A mobile shop cart and tool base to fit under my Festool MFT

[Frank Pellow]

I have posted a thread with lots of pictures about this cart on the Canadian Woodworking forum.  Here is a link to the thread:http://www.canadianwoodworking.com/forum/showthread.php?t=15336

October 2008: I decided to copy the bulk of the material that I originally posted in the Canadian Woodworking thread into this thread.  Please go reply #7 later in this thread in order to see that material.

 

[JayStPeter]

Nice job Frank!

 

[John Langevin]

Frank,
WIth the finished top on the cart will you still have hand access under the MFT for positioning clamps and tightening hand screws etc. without rolling the cart out of the way?

 

[Frank Pellow]

Thank's Jay.

John, that's a good question.  The clamps that I use the vast majority of the time on my MFT are the Festool Clamping Elements (item 488 030) and the Veritas Bench Pups from Lee Valley.  They both fit with the cart in place under the table.  Even with the cart under the table there is one row of holes free on each side.  Clamps that protrude further beneath the table, such a Veritas Wonder Dogs, can be used in these holes (and that is where I usually used such clamps even before I built the cart).

 

[Frank Pellow]

Here is one picture of the cart under the MFT.

[attachimg=#1]

 

[John Langevin]

Frank,
Nice work, especially the drawers and knobs. Is that a flat pullout tray under the Ridgid Sander?

 

[Frank Pellow]

Frank,
Nice work, especially the drawers and knobs. Is that a flat pullout tray under the Ridgid Sander?

Thanks John.

About your question: no the plywood is attached to the base of the sander and I have attached 3 roller strips to the cabinet.  The base slides out easily over the roller strips.  To see this in detail, please go to the link that I included in the first post in this thread, then look at point 11) in post #15 in that thread.

 

[Frank Pellow]

• 23 January, 2007:
  
  I have recently purchased a couple of tools and received a couple more as gifts and I need to find room for all of these in my crowded shop. I am in the early stages of designing a mobile cart where they will be used and decided to record what I actually end up building and using in this thread.
  
  First of all the tools. They are:
  • A Triton 2.25 hp router  
  • A Ridgid combined spindle and belt sander
  • A Veritas Mk II power sharpening system. See: http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=1&p=48435&cat=1,43072
  • A Viel Sander/grinder. See: http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=1&p=44884&cat=1,43072
  
  Here are some rough drawings that show what I am thinking of building:
  
  [attachthumb=#1]    [attachthumb=#2]  
  
  The cart will fit under the Festool Multi-Function Table which means that it can not be very high. The middle of the top surface will be an indentation into which the bases supporting various tools will fit when I am using those tools. The sander will be stored in the cart itself. The sharpening tools and the router table insert will be stored elsewhere.
  
  That's as far as I have gotten.
  
  25 January, 2007:
  
  After spending more than two hours yesterday at my favourite woodworking library (that is, my local Lee Valley store), I have decided upon a cart that will serve as the basis for mine. The cart that I picked is featured in the 90th Issue of ShopNotes. I assume that it is OK to show a magazine cover without breaking copyright (in fact, it is good advertising), so here that cover is:
  
  [attachthumb=#3]
  
  The ShopNotes cart is very heavy and solid and that's what I am looking for.  My cart will have to smaller than theirs in order for it to fit under the Festool MFT; but I think that the plans in the magazine can be easily adapted.
  
  28 January, 2007:
  
  OK, I have now built the carcass of the cart so and am able to test it out. Here is picture of the cart under my Festool Multi-FunctionTable (MFT):
  
  I am going to have to put the MFT up on blocks in order to accommodate the cart. But, that's not a bad thing because I would like the MFT to be a little higher anyway.
  
  The cart carcass is made of 18 millimetre thick baltic birch plywood. There are double thicknesses on both the top and bottom. The following parts will be added:
  
  • Hardwood trim on all edges
  •  Two layers of ? inch MDF on the top and some 1/4 inch tempered hardboard on top of that.
  • A square indentation will be cut into the top layer of MDF and hardboard and this ?slot? will accommodate the base of all the tools to be used on the cart
  •  Shelves on both ends as well as on a portion of the back
  •  Drawers in the smaller of the two openings
  
  Here is a picture of my partly completed router table positioned on the cart:
  
  [attachthumb=#4]
  
  3 February, 2007:
  
  I made good progress on the cart in the last little while. Here is an account of progress showing some of the steps in the construction.
  
  01) All the plywood edges of the cart were trimmed with hardwood. I used a couple of large rough-sawn boards (probably Beach) that a neighbour gave to me last winter for helping him clear and clean up his basement and garage. In the photo below, I am preparing to put one of the boards through my planer.
  
  [attachthumb=#5]
  
  02) The corner posts are substantial. In the following photo I am drilling a hole into one of the posts to support a handle:
  
  [attachthumb=#6]
  
  and here two posts and their enclosed handle are being installed:
  
  [attachthumb=#7]
  
  03) The cart will be heavy (about 200 pounds without tools or contents) so I installed 4 rotateable lockable casters each able to hold 125 pounds.
  
