Building A Bar Cart For a Mining Engineer

This was a fun little project I built for a client who is a mining engineer and a wine connoisseur. The overall design of the bar cart was taken from a miner’s dump cart. I visited a mining museum here in Colorado to get reference material for the design. I found that real mining carts are awkward and ugly in proportions, basically designed to fit as much dirt in them and still be manageable. So I took some liberties with the authenticity in the design to make it look sexy. I made the wood portions from the top, inner arch, and wine rack from ebonized oak. The rest was fabricated from mild steel stock. The base is 3” channel, the bent arch is 2” flat bar, and the frame around the top was fabricated from angle iron.  This is a great example of where wood meets steel.

For more Project photos of the Miners Bar Cart 

This project combined Woodworking and metalworking. The Ice bucket is made from white oak, and I burned the wood to create an old-world look. The wine rack is also white oak, and I did an ebonizing finish on it, dissolving steel wool in vinegar and hydrogen peroxide to turn it black. The inner arch is a bent lamination of 1/8” strips of white oak with the same ebonizing treatment.

The out arch is mild steel bent around the same form, with holes to accept the rivets, giving it a riveted-together look and adding to its old-world charm. The top frame has the same rivets and is made of angle iron to hold the wood top.

The chassis is made from a steel channel with cartwheels welded to it. To complete the look, a customized D ring and hook are added.

This was one of the most labor-intensive builds ever, especially in the metalworking areas since I have limited metalworking tools compared to my woodworking tools.

List of specialty tools and materials in this build

Forrest Woodworker II

Incra Miter Gauge

 

How to build a miner’s bar cart.

This bar cart for miners is equipped with everything a miner needs to stay properly hydrated and have a little class while working in the mine. We have our glasses, Ice bucket, and wine storage, all on a cart, ready to travel down the tracks.

The first step was to build a bending form to do a bent lamination to create the arches for the ends.

To ensure a good square surface to clamp to, I used the table saw to plunge and cut a straight line in the center of my template.

I cut the initial shape out at the band saw and faired the curve with a little hand sanding.

Once I was satisfied with the curve, I went back to the band saw to cut out the center, making sure to cut a series of flat spots on the inner edge for the clamps.

To create the offset for the outer clamping blocks, I used a router that was a bit closer to the same thickness as the finished arch.

I cut the outer ring into segments, glued and screwed plywood layers to build up the thickness I needed, and routed them to shape with a pattern bit.

I resawed some oak down to about 1/8” thick and prepped it for glue-up to create the bent laminations.

For this glue-up, I used a plastic resin glue that dries hard with very little spring back. This type comes as a powder and has to be mixed with water.

When I cut the strips, I tracked their order. This helped disguise the cut lines, as the grain would still flow as it flowed together from one strip to the next.

Once I got all the pieces stacked up, I screwed my form down to the table to prevent it from moving. This kind of glue-up will require some force to get it to bend around the form.

 

Then, I worked my way from the center to each edge, clamping out all the gaps so it was a tight fit all the way around.

I needed two of them, and each one had to sit in the clamps for a full day, so while the glue was curing on those, I went to work on the cart’s frame.

I used some 3” channels for the cart and cut out the frame’s basic parts.
I’m working mainly in a woodshop, so I hung some fire-resistant blankets to contain the grinder’s sparks and cleaned off the mill scale.

I traced the channel’s shape onto a flat bar to add some additional details to the cart and cut it out.
I then welded it in place to create an endcap. Once it’s ground smooth, it will look monolithic.

Before welding the cap on, I drilled holes in the frames’ ends and caps themselves.
The frame will be welded together; however, you know a little artistic depth to give it a steampunk vibe. I’m going to add some large rivets in these holes.
To give it a look and feel, it was built using rivets.

I welded the caps on, ground them flush, and then welded up the frame.

I welded up some angle iron to create a frame to hold the wood bar top.

I laid out for more rivets, propped the angle iron upon an old 2×4, and drilled out the holes.
Then, to install the rivets, I just tack-welded them in place from behind.
From there, I Clamped up the frame, checked it for square, and welded it up.

I picked up some hooks from the tractor supply store to modify so they looked custom-made for the cart.

They came galvanized and painted, so I had this jar of a custom acid blend lying around. I soaked them for about 10 minutes in it to remove the galvanizing and paint. The acid was also strong enough to etch into the metal, giving it an old-timey look.

I cut the rings for the cotter pin off, then cut a strip of metal to mount it to. I drilled a couple of holes in the side of the strip that I will later weld in some rivets to give the allusion that this plate was attached to the cart with Rivets. I think these little details give the piece more depth and visual interest.
I moved on to making a custom mount for the hook. I split the end of the Channel in half, creating 2 L pieces that I welded together. Once I ground the weld flush, it looked like it was one piece.

I drilled a hole for the hook’s cotter pin to pass through and welded it to its mount, which had the same holes for the rivets.
These Clips I’m welding on are what the wood brace will attach to hold up the top.
I know, I know, it would be cool if the cart rolled around on the wheels, but I don’t think it would be cool after it scratched the client’s hardwood floors, So I welded the wheels in place, and before I deliver it to the client, I will make some custom pads to go under the steel.

