# Out of Arms' Way



## Chips O'Toole (Aug 20, 2022)

For maybe a decade, I've been using a Northern Tool plastic cart to hold my 2x72 and 1x42 grinders. Northern Tool says it can hold 500 pounds. Don't you believe it. I have a fraction of that on it, and the vertical members are bowed. It's a good product, but it's not THAT good.

It's also open, so storage is not good, and grinder dust falls on whatever you put in the bottom tray. I have learned I can redirect dust with little steel flaps on my tool arms, but the tray is still a bad storage option.

I got myself a 44" US General tool chest, and I used the existing screw holes to mount two horizontal members holding up a vertical tube with 5 arm sleeves welded to it. 

When I put my big grinder together, I had a couple of spare VFD's, so I didn't want to splurge on a new dustproof job. I bought a Bud Industries box and turned it into an enclosure. When I started planning the new cart, I wanted to go ahead and get a new VFD, but that felt like a betrayal of the home shop community, so I made a shelf for the new cart's arm rack and bolted the enclosure to it. Grinding dust has never gotten into this box, and the control panel is mounted remotely.

I got a piece of 3/4" plywood. I'm going to screw the grinders to it and put it on top of the chest.

I usually paint my fab projects with truck bed coating, but I plan to do this one in farm implement paint in John Deere green. I am starting to appreciate color in the shop. It makes the place less dreary, and it also helps aging eyes see what they're working on.

People have said grinding dust will kill the slides on the drawers. I think that's just Internet people, doing what they do best: talking about things they don't actually know about. I should be able to keep dust out. If it turns out to be an issue, I'll turn the plywood so the dust falls on the back of the cart.

This went really fast. Not a hard project at all. Now I need more tool arms.


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## ChazzC (Aug 20, 2022)

Load ratings for carts, shelving and the like assume evenly distributed loads. Adding the reinforcement helps distribute the point loads from your grinders.


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## Chips O'Toole (Aug 20, 2022)

Yes, and this load was evenly distributed.


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## Winegrower (Aug 20, 2022)

A cart that fails at less than rating is bad enough.   I wonder sometimes about the HF engine hoists at 2 tons.   Mainly when I have a 1.5 ton load rolling it around over roughish concrete.  

Are there any actual standards in use for these kind of ratings?


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## Chips O'Toole (Aug 21, 2022)

I wouldn't say the cart failed, exactly. It just sagged enough to be annoying.


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## jrkorman (Aug 22, 2022)

Sagging is close enough to failing for me. It's not doing the job it was meant to do.


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## tq60 (Aug 22, 2022)

That 500 pounds is 125 pounds on each wheel. 

Not in pounds per shelf or Sq inch.



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## Chips O'Toole (Aug 22, 2022)

So you're saying the cart won't hold 306,000 pounds. Good to know.


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