CREEEEEEE-FOOORRRRRMM!!

A few months back someone at Terex bought two "beginner" sets of this industrial, multi-use, building material.  It's main purpose is to build industrial support structures, like benches, shelves, racks, and carts.  It won't hold most of the components we make our crushers out of, but it works great for holding tubs of bolts and for a mobile paperwork stand. 

Last weekend I got an opportunity to play with this stuff.  It's like an Erector Set for grown-ups.  We needed another bolt bin cart for one of my assembly areas, so I figured what the hell.

Below is a cart we have for the Impactor build station.  One of the team members in the Cone Sub-Assembly area liked it and wanted one like it.  "No problem," I said.

Here's the boxes and boxes of connectors - all sort of sizes and types.  You can really build just about anything you think of, with the proper planning.

This whole crate is full of tubes, all about 12' long.  There are 1" tubes and 2" tubes, well, sort of.  Everything is metric, except my tape measure.  

Here's the small tube cutter.  Pretty standard pipe cutting tool.  The pipe is thin-walled steel.  A couple of turns with the tool while tightening it on the tube has it cut in no time.  Hard on the hands if you don't have the right gloves. 

First step was to measure and count the tubes on the existing cart.  I'm making a slight change by making one end taller.  It will be the cart's handle.  The original cart has four swivel casters.  I want to save those for other projects so I'm using two swivel and two straight.  The tubes sticking up are offal and won't be used here.  

Box of corner joints.  They're two-piece with an inner and outer piece.

Joe Bag O'Nuts and his cousin, Jane Bag O'Screws.

I did mention gloves earlier, right?  These are cut resistant and totally inappropriate for this job.

I put the Bag O' family in a tote to make it easier to fish out what I needed.  Kept 'em in one place, too.  They like to scatter quickly - must be marsupials.

Metric T-handle comes with the start-up kit.  Hand painted coffee mug full of java does not.

Fitting the first corner joint.  They pretty well snap in place and stay there until you get them secured.

Like so:

Then you position the inner joint and insert the screws and nuts.

 Speaking of hardware, the nuts have an insert that helps hold it in position in the clamp while you position and start the screw.  Very nice feature and makes solo-assembly a breeze.

Got one end of the cart's uprights done, now working on the other end.  This corner will be at the bottom and the caster will fit into this tube.

On these corner joints, you put the bracket over the one tube, insert the other and lightly clamp down, then insert the third and snug all the bolts down.

Bottom complete.  Now to work on the shelves.

These clamps secure a cross tube into the middle of another tube.  I used a lot of these.

Since these are bolted on one side and are two-piece clamps, the non-bolt end is cut to lock into each other.

I have the bottom cross tubes that will support the lowest layer of totes in place.  Now to add the side rails that will hold the tubs in place.  Measured up on the original cart and will put corner clamps at the same height all around.

One cross bar in place.

Now the sides.  Since the totes are removable the one side must be kept open.  I'll add a lower cross bar to hold the tote on the cart.

Like so.  Start with one clamp, insert the tube in that clamp, then position the other end clamp on the cross tube and wrap around the upright.  

 Cross tube in place.  This should hold the totes on the cart.

Repeat the same processes for the next two levels of shelves.  Cart is on it's side, btw.  Just about done here.  Need to add the top tub containment rail and handle, then put the wheels on.

 Here it is nearly complete and upright.  This is the side from where the totes can be removed.

The casters insert into the upright tubes.  They have a long screw with a round nut that is a tight fit in the tube.  On the screw is a rubber tube.  Once the screw is inserted in the tube, you tighten the screw, which compresses and expands the rubber tube.  That's what holds the wheel onto the cart.

And there you have it.  Two hours of work start to finish (not counting the time I help my guys with real engineering work) and all I have left is to find some totes.