today we're building an inexpensive compact wood cart from two by fours and one sheet..
Oh hold up
two by fours? i thought you said this thing's gonna be inexpensive Rodriguez?
Chuck I get it man lumber prices are crazy right now
Hey you're telling me, last week they made me fill out a credit application just to go down the dang lumber aisle.
i know man that's what we're gonna save people some money and build it out just a sheet of plywood and eight two by fours
oh look at you man of the people huh?
times are tough and i gotta clean up this mess somehow
hey it looks like you need all the help you can get man
well maybe if somebody else worked around here
I'm kind of busy man
let's build something awesome
as expensive as two by fours are these days they can still be pretty gnarly pieces of wood
so save yourself some trouble and buy the straightest ones that you can
find at the big box store even then they're still gonna have some bows to them so i picked the worst
ones to use for the base after in cutting each board to get a square reference end and
do not be fooled into thinking that they are square from the factory i cut a couple boards
for the length of the base and this friends is why i upgraded to a miter station from my old
mobile miter stand now i can easily do end cuts on eight foot boards from either side then i move
the stop block in and i cut four cross braces that'll connect those longer boards for the base
i'm sizing my wood rack to be six feet long and wide enough to hold four or five sheets of plywood
on one side longer boards in the middle in plywood offcuts or mid-range boards on the other side
my current plywood storage is to lean it against my live stand which i never use
and i've got narrow boards short off cuts and plywood leftovers strewn across the
shop in different places so this rack is going to replace all of those and really tidy up the shop
and after drilling the pocket holes i can move on to assembly
probably easiest for you to assemble on the floor and you can find a flat spot in your garage i know
this area is kind of the flattest in my garage before you start assembling go ahead and check
your boards and put it so that the bow in the middle of it is down against the floor and that
way when we assemble it and flip it over then it's going to be bowed up and it's going to help
resist that weight so that will kind of flex and straighten out versus already have a bow to it
and get worse over time i laid out the frame and i used a clamp at the end to butt everything flushed
together and i screwed them in place with two and a half inch pocket screws and when attaching the
other end i made sure that i pressed everything down against the floor because the bow and the
boards is going to want to raise up those long ones higher than the short boards the interior
braces add strength but they'll also be used to attach the inner a-frames which we'll be making
later so i used some spacers to position the brace and then i pulled out my little used foot clamp
i must have been all hopped up on diet dew as i'm more of a clamp it tight kind of guy
and apparently i felt like i was getting a little too crazy so i went back to the clamp
for the other brace we'll just be using one sheet of three-quarter inch plywood for this build
like i said and this is radiata pine it's a good alternative to say something like a baltic birch
which i typically use this is a lot less expensive and also it'll hold screws well because it's got
nice thick plies to it i'm gonna cut the plywood on the floor and i often get asked what is this
pink stuff on the floor that i'm cutting on top of this is rigid foam insulation it's very light
but it's nice and stable it's one inch thick and it supports the cut and the wood so that when i'm
going through it it doesn't fall off after the cut i cut the sheet to length to match the base
and i'm also going to get all of the cross braces for the a-frames from this long section later
now i need to cut the plywood to width for the base so i have put the extension on my track
saw so i can go ahead and cut that if you don't have a track saw these things are awesome they
make cuts a lot more accurate and easy and you can get this specific one the correct track saw
from woodcraft they have great stores all across america and over 70 metropolitan cities but if
there's not one local to you you can check out their website i've got a link down below in the
description where you can check out all the stuff i'm using in today's project and a big thank you
to woodcraft for sponsoring today's video now of course working on the ground is fine when needed
but scratch your head every once in a while and make sure you really need to be there ah yes this
is much better i put the plywood panel on the frame and at this point my engineer kicked in
and i started precisely laying out the screws to hold it down don't ask me why i do this
just enjoy the precision and rapid screw install before it's all for naught in about three minutes
the top of the lumber rack is gonna be out of two by fours and i'm gonna make those in an
a-frame style with a three-degree tilt in on them i looked at a ton of different lumber rack designs
out there and a lot of them use sheet goods but if you use sheet that's on top you're going to have
two full sheets just on making those side frames so using the two by fours is going to help us
reduce the total amount of material that we need and when the price of two by fours goes back down
this lumber rack will be even cheaper to build i set the saw for a three degree miter so that
i could cut the boards on edge you could also use the bevel setting on your miter saw and cut
them flat but i hate using the bevel feature i don't know why i hate that either i just do
