Rockler Material Mate
NOTE: This article doesn’t really have as many images of the build as I would have preferred. I was in a bit of a rush to get this done in one day and the pictures suffered in the wake of progress. I’m still trying to get the hang of documenting every aspect of a project.
The Rockler Material Mate has been a very useful part of my workshop. In my previous shop layout, it was used as both a plywood handling cart and a table I could sit at with my wireless keyboard and mouse while working on my laptop on the big TV. Since I’ve changed the layout, the cart has mainly been a small secondary assembly table in addition to material handling duties.
I have plans in the near future to make some changes to my assembly table/workbench, and this will necessitate moving my small air compressor out from the drawer under the assembly table in which it is currently housed. Since Rockler supplies free plans for the making of a cabinet to fit under the Material Mate, utilizing otherwise wasted space, I modified the plans and was able to fit the air compressor under the cart.
I made a few other changes to the plans which can be seen below.
With careful planning, the entire cabinet can be made with only a single sheet of 3/4” plywood. I created a cut list based on my Sketchup drawing of the cabinet and printed that out.
It Has Begun (thank you Shang Tsung)
Before breaking down the sheet of plywood into more manageable pieces, I first checked to see if the plywood was actually square, which it was not (most usually are off just a bit). This was easy enough to remedy with the aid of my track saw and track square. I set up the track to take just a blade’s width off the edge. While the track saw has pretty good dust collection, this does not apply when making a cut on the edge of a sheet of plywood. The dust went absolutely EVERYWHERE in the shop. Thankfully I remembered to have my air filtration running before I started (of course I had my dust mask on the whole time as well).
Now that I’ve got a nice straight and square edge, I set up the track saw to cut the plywood into two pieces, the larger of which has the cabinet bottom, sides and divider and drawer bottom. Once I cut the plywood, I made sure to mark on each piece where the square edge was for future cuts.
With the bottom cut to length and width, I placed it on the bottom of the Material Mate for a test fit...LIKE A GLOVE!!! Well, almost. Because of the design of leg supports, the plywood bottom does not sit flush on the base of the cart.
I’ll have to make a notch where the plywood meets the leg supports. I made sure the bottom was flush on all four sides of the frame and then marked a line with a square and a pencil. I transferred the line to the bottom of the panel and laid out the section to notch out.
I used my small trim router with a straight-cutting bit to clear out all of the material. I made sure to go just a shade over the lines to give myself a little bit of wiggle room when fitting the panel in place. Now, the track saw made a bit of a mess when I used it to trim the edge of the plywood earlier. That was like a couple of small breadcrumbs compared to the dust cloud caused by the trim router. I really thought about using my big router as it has a dust collection attachment, but I felt it was just a bit too big for this task. Fine movements are easier to control with the trim router. I just can’t win in this situation.
The notches aren’t the prettiest, but they serve their purpose just fine.
After cleaning up the mound of dust left behind by the trim router, I slipped the cabinet bottom into place and it fit perfectly.
Improvise
Next I cut the side panels and divider panel to size. They are 17-1/4” square, so these were easy enough to cut on the table saw. Now, because the nuts and bolts holding the vertical supports in place on the leg supports stick out a bit on the inside, I needed to drill a couple of recessed holes to allow the sides to sit flat against the vertical supports. The original Rockler plans have the sides inset by 3/8” to allow for easier assembly, but I didn’t take that into consideration when I drew up my plans.
With the holes drilled, it’s now time to assemble the sides and bottom. To make this step a bit easier, I took advantage of two of the Rockler Clamp-It Corner Clamping Jigs that I had. This allowed me to get the sides nice and square to the bottom and kept everything in place while I screwed the side to the bottom from under the bottom panel.
Next was to install the assembled piece back under the Material Mate. Yeah...about that. There was a slight problem with that idea. I knew I would have to squeeze the sides in a bit to get them to slide past the bolts on the leg supports, but I wasn’t able to deflect the sides enough to move the assembly into place. I unscrewed the sides from the bottom and wound up using pocket holes instead. I went with the pocket hole on the outside of the cabinet as they would have more material to bite into. I didn’t care that they would be showing as this is a shop project.
Adapt
With the sides now back in place, the recesses I drilled earlier worked out great and everything was fitting together quite nicely. That is until I realized one fatal design flaw on my part. You see, the Rockler plans have the top of the cabinet 1-1/4” down from the top of the sides. This allows room for the latch arm on the back of the frame. I didn’t have this piece in my original drawing of the Material Mate cart and never even considered it when designing my version of the cabinet.
I can fix this in one of two ways. I can just go ahead and cut the dados and resize the top (it hasn’t been cut to final length yet anyways) or I can just trim the sides and divider panel down to allow the top to sit flat on the sides, but still give clearance for the latch arm. Since getting the dado stack set up in the table saw and making a lot of test cuts would take just way too long, I opted for the latter choice and just trimmed the sides and divider. To give myself a little extra room with which to play, I went ahead and raised the table up 1” as well. This brings its surface above my current assembly table, but my new one can be adjusted to meet this new height anyway.
Because I had already drilled the pocket holes on the divider, and I cut off part of the pocket holes in the process of trimming the piece to size, I wound up rotating the divider 90° and drilling more pocket holes. Now the divider has pocket holes on all four sides and looks like absolute garbage. Again, it’s a shop project and I simply don’t care at this point.
After making the trim cuts, I screwed the sides and divider into place and double-checked that my top would fit. Thankfully, it fit with about 1/2” to spare...crisis averted.
