I built this materials cart a while back to clear up some space in my shop. The build is relatively straight forward starting with the base. I made mine from 2-4X8 sheets of 19/32” OSB and a couple of 2X4’s, some scrap ¾” plywood, and 4-3” locking casters.

Recommendations:

After building this cart and using it for a short while, here are a few recommendations on how I would make the cart better if I ever have to do it again.

• Use non-locking casters or only 2 locking casters in opposite corners. Even living here in earthquake country, I don’t think the casters need to be of the locking variety. It would take the “Big One” to make this thing move. If that happens, I’ve got bigger problems than figuring out how my lumber cart got moved. This would also reduce the cost slightly without affecting the functionality of the cart.
• Use 4” casters or larger. When the cart gets fully loaded, it is quite heavy making it a challenger to roll on the 3” casters that I used. 4” or larger casters would make it easier to roll, especially if you encounter a wood chip or power cord.
• Use 3/4” plywood instead of OSB if you can afford it. Placing screws on or near the edges would be more solid with plywood than with OSB.
• Install “handles” under the 3rd shelf from the top to aid in pulling cart. I did incorporate the recommendation into my cart after it was completed. It does make it easier to start rolling out of a corner of from against a wall.

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About two months ago I decided it was time to upgrade my bandsaw. It took about a month to sell my old bandsaw and pull together the rest of the money for the new saw. In the middle of June I ordered a new Grizzly G0555P. That’s the Polar Bear version of Grizzly’s venerable G0555 Ultimate 14” Bandsaw in almost all white (the sides of the table are still Grizzly green).

At the same time I ordered the saw from Grizzly, I also ordered the 6” Riser Block Kit and the Heavy-Duty Mobile Base. And, I ordered 4 new 105” Timber Wolf bandsaw blades from Suffolk Machinery.  If you are a new customer, Suffolk has a Free Blade offer.

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When was the last time a store or tool company refunded your money for a bad product, before you know it was a bad product? That’s what happened to me today.

Back in January I pre-order a new product that Lee Valley Tools was just releasing, their Thread I.D. ™ (Nut & Bolt Identifier). I finally received it last week complete with its little wooden storage box. I looked it over. It looked well made and I was satisfied that I would be able to use it to sort out that box of miscellaneous screws and nuts that I have sitting on the shelf. Satisfied, I set the Thread I.D. aside for when I have time for that project.

Today, I received a letter from Lee Valley telling me that there had been a manufacturing error, that the marking on the Thread I.D. were not permanent and they enclose a couple of reference cards so that when the marking wore off I would still be able to identify which thread was which. They also said that they were giving me a FULL refund on my credit card for the price of the item and the shipping. I check my credit card statement online and, sure enough, they did.

How great is that, a company that stands squarely behind their products? No company is perfect and I suspect that at sometime in the future I will have some other problem with a product from Lee Valley. It’s good to know that they truly care about customer satisfaction.
 

Background

My current table saw, a Delta contractor saw, is my second.  The first one was a Ryobi portable table saw.  The user manuals from both manufactures suggested aligning the blade to the miter slot by pounding on the trunnion with a hammer or board or by prying on it with a board.  I tried these methods because I was a newbie and didn’t know of a better way.  While these methods produced barely adequate results, I was never really satisfied with it being close but not quite precisely aligned so I purchased a“> Contractor Saw Precision Alignment & Locking System (PALS™) almost two years ago.

Although I was not fully satisfied with the blade alignment on my table saw, I shied away from the task of installing the PALS™ kit because I thought it would be tedious and time consuming.  After all, my saw wasn’t way out of alignment. It was close enough to make reasonably accurate cuts.

But those extra blade marks on the sides of my rip cuts were a annoying and time consuming to clean up so before starting to build my materials cart, I decided to bite the bullet and tackle installing the PALS™ kit and doing a proper job of aligning my saw.

Product Details

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Since 2007, Cerritos College has put on a Woodworking Celebration at the end of the Spring semester to showcase student projects.  The Celebration features lunch (mentioning lunch first is an indicator of the position food holds in my list of priorities), an auction, a raffle (all woodworking related items), and a juried competition.  This year’s judges for the juried competition were Jennifer Anderson, Jim Ipekjian and Tim Peters.  Check out my photo gallery for some pictures of the ribbon winners.  If I missed any of the winning projects, I apologize.  I know I missed a shot of the People’s Choice winner.  Again, I apologize.

For those that are not familiar with the woodworking program at Cerritos College you can check out there website, here.  I took a few courses there a few years ago and I’m looking forward to taking more in the near future.  They have about 22,000 SF of shop space, all of the power toys one could ask for and a staff of great instructors.  If you live in the greater LA area, you may want to check them out.