Saturday was yard day, and shopping day for the Sunday projects.
Sunday was great. I spent the entire day in the garage building stuff. While spending 10 hours in a hot garage breathing rust and weld particles can be tiring, it's soo much fun to see something come together at the end of it.
I recently purchased a metal craft workshop and needed a place to setup the tools. Our garage is a two car garage, but we really only have room for one car. The dog wagon is relegated to the driveway. The two cars are just too big to both fit, even if I didn't have tools spread around the perimeter. The metal workshop is centered around a scroll bender. The issue I ran into was that anything to be scrolled defined the radius of a circle required in space. A 3ft stock required a 6ft. diameter circle. This meant I couldn't setup a workbench against a wall. I needed to work in the center of the garage. This isn't conducive to parking a car. =)
The solution was to create a rolling workarea. Almost all my workstations in the garage use a wheeled solution. My welding table is on wheels. My radial saw is on a cabinet with wheels. Welder is on wheels. You get the point.
The issue with this new rolling work area is that it needed to be stable once it was in the center of the garage. Pulling metal around the scroller would just turn the cart in a circle. Locking wheels were an option, but I wanted to experiment.
I went through a couple of design ideas and finally settled on a dual lever setup.
The final implementation works very well, and only added about 6" to the width of the cabinet. I am now able to roll the cart out to the center, raise the wheels, and work.
The metal stock came from a huge drying rack Paul was able to scavenge. I have used pieces off it for a year or more.
First step was to cut all the stock down to the right sizes.
Second step was to drill the 1/2 holes for the all-thread rod which passes through the cabinet.
This was done in three steps. The final 1/2 hole was the worse. Used 1/3 of a bottle of oil to keep the bit lubricated.
Next step was to weld the rear lever to the pivot point. This double height setup allows the rear lever to sit on top of the front lever flat which was a key design to allow a simple mechanism to lock the two in a wheels down position.
With the arms completed, I moved back to the cabinet. The holes in the lever are 1.5" from the edge. I located the 1/2 rod 2" from the bottom, and 2" from the cabinet edge. This allows the levers to rotate in a complete arc. The image doesn't show it, but in the final build I added fender washers between the nut and the cabinet casing.
With the threaded rod installed, I tested the fit of the levers and determined where to place the wheels. I ended up just picking a random placement just forward of the hole for the threaded rod. Next step was to weld the casters to the levers. Unfortunately welding the caster burns out the bearings. Makes the swivel less than smooth. This doesn't matter much since it's moving across less than 10ft of floor.
Getting to the last of the build. I installed the lever arms with the casters. Using jamb nuts to lock the outer nut on. The wheels rotate up off the bottom and the cabinet sits on the floor. The weight of the 'stuff' inside it and the friction of the base on the floor is enough to stabilize it for scrolling.
To move the cabinet, I just lift the edge of the cabinet up a few inches. The weight of the levers rotate the wheels down. I built a little clip (using the metal craft tools) which slips over the outer two levers. It locks the wheels in the down position. Not pictured is a small tack weld on the clips. They worked without it, but I was in a welding mood.
And now the cabinet fits back in it's original location!
The metal workshop tools were installed on the top. That was it's own stroke of luck. There are four tools in the version I bought. A shear/punch tool, square brake, circle maker, and two different scrollers. The scrollers require a clear radius over the other items. I mounted them on a 2x6 platform. I got lucky in that the box allowed me to mount both scrollers on one box. To use the smaller one, I just rotate the box, add a 2x4 shim and they are both locked against the braces on the top of the cabinet. To use either the shear or square brake, I remove the box and I have enough space to work.
My other project was a tow dolly for the tractor. I had to relinquish the camera to Jeanette since she was going to see the newest addition to her family. I did manage to snap some pictures of the progress at the end though. I will have another post about it later.
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