Kapex cart

[ear3]

Using the design of [member=11196]Peter Parfitt[/member] as a base (), I just made a shop unit for my Kapex, reserving the UG cart now for mobile use:

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Having never made a carcasse and drawer structure before, I thought it would be a good chance to practice some techniques and also get the opportunity to work with thicker wood.  I decided to just do the carcasse and not add the foldable wings that are found in the original plans -- I want to be able to do up to repeat cuts on 8 foot boards if necessary, which I couldn't see how to do, even if I designed some intricate, folding extension, so I've opted to add on a detachable extension wing in the future.

So I got two 8/4 boards of white oak and ripped all the carcasse members from them -- I initially started with the panther blade on my TS75, but found I got a better cut just using a fresh 30T Forrest blade on the table saw.

The panels are just 5mm underlay fitted into dadoes routed into the frames.  I used a combination of 10mm and 8mm dominoes to join everything together:

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I'm glad the domino is so forgiving, as it allowed me to correct a number of miscues, like this plunge from the wrong side of the board:

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There's also a couple of domino fills in the front from where I forgot to adjust the depth setting when mortising one of the drawer fronts, or when I made the notch on the center stiles on the wrong side, and so had to remortise on the opposite side and fill the now exposed ones in the front with dominoes.

The one thing I'm not happy with are the drawers.  I used red as opposed to white oak on the drawer fronts, mainly because I had some extra lying around that I wanted to use up.  I also decided to try out the rustic, undulating head on the HL850, and I thought that the contouring would help ameliorate any potential clash between the white oak frame and the red oak drawers.  But the contouring was greatly reduced after I sanded it, and the overlay of the drawers makes it look more institutional than I would like.  I tried to jazz it up a bit with some walnut drawer pulls I turned on the lathe.  But I still have some work to do in exploiting the full potential of the HL850.  Used 22" ball bearing slides:

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Final detail was to hide the edge of the plywood panel I laid on top, so I routed a profile into strips of the white oak stock I had leftover and attached them to the sides:

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I finished it with Osmo Polyx oil.  It's fully mobile with the casters, which I need since I do a lot of my cutting out in the driveway, and when I'm done I can slide the unit back into place:

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The only thing left to do is to make a left wing extension so I can do repeated/stopped cuts on longer and wider boards.  The UG extension wing works fine for material under 6", but does not provide optimal support for wider boards, especially those at the upper limit of the Kapex cutting capacity.  I got the Fastcap extension bracket, and so will manufacture something using this at some point soon.

 

[ear3]

Two more process photos showing the frame without the drawers and the installation of the slides:

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[ear3]

Finished off the extension wing for my cart.  Because I wanted the ability to do repeat cuts on longer pieces, originally I was going to use the Multiblades bracket to make a separable eing, sort of like what they have for the UG cart.  First version was a bit cumbersome though (I'm putting up the Multiblades bracket and hinged leg bracket for sale, BTW), so i decided to make a smaller one that attached directly to the cart.  I'm content to live with shorter integrated repeat cut capacity, and when I really need it, simply to attach the UG extension wing on the right side of the saw.

The design of [member=11196]Peter Parfitt[/member] secures the extension by building the carcasse verticals higher than the saw platform, then using hinged folding brackets to support the extension.  Since my cart was a simple box construction, I had to build a separate mounting unit, which I made as simple as possible so I could dial in the exact height from the top of the cart to the Kapex bed:

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I then made a wing out of doubled plywood with hardwood edging, on the underside of which I attached a piece of similar construction, except it had a central sliding dovetail so the leg could be extended and retracted, then secured in place using barrel bolts.  It's a design I used for the first time on the table saw extension I built the other week, and was happy enough with the results that I thought it would be good for this project.  Routed out a channel for the t-track in the extension and the mounting unit, then attached and leveled the whole assembly to the cart:

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As I did with the table saw extension, to prevent degradation of the leg I attached a piece of metal stock that I had grinded and countersunk:

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In addition though, I added a guide on the cart itself to indicate exactly where the leg should sit so that the level of the extension (from front to back) would be the exact same as the level of the mounting assembly/cart:

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Really happy I got the Stabila tech level over the summer -- since my garage and driveway are fairly rough surfaces, I'm not able to use the ground as a stable reference point, and so it was only using the digital level that I could match the pitch of the extension to the .35 degree skew of the cart in its particular nook:

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You'll see a had to put in a 1/32 wood shim on the cart -- for whatever reason the level changed slightly after I had detached and reattached the wing.  I know some people have solved this problem by installing a leveling screw at the bottom of the leg, but for support purposes I wanted there to be full contact between the leg and the cart, so the shim seemed like the best solution.  I imagine there will be some further shifting with seasonal changes, so I can swap out shims as necessary. 

One thing to keep in mind that I forgot before building the extension.  The rubber feet on the Kapex means it snugs down a small amount when you tighten the bolts attaching it to the surface.  So when I secured it to the cart I found it went slightly out of plane with the extension.  I suppose I could have added some washers or other shims to raise it back up, but I decided just to leave the bolts in and tighten the nuts just enough so that they touched the underside of the table top but did not pull the saw down.  The saw is heavy enough to rest securely in place, and when I move the cart around the loose bolts are enough to keep it anchored.

Forgot to take a picture of the extension folded down when not in use, but here's a picture from the other side at least:

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So I now have a 4 1/2 foot capacity to the left of the saw for fully supported stopped, repeat cuts.

 

[rich024]

Very nicely done!  I have the Paulk miter station but have been thinking about replacing it.  Might go with something like yours.  Thanks for sharing.

 

[Stone Message]

This is an excellent piece of work Edward. I particularly like the way that you have solved the support for the rising extension - using the sliding dovetail arrangement is sturdy yet simple.

Peter

 

[ear3]

And thank YOU for the inspiration [member=11196]Peter Parfitt[/member]

This is an excellent piece of work Edward. I particularly like the way that you have solved the support for the rising extension - using the sliding dovetail arrangement is sturdy yet simple.

Peter