the unit down but its made.

I had some difficulty getting this unit square and it had nothing to do with my layout work or even my screw placement, I discovered that the plywood panel that these pieces were cut from had a bow to the panel, be careful selecting plywood from big box stores as they sometimes are not the flattest. In the end I managed to get everything square and plum.

Well this wraps up Phase 1 of the project build and next I will be working on the central storage bins for the cart.. catch you then.

Edward Keogh

February 25, 2019

New Assembly Table, Phase I: Assembly Table

Torsion Box Assembly Table : Phase 1

Edward Keogh

February 25, 2019

New Assembly Table, Phase I: Assembly Table

ACTIVITIES

Cut down sheet goods to manegeable pieces
Cut Vertical Partitions to size
Place Dadoes in Vertical Partitions
Cut Toe-Kick notches
Assemble Cabinets
Attach Castors
Attach Stretchers & Toe Kicks
Made solid oak drawer/cabinet pulls
Attach Cabinet Doors

The below diagram shows you the section of the project I am working on at the moment the base frame consists of the following:

4 Vertical Partitions
2 Cabinet Base’s
3 Top Stretchers
2 Toe-Kicks

So with the cabinet bases cut to size it was time to switch my attentions to the vertical partitions.

VERTICAL PARTITIONS

There are 4 partitions in total that make the sides of the cabinets, each vertical partition gets the following:

A dado groove measure 3/4” wide x 1/4” deep positioned 3” from the bottom of the pvertical partition which goes from the front to the back of the vertical partition so as that the base can fit inside and then I will glue and screw into position.
3” x 3” notch cut out so as that I can place the toe-kick which spans the entire table base but more on that later , I used my jigsaw to cut out the notches.

NOTE: I needed to measure the plywood thickness as nowadays plywood is not the advertised 3/4” it was actually 23/32” of an inch I used my dado stack inside my tablesaw to cut out the dadoes.

Make sure that you orient each vertical partition the right way as only the inside faces of the them will receive a dado, if you don’t you will put a dado on the wrong side and the base will not fit into the cabinet

Here is the measurements needed to perform all the tasks on the vertical partition

Here you can see the toe kick notches cut out and the dado groove running from the left to right side.

Although Marc Spagnulo didn’t add screws to secure the base I will be using screws and glue, this line indicates the center line of the dado I will be counter-sinking 1-1/4” screws into this outside face of the panel I will also come back later and … — Although Marc Spagnulo didn’t add screws to secure the base I will be using screws and glue, this line indicates the center line of the dado I will be counter-sinking 1-1/4” screws into this outside face of the panel I will also come back later and plug the holes with probably oak plugs.

Here you can see the pre-drilled counter-sunk holes.

Here is an image displaying the toe-kicks all cut out they measure 3” x 3”

ASSEMBLE CABINET’S

With all the components cut to size for the cabinet bases it was time for some assembly. Here is the order I did the assembly:

Started working on the left side cabinet by placing glue on one of the vertical partitions dadoes
I also cut some temporary stretchers to balance the base of the cabinet while I secured it with screws that I Pre-drilled holes for.

I added glue to the Dado in one of the vertical partitions

Here you can see the temporary support stretchers I screwed to the cabinet side. This way when I lie the base on the sides Dado it can rest on the supports as I secure the base with screws

Here is what the cabinet carcass frame looks like all assembled, just checking for square and everything looks great.

Right side cabinet all complete as well. Starting to get places.

I positioned both cabinets with the space between them for the bank of drawers I will be placing in there, just making sure everything lines up.

GETTING MOBILE : ADDING CASTERS

Almost every piece of furniture in my shop is mobile as I think that is extremely important, because you never knw when you need to move things around. Especially with projects this big it takes a lot of staging space so as that your comfortable when in the assembly stages of big projects like this.

I will be adding a total of eight 3” casters, 4 on each cabinet.

Here are the steps I took in attaching them:

Attached 3” high glue blocks which are basically 2 pieces of 2x4 glued together then Predrilled and attach to the underside of the base cabinet.
Using hex head bolts I will be securing the 3” casters to the the glue blocks.

Here is the 3” thick glue blocks, you see if I didn’t add the glue blocks I would not have enough clearance to get around the toe-kicks when they ae eventually attached.

ATTACHED STRETCHERS & TOE KICKS

As you can see from the above diagram the cabinet carcasses are held together by 3 stretchers that go over the top of the cabinets, and using the toe-kick pies to securing the unit from the bottom.

THE STRETCHERS:

The stretchers are positioned on the front and back of the cabinets and one in the middle, before I cut the 3” wide stretcher pieces I cut a series of rabbets at both ends of the workpiece and then 2 in the center. Make sure to measure accurately the distance from left to right side of each cabinet and then measurement will be transferred to the 3/4” workpiece.

Next using cut the rabbets and dadoes, I used my dado stack inserted into my table saw. Once all these grooves are cut , I cut them to final size of 3”. Finally I predrilled the top side of the stretchers and secured them to the cabinet frames.

These piece are vitally important for 2 reasons.

The attach the 2 cabinets together into one unit
They also keep the cabinets plum and square.

Here you can see the ends of one of the stretchers with the rabbet cut out and secured in place.

Here are the 3 stretchers attached to the cabinets.

THE TOE-KICKS

Usually most cabinets receive toe-kicks for decorative reasons, but I decided to use as part of the structure of the cabinet, the other reason people design toe-kicks is so they don’t stub their toes when at the cabinet, but I really didn’t need the toe kicks as I have the cabinets up on 3” casters, but as I said I needed the structural convenience of this piece.

Here is the image of the cabinet in proper orientation with the toe-kick attached and in place.

MADE DOOR/CABINET PULLS

Shop projects are a great way of experimenting with lots of things, I decided to make my own cabinet pulls because to be honest I didn’t like the once at the big box stores and I had some solid oak on hand and figured that wood would give a nice contrast to the birch once all completed.

I went online and found a great article on how to make them and you can find the article here

Here is my plans that I made on Sketchup.

drwer pull: PDF

All finished, looks great, I needed t make 12 of these as I will be using them on my doors and drawers

ATTACHED CABINET DOORS

I know that I stated that doors and drawers would be dealt with in Phase 3 but I just got the Kreg concealed hinge jig and was itching to try it out, the jig was that awesome I attached all the doors in like 60 minutes. If you use a lot of Euro 35mm concealed hinges and don’t always have access to a drill press this jig is great.

THE JIG

The jig comes with a stop and drill guide to keep the hole straight and plum and the stop prevents you from not going through the door.

Hinges all attached and doors work great.

OUT WITH THE OLD & IN WITH THE NEW

THE OLD

My old assembly table served me well for more than 5 years but it is all beat up and it didn’t satisfy my storage needs anymore.

NEW

PHASE ONE: FINISHED

Next I will be moving onto Phase 2 : The Torsion Box I am really excited in starting this as I have never made one before. But I probably will not start it until the weekend.

PS: I posted this blog post on Saturday but when I actually saw on my site I realized that the post didn’t save right and I had to redo the post over… but this is Phase 1 in its entirety.

Catch you soon.

Edward Keogh

February 24, 2019

New Assembly Table