Wednesday, October 7, 2015

A Little Cart For A Big Job

With all the projects that have been going on around the workshop over the past months this one is an easy one that saved my back and my bucks all at the same time.  I will be getting some cement work down here at home and a small retaining wall had to be removed during the process.  This was made up of cast concrete blocks that are simply stacked on top of one another to make a flower planter like the one on the right side of the photo below. 
 
 

The only problem is that each of these blocks weigh around 60 or 70 pounds each. A back breaker to move to say the least.  So this is what this project is about.


Since I did not own a toy wagon to haul the concrete blocks from one place to another nor did I wish to purchase one (Have you seen the cost of a toy wagon lately?) I built this little platform cart. 
 
 
The little cart is only 16" x 11" x 6" inches tall.  I did want to make it larger but with the scrap lumber that I had laying around in the shop this was the best I could do on short notice.  Since I also wanted to make this as cheaply as possible that also worked in my favor.  The six inch lawn mower wheels I also had sitting on a storage shelf that I used in several other temporary projects so they were pressed into service once again.
 
 
The cart was screwed together very simply by using 2 x 4 lumber to match the 11 x 16 inch 3/4 inch thick top platform and long enough wood screws to hold every thing in place.  Put this project into  even more simple description.... it's a box with wheels. 
 
 
The wheels are held on using 1/2 inch long bolts with lock nuts with nylon inserts on the inside of the cart.  I tightened these up just tight enough to hold everything in place but not so tight that the wheels would not spin freely.   To move the cart around on the ground I drilled a hole through the center of one of the ends of the cart to allow a rope to be tied to the cart so I could pull it where I wanted it to go.
 
 
Once the cart was ready it made simple work of moving these heavy blocks into my garage for storage until the concrete work is completed and they can be moved back next to my driveway to reinstall the flower planter.  It was much easier to move these blocks from the wall to the cart to the new location without having to carry them 30 feet or more by hand.  I did that the first time and nearly broke my back in the process. This little cart will serve my purpose well enough and when the job is done I'll tear it down and use the parts again on the next project if I have no further need for the little cart that handled this big job.

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