Back to the bent lamination rings, I wanted to add a metal band around them, tight to the wood like a wagon wheel. I had this plan I would also build a forge to heat the metal and bend it around the wood template. We’d have some flames and smoke, and I would have some really dramatic video to show you, but as the delivery date for this project loomed, I didn’t have enough time to build one, and the cost of buying a forge wasn’t in the cards. So I decided to cold-bend it in a less dramatic way.

So I bent it around the form to start the bend, and then went back between my bender and the form to take the spring back out of it.
This banding will also have decorative rivets installed, so I drilled some holes in it to accept the rivets. These will also be tack-welded from behind.
Once I was satisfied with the bend and rivet placement, I cleaned up the wooden portion of the bent lamination.
I joined one edge to clean it up. Then I added an auxiliary fence that was a little taller than my normal fence to give me a little bit more support and cut it to width.
And finally, I cut the hoops to length.

I milled up some stock for cross braces. The thick cross brace will attach the bar to the cart, and the thinner piece will be the end caps for the wine bottle holders.

I clamped the top piece in position to be sure my arched piece was in the right shape and traced the arch onto my end caps.

I cut the curve out on the bandsaw, being sure to leave the line.
Then I finessed the curve with my disc sand, slowly sneaking up to my line.
A little back and forth to check the fit as I went until I got a perfect fit.

I milled up some lumber to create the upper and lower panels for the wine rack.
The wine rack is basically little cubbies for the bottles to slide into.

I cut a dado down the center of the bottom board for the cubbies and then made a jig to help ensure each cubbie was spaced the same distance apart and that the corresponding dados in the top lined up exactly the ones in the bottom.
The jig is basically a plywood strip cut to the width of the cubby plus the width of the diver, then a strip of wood the same width as the dado glued to the edge.
This strip drops in the 1st dado cut, giving the router a ride against locating and cutting the next dado.
I worked my way from the center out and then did the same thing on the top; the only difference is that the top ones are stopped dados.
I squared up the dados with a mallet and chisel and moved on to cutting and fitting the cubby dividers.
I didn’t want the cubby dividers to have square ends, so I used the old paste wax can trick to draw in a radius.

I cut it on the bandsaw and cleaned it up with the spindle sander. Then, I used the first one as a template to trace out the rest and repeated the fabrication process.

I Cut some slots for floating tenons to be used to attach the end caps to the wine cubbies.

Before I did the final assembly, I prefinished all the parts using an ebonizing treatment to turn the wood black; the solution was a mixture of steel wool, vinegar, and hydrogen peroxide. Usually, it takes a few minutes to turn the wood black. However, this solution was leftover from a project I did last year, so fermenting it for a year seems to have made it especially potent. It almost immediately blackened the wood.

While that was drying, I moved on to making the supports for the bar top. They are going to be decorative curves. So I printed out a template of the curves and laid them out on the wood, ensuring I lined the grain up the best I could so I would have any week where the templates curved.
I rough-cut the parts out at the band saw,
Then, I joined the edge where the two halves come together with floating tenons.
After the glue had dried, I made a plywood template and pattern to route the final shape.

I also picked up the tractor supply store’s largest bolt in stock to attach the bar top to the frame. Also, it added a nice industrial mining look to the cart.

Now that the finish on the wine cubbies is dry, I did a little pre-assembly for this section. Once the glue dries, I’ll clean up the glue, squeeze it out, and finish ebonizing the rest of the case.

Before attaching the arches to the wine cubby, I ran a dado down the center. This will give the parts of the rivets that stick out the back of the metal banding a place to go since I want the metal banding flush with the wood.
This was kind of an awkward glue-up. There weren’t a lot of places to reference a square level line from, and my test fit revealed that the top panel was a little wide at the top, so I needed to scribe it in, which meant several more test fits as I dialed in the fit.

Now that I had the base dialed in, I didn’t want to risk tweaking the arches out of shape by doing the floating tenons the traditional way, So I set my mortise cutter to plunge as deep of a mortise as I could through the arch side and into the cross support.

While the glue was drying, I sandblasted the steel frame to remove all the mill scale and sprayed it down with a blackening agent to turn the steel a dark, rusty black color. This gave it an aged, greasy, well-used, just rolled-out-of-the-mine look.

We are down to the final assembly of the pieces. To be sure the steel band stayed tight to the wood, I used a high-strength epoxy to glue the wood to the steel band. The epoxy held really well, even though the steel was etched with the blackening agent.
Next, I attached the support piece to the frame. I dipped some bolts in the acid solution to remove the chrome before using them to bolt the frame to the support piece.
I dropped the arches and wine cubby assembly into the base and drilled the holes to attach them to the support pieces.
Then, I tackled the frame that will hold the bar top in place.
I did the final milling for the bar top and glued it all up. Once it was dry, I cut a dado around the perimeter to clear the back of the rivets I had welded to the frame earlier.
I measured the base of several different wine glasses, and of course, I got some weird looks in the store because there was a guy with an angle finder and tape measure sitting in the middle of the aisle surrounded by glasses, but hey, you do what you have to do.

Once I knew what angle would accommodate the largest variety of wine glasses, I tipped the table saw blade to that angle and ripped some support strips.
I ebonized and prefinished those parts, and when dry, I used a few wine glasses to be sure I had the proper spacing and screwed them to the underside of the top.
These little plastic spacers are to prevent someone from putting too many glasses in one slot and pushing one out the back.
The final thing to do was to stage it for some photos.