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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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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Unless you have tons of experience or unlimited space and funds, setting up a woodworking shop is an evolutionary experience.  Mine started out in a corner of our garage, a garage originally set up for vehicle/trailer housing and general utilitarian handyman activities and storage.  After getting rid of the trailer, I was able to expand my woodworking area but still had to share space with general storage shelves and use the cut-down utility bench for a woodworking bench.  it’s not much good for woodworking even though I did cut it down to a more woodworking friendly height. The top is made from 3/4” particle board with a 1/”4” MDF cover.  The humidity  changes over the years has left it anything but flat or solid.

Anyway, since I don’t have a lot of experience, funds or unlimited space, I thought I would use a couple of computer tools to help me layout my existing shop and help me plan its evolution in an effort to maximize the available space.

The first computer tool or application I used was Microsoft’s Visio.  It’s a quick and easy way to create a floor plan.  The floor plan below is future look at my shop.  It may seem crowded on the one end (that’s the machine or dust generating end) but, everything is on wheels so it can easily be rearranged as needed or pushed out of the way, as shown, if I want more elbow room.

Like I said, Visio is good for quick floor plans.  What it’s not as good at is giving you a 3-dimensional feeling for the shop unless you want to created additional drawings from various angles.  For the 3D model of the shop I went to Google’s SketchUp (SU) app.  Depending on the level of detail you want in your virtual shop and what all you have in your shop, you can create a 3D model in a short time or a while longer.  Once the models of the shop and it’s contents are created it’s easy to rearrange and modify the floor plan.

I’ve uploaded a new image gallery of some scenes created from the SU model of my shop.  While the Visio drawing is of the future layout, this SU model is just the start of modeling my shop as it is today.  I have a few pieces of existing shop furniture in there including my workbench.  If my real workbench looked as good as my virtual one, I might not be planning to replace it with a Roubo-like bench that Chris Schwartz and several others have built.  You can get to the gallery from the menu of by clicking on the image below.

I will update the post and the gallery as I get more of the virtual pieces and details created.  Once the model of my existing shop is completed, it will be fun to start designing and building the new pieces that I hope will add more flexibility and free up some space.

How do you go about planning and setting up your shop?  What do you do to make your shop flexible and create space so you not wasting time and energy walking over, around and through a mass of tools and debris to get to tools or materials that you need at the moment and then over, around or through the maze again to get back to you project?