the cart has four sets of the a-frames and i cut all the tall sides first and the stop block worked
great for these and i got two sides per 2x4 now if the legs of the a-frame i'm going to
go ahead and cut the connector pieces that go in the middle i'm going to start with the top one
and that one is very small so i'm going to use this little 10 inch spacer and i'm going to keep
my hands very far away from the blade so make sure when you're cutting those small pieces don't get
the urge to put your hand in there keep it away either clamp it or do what i'm going to do which
is going to hold the board on the other side and then let the saw stop before i remove the piece
the connectors have opposite angles on each side so that they'll fit in between those two side
pieces so after each cut i flipped the board over before i made the next one this saves wood also
and it lets you get a lot more out of the 2x4 all right so i've had a little bit of a development
i laid out the a-frame and i started to assemble it just to see how it would look
it's just too narrow on that top and i want a little bit more room so i'm actually going to
adjust it by about an inch and increase that top size sometimes when you draw things on a computer
and then when you see them in real life there's a little bit of a difference but the beauty is is
that you don't have to do that because i make the plans for you which i will be adjusting to meet
these new dimensions if you want the plans that are available for this there's a link down below
in the description for you to check out as i jump back to the saw to make the next cuts i forgot
to let the blade stop and here's what can happen without support on the wood the spinning teeth can
grab the block and just send it flying so don't do that now for the next set of the connectors
the block was long enough that i could clamp it to the fence during the cut this is a way better
way to go and it prevents a game of find the wood block after you blast it off of your saw i
cut the rest of the connectors for the a-frames to finish off all the parts so that i could assemble
all right fast forward i actually put one of these together and this is just not what i was
looking for there's just not enough storage here and also the three degrees is just a little bit
too tall and i want to make sure that they don't fall over or anything so i'm going to
redesign it at 5 degrees widen this up and i'm actually going to make the base wider as well
so don't be scared if you're in the middle of a project and you think it's not going well
you can always change direction yep i had to remove all those rigorously spaced screws that i
just laid out and expand the base for the new size i think it was just a sign that i need to just
let that precision thing go or maybe it's just today's version of mistakes were made now breeze
through this portion since you've seen me do this song and dance already but i was able to
reuse almost all the wood from the base and the frames but the only parts i couldn't use again
were the two smallest connectors they'll make good door stops or something but after patching the
plywood panel onto the new base i set my saw to five degrees and i remade all the a-frame pieces
with the new dimensions and then i could jump into assembly i grabbed a pair of the sides for
an a-frame and i clamped them together then i laid out where each connector wrong would
fall on both sides for a good visual cue when i'm putting in each rung now these are a little
bit odd to try and put a clamp on them and screw them together so i put my hand clamp to work here
now of course the hand clamp is only so strong so i drilled pilot holes first before driving
in a two and a half inch screw and this takes a little bit more time but it's going to make
sure that those connectors are in the right place that you need them now attaching the other side
is a lot easier since you can clamp everything together and do several of the pilot holes at once
all right and this size feels a lot better i feel like i'm going to be able to definitely fit some
more wood in here and also the angle on this guy is going to be more comfortable and make sure that
that wood is not falling off so i'm going to go ahead and make the other three and then we
can get them onto the platform let's just rinse and repeat again here but it's a good idea to
check the assemblies against each other as you're making them to make sure that things are lining up
correctly at one point i'd mark the last rung an inch too low but it quickly stood out when i set
it next to the other ones unfortunately i didn't catch everything i've got the four a-frames here
and i'm going to connect those with plywood after i get them on the base but i forgot to put pocket
holes on the base because that's how i'm going to attach them so if you're going to build one make
sure that you drill the pocket holes beforehand and not after it's assembled because it'll be
a lot easier before putting the a-frames on i attached the casters that i'll be using i have
these industrial casters that were from another project and they're rated at 325 pounds apiece
so i'm just going to be using four here if you're using regular duty casters you'll probably want to
go with another pair in the middle because this thing fully loaded is going to be really heavy
then i flip the base over and i use my combination square to mark reference lines
so they'd be exactly the same space from the edge i started with one end and then i put the frame
flush with the short edge and i secured it to the base with two and a half inch pocket screws
then i could use the same spacers that i used from assembling the base to locate the next frame
