Barbecue (BBQ) Cart

This barbecue cart is a blast to make for a couple reasons. It's very simple, it's very useful, and I'm telling you that once you have one, you're going to be the envy of the neighborhood. So, couple things going on here. It is pretty straightforward construction. I used cedar for this one. You could also use treated wood. All stuff that's available at a home center. I've got a little bit of a taper on the bottom of the legs. I'll show you how to do that. Just to make it a little more delicate looking. On the front here, notice I've got my initials, so I'm going to show you how you can also brand yours just like this. And it's pretty cool because the way these initials go on here also ties into this being a barbecue cart. That will make more sense when it comes around. Wooden wheels that were produced on the band saw. Back here, a really nice element. This is a copper pipe here. Can't take credit for that. That was my wife's idea. And it really does a great job of accenting against the cedar that the rest of the cart is made out of. So, simple construction, something you can very easily put together in a weekend. And I can't wait to get started on this and show you how to make it. Let's talk about the material needs for this project. Have a look at the cut list, which is included on a PDF, on the DVD. And this is a case where you can take all the parts that are on that list and cut them out ahead of time and then sit down and put the whole puzzle together. For material, you want to stick with something that's good at being outside. So I've chosen to use cedar. You could also treated wood, white oak is a great outdoor wood. Mahogany's a great outdoor wood. So a lot of options out there. And one of the things to remember is that we want to cut each piece individually. What I mean by that is that lot of times when you go to a home center or a lumber yard and you buy what's called a one-by-four, some are three and a half, some are three and three eighths, some might be three and five eighths. So if you look at the cut list, there's a width recommendation there. And I think you need to take the time to cut every piece that you're going to use so that you know that they're uniform in width. That way, when we assemble parts, like the frames, everything is going to line up better. The two and a half inch slats that make up the bottom of the trays, those will come out of one by sixes. They can be ripped out of that. One of the things with the cedar is that, at least the way it's sold around here, it's rough-sawn on face, smooth on the other. So I sent every piece through the planer so it was smooth two faces. In many cases, we're going to assemble by putting parts together like this. If I had glue on that rough face it wouldn't have much of a bond at all. Speaking of glue... Want to make sure we use a good outdoor glue that's waterproof and can stand up outside. I'm assuming the cart's just going to live outside all the time. In addition to glue, we're going to use some fasteners. A lot of this cart can be be put together with the staple gun, and the fasteners aren't going to show at all. If you look at my outside corners, everything is put together blind. So I can't see any of the staples and the few screws that go into it are also invisible. The screws do need to be exterior screws. So these are deck screws, one and a quarter inch long. So, starting out, get your material, get everything cut to the sizes that's shown in the cutting list. And at that point, once you've got everything cut, you'll be ready to start on the assembly process. Before we can put anything together, we've got to get tapers cut on the arms, and we're going to do a similar process on the legs. So here's how this works. It's pretty simple layout. Measure one and a half inches from the edge in this way. Then six inches up this way and, using a straight edge, connect the dots. That's going to give you the angle we want. We're going to use that same angle on the feet on the legs. The next thing we need to do is curve this. And that gives us the curve back here. It also provides the center point for the counterbore for the handle. So when we lay this out, you want to make sure that you produce a left and a right. So if I put it on this face of this one it has to be on this face of this one so I have two handles going here. The way that you do that is by measuring seven eighths of an inch down from the edge seven eighths back from the end. That's the center point. Then with my compass I'm going to open that up until it just kisses the outside of the board there. And strike that circle. Now if I weren't showing you how to do this, if I was actually making these things, when I cut this I would use double-faced tape and put those together so I'm cutting both arms at the same time. That'll get you through the cutting and the sanding process, then take it apart. At the drill press what you're going to do is drill in with a seven eighths diameter bit. Because that's going to accept that three quarter copper pipe. And we want to go in seven sixteenths of an inch deep. And again, make sure that when you do that you have one counterbore going in this face, one counterbore going in this face so that they'll oppose each other and give you a left and a right handle. So get those cut, sanded, and the hole drilled and then these arms are going to be complete. Assembly on both the upper and the lower frames is pretty straight forward stuff. And I'm going to do everything using a stapler. Remember that as a general rule with fasteners we want the fastener twice as long as what you're going through. So I've got three quarter inch pieces. Putting the staple through I've got inch and a half staples loaded in the gun. There's nothing wrong with screwing everything together if you want to. If you don't have a staple gun and you want to pre-drill and screw for all of these joints that's fine. It's just that you're going to see the staple gun is nice and fast. It's a great way to assemble this. When you're working on your project pieces, pay close attention to parts that are of similar dimensions. So an example would be the slats are the same length as on the lower frame, the longer pieces there. So that when you're cutting those, say on your