Here you can see the top of the cabinet just clears the latch arm (after trimming the sides and raiding the table).
With the carcass of the cabinet completed, I opted to get the air compressor drawer built next. I skipped putting the back on at this point as it was easier to install the drawer slides without the back in place. I’ve installed enough drawer slides in the shop to know better by now.
When cutting the drawer bottom to size, I made sure to cut it 1/16” smaller than I measured. This gave me a little bit of room in case my panels weren’t perfectly parallel (they were straight this time, for once). I didn’t want a repeat of the problems I had with the drawers on my scrapwood storage cabinet.
The drawer went in without a hitch, so I decided to install the back next. I initially thought about screwing the back into place, but I figured just some brad nails would suffice in this case. The back isn’t really structural in this instance, so screws were a bit of overkill.
Overcome
With the back in place, I went ahead and got the short back piece and the short back sides and divider screwed into place. More pocket holes were used here, except the sides only had one each in them because of the notch I cut into the bottom panel (not enough material in which to screw). I just put a couple of screws in place through the face of the short back panel and these hold the sides in place just fine. Again, not a lot of structure needed as these as pretty much just cubby-holes.
With that last screw put into place, this cabinet is complete. I put my air hose in one of the back compartments and the small accessories bins in the other. My tire inflator and foot pump just sit on the top of the cabinet out of the way.
I put my air compressor into place on the drawer and screwed it down with some metal hanger strap. The compressor has rubber feet on the bottom, so it’s not likely to slide around, but this will ensure there is no unnecessary movement.
I initially had some concerns that if the drawer was fully extended with the compressor installed it would be a tipping hazard. The compressor itself is about 50 lbs. The Material Mate is over 60 lbs, the top on the Material Mate is 40 lbs, and the weight of all of the plywood used for the cabinet is probably close to 60 lbs. Given that there is around 170 lbs. of weight to offset the compressor, I don’t think I have to worry about this thing tipping on me.
The Verdict?
I’m happy with the overall results of this build. I had to make a few changes on the fly due to my own mistakes in planning (that happens sometimes). I made one big mistake which I couldn’t figure out until I slept on it for a night. When I was installing all of the pocket screws, I didn’t know why they were just starting to poke through the boards. It dawned on me what the problem was as I went to bed that night.
You see, the last time I used the pocket hole jig was for the Garden Hose Box. Because that was built with thicker material, I needed to adjust the jig back to 3/4” for the plywood I used for this project. No problem, that’s just a simple thing to change. However, I failed to make the same adjustment to the stop collar on the drill bit to compensate for the shorter screws I was using here. This caused all of the holes to be drilled just a shade too deep, resulting in the screws poking through. I’ll just have to live with this mistake (it’s not really going to affect anything in the end anyway).
Another thing that resulted from straying from the Rockler plans for this cabinet is the fact that I cannot tip the table all the way over having it rest on the frame to carry sheet goods. The back portion of the cabinet is interfering with this operation. Also, with the table angled, the table extension will hit the cubby section on the back as well. I don’t tend to use the Material Mate to transport sheet goods in the fashion anyway, so I don’t think it will be a major issue. I tend to just load plywood flat on the cart straight from my truck and slide the sheets over my outfeed table, over my table saw and onto my assembly table.
Finally, with the sides of the cabinet being butt against the leg supports, I cannot adjust the height of the table in the future. If I want to adjust the height, I’ll have to take the cabinet apart. It’s not glued together, so that wouldn’t be that big of a problem, but it would still be a pain in the ass. That extra 3/8” inset of the sides is likely to accommodate accessing the nuts for said future adjustments. No matter, as I don’t see me changing the height anymore.
This is the first of a number of shop projects I have planned for this year. Next up will be some sleds and jigs for the table saw, most of which are WAY overdue to be built.
***UPDATE: February 2023***
It’s been a little over two years since I built the cabinet for my Material Mate. It is basically just a place to house my air compressor and accessories at this point. Since I last updated my workshop layout in November 2020, I no longer need the Material Mate to move sheet goods from my truck into the shop. I simply back up my truck close to the garage, unload things onto the Rockler Table Saw and Router Cabinet, over the table saw and onto my Rockler Workbench where I break down the material further.
Currently, the Material Mate resides under my hardwood wall storage along the side wall. Due to some other changes I’ve been making in the shop recently, I’m leaning towards getting rid of this cart as I no longer need it for its designed purpose. Having it to only hold my compressor and hose is not a good use of the floor space.
Once I make a final decision, I will post another update here.
***RETIRED: June 2023***
I have made the decision to part ways with the Material Mate after all. I’ve gone a little bit of a different direction in the shop and now have two additional workstations taking up space on the floor, necessitating the Material Mate’s ultimate demise. In the space it once occupied, my finishing station now finds its home, with the air compressor simply sitting on the floor right next to the garage door.
I have a standalone router table setup once again. I have a few reasons for going with a separate router table once again, and they can be found in my latest shop layout update.
In addition, I now have a new sanding station that sits next to my workbench. Again, my reasoning for this change can be found in the article I just linked.
This marks the retirement of the Rockler Material Mate from my workshop. It will be sold and whatever I make from said sale will go towards recouping some of the cost of the newest workstation additions. For the limited time that I used the Material Mate for its intended function, it worked exactly as advertised. Had I known I would go in a different direction with certain tools and layout, I might now have purchased it in the first place (hindsight, of course). If I had a much larger shop that was spread out a lot more, this cart might prove useful again. However, short of my winning the lottery and being able to lease/buy a commercial space, that is likely never going to be the case.