this puts it right over the bracing that i did use for that base frame
and will make a really solid connection i went to the other end and i repeated the same process and
had everything in place and now is also a good time to check your assemblies for some wonkiness
so we all know that two by fours are notorious for having some twists and turns to them so i
used my six foot level and if you have any kind of long straight edge you could do this to check
to make sure everything is in the same plane this back one was actually out a little bit so
i'm going to loosen it up and pull it flush but you can use this on both sides to make
sure that everything is in the right plane before you move to the next step and start
putting the plywood strips on and next i needed some plywood strips ripped at five degree angles
now since the two by four frames are giving all of the support and the structure to the lumber rack
we don't need full sheets of plywood on the sides these strips of ply will let the large
sheets just slide along the rack and keep the other wood from falling as it's laying against it
i've got all my strips here and they have the five degree bevel so that when i put it up against
the sides here it's going to match that angle and have a flat top so there will be one strip across
the top which will allow me to put some quarter inch plywood and make this a full shelf and i'll
be able to do the same thing lower down i clamped a scrap of plywood to the rungs to position the
strips on the same plane and it worked really well also using quick clamps as a third hand is great
for holding up those long strips while you're working on the other end of them i only used
one screw per a-frame and i made sure to check behind each strip so i wasn't hitting the screws
that were holding the rungs in and to keep any material from sliding off the edge of the cart
i ripped two strips from the last section of the plywood i attached these up about one inch off
the base using yet another scrap piece to help with alignment and this is why i don't throw
out scraps i'm always grabbing them for stuff like this and they just all seem so precious
now you could leave the middle wrongs open but i have a lot of smaller offcuts that i want to
put in here so i'm going to be using a sheet of luan and yes this stuff is still pretty cheap to
cover up those openings i used a full-size strip for the top of the cart and i'll probably put my
most used items up here like spacers shims and the such and i attached the luan with some me nails
now for the interior shelves i cut the sheet into three strips for each level then i could
mark where the frame landed and cut out notches so that it would go around it and slide into place
now this worked out great for the second and third shelf but for that fourth shelf the plywood just
got too wide and i couldn't wedge them in there so i just clipped the entire corners enough for
it to pass by the frames and then they could slide right in and for one more custom feature
i decided to dedicate a small space to some vertical storage i cut some of that leftover
plywood to rough size first and i also cut the outer supports then i took the large piece to my
bench and i laid out a line to match the lean back of the uprights and then i could fit the opening
at the bottom as well the kreg track saw is great for cutting angles on small parts like this
after that first cut i could use that piece to mark the second piece that i wanted to cut and
have an exact match easy peasy i drilled pocket holes on the bottom and angled sides and then i
attached them to the cart and i put that first side flush with the end after both sides were
on there i pre-drilled the supports and i screwed them on to the front these will keep any of those
skinny parts from falling forward i cut two dividers and i attached them to the upper and
middle support to segment that bay into two parts this little stand-up bin right here would be great
for things like dowels or any other little things that i want to just have all contain right here
but you could also go all the way down and have the vertical storage all the way across but i tend
to have more sheet goods so having full sheets on the back and sheets on this side is going
to work for me and also in general if you need a smaller footprint you could do a four foot version
as well which would work great and you've probably noticed it but we've got new merch mistakes
were made t-shirts linked down below in the description if you want to grab one for yourself
and now came the fun part loading this bad boy up i grabbed the large sheets of plywood that
were leaning on the lathe stand first now the mdf isn't full width but it is still eight feet long
and it does fit nicely on the cart with a foot overhang on each end now the wood i was
storing vertically here it got swallowed up by the interior shelves of the new cart and i was taking
all the short offcuts from this rickety rack and trying to find the best spot for everything
i'm probably going to be rearranging these after i use it some to see where things fit best
but i definitely sent some of those smaller pieces to the s'mores pile now this sucker holds
a ton of wood and it's going to make way for the redesign that i've been looking for in my shop but
apparently chuck has other plans for it oh man i've always wanted to ride one of these things
if you have plans to build your own wood cart i've got a link down below in the description
where you can pick those up i've also got some videos queued up for you right here
for some more shop organization and i want to give big thank you to all those folks
that are joining the builders club thank you so much i'll catch you guys on the next video