Panel-Cutting Lumber Cart
***RETIRED: September 2018***
Another project that was a great idea in theory was my Panel-Cutting Lumber Cart. This was based on some plans that I got from the Woodsmith Shop. I really wanted something that would make breaking down sheet goods easier and more accurate. I had drawn it up in Sketchup, like I do with pretty much everything, and it was going to be a little bit more challenging to build than I had previously thought.
The cart stands at almost 6’ tall in this drawing, and that’s WITHOUT the 5” casters installed.
For starters, I underestimated the shear size of this thing. It was so tall that I couldn’t reach things on the top shelf without a step stool. Also, the side panels were difficult to cut out due to their odd shape. I eventually got it put together and loaded up the open section with most of the scraps that I had laying around. OH MY GOD!!! This thing weighed a ton. I had put it on some large casters because I knew it was going to be a bit of a handful to move around, but I had no idea how heavy it would really turn out to be.
One bright spot was that the main function of the cart, the breaking down of plywood, actually worked fairly well. The only drawback to using my circular saw for this was the unbelievable mess that it made. There was no way to collect any of the dust being created by the saw. This was the last straw for this project, so I decided that I needed to just bite the bullet and get a track saw. This would at least allow me to more easily break down plywood, but it would give me the opportunity to have some semblance of dust collection. The demise of this lumber cart lead to the creation of Lumber Cart 2.0.
