PalletCart 2 – It Continues

Completed! OK, not really. But you can pretend the bits are actually fitted in place.

The story so far: someone (me) drew a plan of a thing (PalletCart) and then had to lie down to take the weight off his brain (his arse). Thrilling, yes? Compared to some of the stuff that passes for entertainment (“The Man with a Face for a Face”, for example, which must be real since it is on the internet), I am tempted to write a screenplay for it. Anyway…

The first issue to overcome was that a standard pallet is just too wide for the path so I resorted to using a Jigsaw on a Sunny Day – which should be our Eurovision Song this year but for the fact that a) nothing sensible rhymes with jigsaw, b) nothing silly rhymes with jigsaw and c) I have only just thought of it. *Sigh* Another near brush with fame. Oh well, I managed to slice the pallet to the correct width and still have the same number of fingers at the end as at the beginning. This can be considered progress, believe me.

The Chassis (with the leftover bit of pallet waiting for a second chance)

In fact, I had to slice the pallet in half lengthways too after The Snail suggested that PalletCart might be unwieldy with such a long chassis. That was the following day which was less sunny so I resorted to an old-fashioned saw for that operation.

I needed chocolate afterwards to replace the sugar I lost with all that exertion. Plus, I really craved chocolate.

Next then, was to fit the two old wheels I had bought from a junk shop a few days before. Their acquisition was one of those times when the Universe appeared to guide things along. Our little car (“TinyCar” to its friends) needed a new tyre (well, two as it turned out) so The Snail and I headed to our nearest metropolis (Population: more than our town hence the metropolis tag). The tyre place is just up the road and round the corner from our favourite Organic Food Shop (hyphenation would tell you which is organic, the food or the shop, but let’s not go all Lynne Truss now). And between the two? A junk shop (no hyphens, they were out of stock).

On the wall outside this emporium of abandoned goods were a few sets of old, rusty wheels, from, let’s say, Roman Chariots. We can say it, but it would be wrong (probably). I think the two I acquired for the princely sum of £5 were from a ride-on lawnmower. Or maybe Bodicca’s transport (but with the knives removed).

 

A Hole lot of grief

A Spanner in the works – but in a good way

Fitting these involved cutting a wooden block to fix to the chassis that would hold the wheels and then drilling a slightly complicated hole. It had to be big enough to allow the axle through but small enough on both sides so that the retaining nuts would fit. It took some finagling and a bit of swearing*. The profile of the hole was this:

A (not-at-all) Technical Drawing (scribble)

After much drilling and general wood-mangling, I managed to fit the two loose wheels onto the chassis. Refreshingly, they didn’t collapse under their own weight.

And what went wrong? Well, I failed to notice that the wooden slat on one side did not stick up as much as the one on the other so the axle block (sounds posh, doesn’t it?) has nothing to screw into. Cue more swearing. The ‘extra’ bit is an off-cut from a bath panel. This is the bit I expect to break first!

The very definition of the word “Bodge”

Next up: the two wheels that are fancy and come with their own axle. Ooh, hark at them, aren’t they posh!?! Well, no, they came from something that neither myself nor The Snail can recall but they were lying around the garden doing nothing so were perfect for the project.

Fitting a (slightly) bendy axle and plastic wheels onto the chassis – what could possibly go wrong?

Two Wheels on my Wagon

oOo

* A LOT of swearing.