  [attachthumb=#8]
  
  Three of the four screws holding each caster are screwed into the hardwood framework.
  
  04) There is a double layer of ? inch MDF on the top with a rectangle cut out of the middle of the top one of these.
  
  [attachthumb=#9]
  
  I wanted to preserve the cutout so had to be quite careful making the cut. I did this by first drilling a couple of small holes right on the line near a corner then using a very small jigsaw blade to make a plunge cut. Here is the first such cut:
  
  [attachthumb=#10]
  
  05) I have a profiler attachment for my Festool linear sander that makes it very easy to sand the dowels (which were recycled from a previous life):
  
  [attachthumb=#11]
  
  06) I attached a layer of ? inch hardboard on top of the MDF. The idea is that this can be replaced in the future when it gets beat up. The plans suggested that I do this using double sided tape. I did try this:
  
  [attachthumb=#12]
  
  but, it did not work very well; I subsequently screwed down the hardboard from the top surface with slightly countersunk screws.
  
  07) Here is the cart with the insert that will be used when the cart is being stored and when it is being used as an assembly table, etc.
  
  [attachthumb=#13]
  
  08) Here is the cart with the spindle sander insert:
  
  [attachthumb=#14]
  
  09) Here is the cart with the partly completed router table insert:
  
  [attachthumb=#15]
  
  The wood on top of the router cabinet is just there to give me a feel of the location of the table top and the fence.
  
  11 February, 2007:
  
  I finished the cart this week.
  
  First of all, here is a picture of the finished cart stored under the Festool Multi-Function Table:
  
  [attachthumb=#16]
  
  Now, I will continue the description of the construction steps picking up with the numbering where I left off above.
  
  10) Locking slides were installed for five small drawers:
  
  [attachthumb=#17]
  
  The small chuck adapter on my drill came in very handy here.
  
  11) Lee Valley had some roller strips on sale this week for $3.50. I bought some to try them out in support of the sander insert:
  
  [attachthumb=#18]  [attachthumb=#19]
   
  They make the sander really easy to slide in and out. I went back and bought 17 more roller strips.
  
  12) The cart was finished with two coats of Spar Urethane. The top had an extra coat of urethane followed by three coats of Johnson Past Wax.
  
  [attachthumb=#20]
  
  I thank Rick Thom for the tip about the wax.
  

 

[Les]

Frank are you still working on attaching the pictures?

 

[Frank Pellow]

Frank are you still working on attaching the pictures?

Les, I just finished doing so.

 

[Frank Pellow]

13) Here the cart is being used with the work table insert:

[attachthumb=#1]

Notice that shelves have been installed at the end of the cart. There are also shelves at the other end and on a portion of the other side.

14) Here is the cart being used to support the spindle sander:

[attachthumb=#2]

15) And here is the cart being used to support the router table:

[attachthumb=#3]

Notice the electrical installation. I couldn't find a 20 amp power bar so I had to wire up my own.  The cord holder was constructed as per the plan for the cart in Shop Notes.

16) Here is one of the drawers that has been customized to hold router bits.:

[attachthumb=#4]

17) I still need to build a spot to hold the router table top when it is not in use. In the next week or so, I will build a cabinet in the spot shown below:

[attachthumb=#5]

that will extend the bench and will be used to store the router top, some Festool systainers, and some other tools.

18) This picture showing the router cabinet in more detail:

[attachthumb=#6]

One good thing about the Triton router is that the hose from my Festool vacuum fits the router?s below the table dust port. The result of this happy combination is almost no dust within the cabinet.

19) The fence that came with the Busy Bee router table clamps to the table but I found that the clamps did not hold the fence well enough. This appears to have been solved by gluing a narrow strip of sandpaper at the underside sides of the table where the clamps now have a non slippery surface to adhere to.

[attachthumb=#7]

20) And the final picture shows the back of the router table, fence, and cabinet:

[attachthumb=#8]

I still have to make some sort of alteration in order to be able to hook up the router table above the table dust chute.

22 January, 2008:

I have a good 16 inch bandsaw (an ACM Star 400), but it is a pain to change the blade to a small width, so I don?t bother. But, there are many small jobs that I would like to do with a bandsaw. So, I decided to purchase a small tabletop bandsaw.

After some time researching, the saw that I chose was the Craftsman 10 inch saw. The reasons for this are:

-The weight is right (about 70 pounds including the plywood base that I added). This is enough to make the saw stable but not too much for me to easily lift on and off the table.

-Almost all of the 40 or so reviews on the Sears US web site are favourable

-A fellow member of the Canadian Woodworking forum, Zhi Tian, forum is upgrading, and he offered me his old saw for a good price.

Zhi delivered the saw about a week ago and I have installed on a base so that it can share my mobile cart and tool base. I?ve also installed a smaller blade, tuned the saw, labelled all the knobs and such, and given it a good workout. Here are a couple of pictures of the saw on the cart:

[attachthumb=#9]

[attachthumb=#10]

 

[Frank Pellow]

There were photos missing in  this thread.  [sad]  I have now restored them all from my computer backup disks.  [smile]