miter saw or table saw, you're cutting them all at the same time, making sure they're all coming out identical. That's going to make this assembly step so much easier. Now I've got my upper arms here. They're already to go. I've sanded the tapers, I've sanded the curves, I've got the holes counterbored. This part of the frame lives out here someplace. Exactly where it goes is determined by the length of the slats that go on the bottom. So the easiest way to make this happen, don't even bother measuring. Just lay a slat on here. I've got it flushed up on the left side. I'm going to make a mark here on the right end. And the piece I'm installing, the frame member, goes on this side of this mark, so that's why I put the X there. Then using a square, I'm going to extend that line all the way across the face. And onto the face of the other piece. I also want to just bring that line around the corner a little bit. So I'm just going to do that by eye. There. And there. And there. And there. And there. All right. Now, big thing here, don't forget to include the pipe when we get to that part of the assembly. It's going to be really hard to get it in afterward. In fact, it's impossible. So we really want to make sure you remember to include that. The easiest way to do this is to have this piece like this, this piece like this, this piece like this, without everything getting tippy on you. Like that. So what I'm going to do is use one of these clamps to help hold that vertically. One of these clamps on this one. That's going to really do a nice job of keeping everything stable. Now we're ready to glue and staple. I'm only going to get glue on one of these at a time. And then two staples per joint. Keeping these outside faces nicely aligned. Top and bottom aligned. It's nice that having ripped to uniform width the tops and the bottoms are a perfect match. Like I said earlier, don't sweat these little marks we have from the staple gun cause we're going to cover all of those anyway with the leg that goes on the outside. Now I'm looking for my ticks that I have on the outside of this piece. And I don't want to have a bunch of glue smears. So I really want to try to set the piece right down on my layout line. I can of course only see it on this side. So I'm going to get one staple here close to me. And I can peek over the top, align that side. Now. Did I mention earlier, don't forget to capture the pipe? Don't forget to capture the pipe. This is when this goes in. Watching for my layout lines. And same thing here. I just want to make sure top and bottom are aligned. And outside face. So, really does a nice job of showing just how fast it is to put those staples in. I can easily hold it with one hand, hit it with the other. And because all the fasteners are blind, you're not going to see those dimples once we have this all done. Next thing we'll get the slats on the bottom. Let me get reorganized at little bit. Then I'll show you a really easy way to get those slats spaced out. When you put the slats on the bottom of these. Do the two outside ones first. And they're going to get staples or fasteners in the outside and all the way down the long edge So as I work on an edge like this, when I'm putting parts together that are long, I always work as I go. So I'm pulling it back and forth to make sure it's flush. Kind of getting everything straight and everything aligned. And then I'm going to get that excess glue off of there. There. Now. Here's the trick to making sure the spacing on the other slats is absolutely perfect. I'm going to put them all on here. And that's not how they go cause all of our barbecue sauce would fall through that hole. What we're doing this for is so that you can measure this gap. Whatever number that is, we divide by the number of spaces that you have in between all the slats. Do the math, figure out how big that is, and then cut spacers to that size. So what's cool about that is that it pretty much guarantees that if you cut the spacers right you're going to get all the spacing uniform all the way across, and test it, like I'm doing here, just to make sure. And when they're all in there, you should be able to take one last spacer and just fit it into that last gap. So now we know the spacing is right. We don't need them all in there at one time for assembly. Next step, is just apply glue where the slat's going to live. So the easiest way to do that is on the bottom of the slat. Glue it. Space it. And staple it. Very cool. That takes care of the upper frame. The lower frame is actually easier to put together because we don't have the arms that extend out, we don't have the copper pipe to worry about. So this will just end up flush on the outside corners. The slats go on the bottom exactly the same way. So that assembly takes care of both the upper and the lower frames. The legs for the barbecue cart are pretty straightforward but keep in mind that we've got two different lengths that we're working with here. Front legs and back legs. The shorter legs are going to get the axle in them and that's why they're shorter, is because they're held up off the ground by the wheel itself. The layout on these is the same layout that you used on the handle. Inch and a half at the bottom, Measure up six inches, connect the dots, cut that out. Now the easiest way to get that taper on the shorter legs is to simply match them up here on the square end, trace the taper onto the short legs, cut that out. That's going to get you in just the right spot down here so the taper looks the same even though it's shorter, the leg itself is shorter. The holes are located thirty and a half inches down from the top, one inch in from the edge. You're going to drill a three quarter inch hole there for the three quarter inch axle to slip into. And then, quarter inch round over-on all four edges just like the slats have a quarter inch round-over on all four edges. That'll have the legs all ready to go. Little bit of sanding before you put everything together. That'll have them all set and ready to get attached to the frames that we've already made. Before putting everything together, I've sanded all of my parts here. And I've marked a line that's twenty two and a half inches from the end grain up here to this point. That shows me where the top of the bottom frame is going to be. And then using a square, I got that extended across all four of the legs. So, at this point, we only need two legs at a time. Now to put this together, I'm going to use this stapler to just pin everything and hold it. But then we'll come back and get screws in here. So the way this works is that the top assembly is going to go on just like this so that it's even with the end grain up on my side here. When I put this part together, when this leg goes onto the frame, the outside of the leg needs to be made even with this face. So in order to make that happen correctly I'm going to use my square and extend a line across here here and then I'll do the same thing on the other edge. For when we're ready to do the other leg. The barbecue cart works pretty good for a shop cart in here, too. It's doing a great job of holding my parts for me. Exterior glue. So I'm plunking this down right on that layout line that I just put on. There. This one gets made even with the outside corner. And then the rest of my positioning on this leg comes from aligning the end grain on the top of the leg with the long grain on the top of the frame itself. Then I'm going to put a staple in it just to hold it. And once the staple's in there I'll be better able to show you what I'm doing on this side. All right. So what that does is it positions the leg by getting the end grain even with the long grain. The edge of the leg right on that layout line. That tells me that everything is right there. And the leg here in my back corner. Same deal. I've got end grain even with the long grain. And then the outside of the leg over here even with the end grain on this side now. And these. I started with the staple just to pin it together. But then I'm going to come back and I'm going to drive two screws in each one and... Even though cedar is soft. And you might think you can get away without pre-drilling because of that, you always want to pre-drill. And the reason for that is, it may not split today, but it might split in the future. If you haven't pre-drilled. These are inch and a quarter exterior screws. Then we can move down here to the bottom part. So I've got my layout lines on here. Everything goes to my right. Now I'll flip everything over and do the exact same work on the other side to get the other two legs put on. All right. Well that takes care of giving our barbecue cart a couple of legs to stand on. Now it's crooked because we don't have wheels on there yet. So this is all put together. Make sure that you're real careful you get all the edges lined up. And then go back and look once you've got the screws in these joints to make sure that those spaces closed against each other. Cause we're going to really rely on those staying stuck together. And remember that this lives outside. That's a lot of stress on the wood, even though it's outdoor wood. So this part's all set and we're ready to move on from here. Here's the easiest way to make the pair of wheels that you need for your cart. Grab two pieces of the one by six cedar, and look for pieces that are relatively free of knots so you don't have a big honking knot right where you're going to drill an axle hole. Then with double-faced tape, put those two together, draw a five-inch diameter circle on there using a compass. Mark that center point. Then you can go to the band saw and carefully cut that circle out of the pad. Take that pad to the drill press. So now they're still stuck together. At the drill press drill a three quarter inch hole for the axle. Sand the outside on a disc sander. Then at that point we can take them apart. That double-faced tape really works good. On the axle, we're going to use a three quarter inch dowel rod for that. Now, once the axle is through the wheel, we want the wheel to stay on the axle. So a real easy way to make that happen is drill a quarter-inch hole and then make these little quarter-inch retainer pins. So I'll put a drop of glue in there, drive that through so it splits the difference, it's poking out a little bit on each side. Then just put one pin in, then thread through a wheel through the cart, through the cart on the other side, through another wheel, before you put the other pin on. Make sure everything is in place before you get that second pin on and you'll be set with wheels and axles on your garden cart. If you truly want to make the barbecue cart your own here's a great way to do it. These are brands, and I'm going to show you how you can put the brand here on the barbecue cart. What they really are, are steak brands. So the idea here is that while you're cooking for your company, you've got these brands down in the coals, and right before you serve the steak you put your initials on it so everybody knows that you were the chef and that you made the steak. But they also work well on projects like this where you can put initials on them like I'm about to do. So I'm just using a propane torch here to heat it up cause I don't have any charcoal going in the shop. Here on the cart what I've done is laid out a quadrant in the center. So this is the overall center of the cart this way. And it's the center of the rail this way. So I'm going to do a G up here and then a V down in the bottom. I'm pretty sure we're hot enough. It's a real good idea to practice this on a piece of scrap before you do it on the cart. When you do come in and you're going to make contact what you want to do is get the whole letter to touch at one time. And if it feels like it didn't, just roll it around a little bit. It's better to do that than it is to come off, realize it's incorrect, and then have to go back and try to hit exactly the same spot again. That is so cool! And a really need addition to the cart. Now I'm going to get that V hot and we'll do the same thing down here in that lower quadrant. Give the brand that you did here a chance to cool off and then come back and lightly sand over this. We want to get the pencil lines off. And that light sanding will get the little bit amber from around the edges of the letters to go away. So that will make the letters look a lot more crisp. So that takes care of the barbecue cart. This is a great project. I think you're going to have a blast making one for yourself.