Wheeled Firewood Cart | a Life Saver Sitting on Wheels

 This instructable comes from our objective need to easily and quickly transport and raise the firewood for the fireplace on the 1st floor of an apartment building using a standard elevator.

Below I will present the design process and the construction of a wheeled metal basket in which the firewood will be placed, properly stacked so that it can be transported from the ground floor of the apartment building to the balcony of the apartment. The wood will remain in the basket until the moment of use.

If you have the proper welding knowledge and tools it is a relatively easy project that will make your life much easier.

The dimensions of the basket are 65 cm X 85 cm with a height of 85 cm. The measures have been taken in such a way that the basket fits through the doors of the elevator, the apartment building and the apartment.

30 mm x 30 mm rebar was used to form the frame, while galvanized wire mesh used in fencing was placed on the sides. At the bottom I placed 2.5 mm thick sheet metal and simple industrial-type rubber wheels were used for movement.

Materials you will need

1. Iron rod

2. Wire fencing

3. Sheet metal

4. Electrodes

5. Industrial type wheels along with the required bolts

6. Metal flanges for the base of the wheels

7. Metal handle

8. Cable Ties

9. Self-tapping screws

10. Spray paint

Tools you will need

1. Welding Machine & Mask

2. Grinder with grinding disc

3. Metal Circular Saw

4. Iron corners

5. Measuring tape

6. Clamps

7. Drill driver

8. Marker

9. Wire cutters

10. Pliers or cutter

As in any successful project, before construction begins, the design has to be done. For the design I used Fusion 360 which made the process very simple and fast.

First the frame was designed as a single body, and then I designed the sides (with the metal mesh), the bottom part and finally I placed the wheels and the handle. Fusion 360 designs are shown in the photos.

The first step is to make all the cuts. A very useful tool that helps a lot is the Opticutter. With Opticutter we can accurately calculate all cuts and minimize material waste. The cuttlist for the specific project appears on the print screen above.

The cutting of the materials is done with the circular saw (or grinder if you prefer) according to the plan of Opticutter.

With the use of the magnetic angle we form the lower crate and weld the joints together. As a last minute adittion I decided to place a rib in the center of the crate which is not visible in the Fusion 360 drawing. After we finish welding we smooth out the joints with some grinding.

In the same way and according to the plan, we create the upper crate which will essentially be the top of the basket. For greater convenience I drilled the holes for the handle before proceeding with the welding the piece to the crate.

Then it's time to place the vertical bars (legs) that will hold the 2 crates together to fully shape the cart. I preferred to weld the legs to the lower crate first and then assemble it with the upper one. Either way is fine though.

To complete the first stage, the upper crate must be welded to the legs, which we welded in the previous step. Here you may encounter a little difficulty in getting the pieces together precisely because of the expansion, but with a large clamp I was able to solve this problem.

At this point we have to drill the metal flanges in the places where the plates from the wheels have to be screwed together. Taking the marks with the white marker and drilling with the drill driver makes the job simpler. After all the flanges are drilled, we screw them onto the frame. The wheels will be installed later, after painting.

Unfortunately there are no photos from this stage. The painting was done with plain metal spray paint purchased from the hardware store.

After the paint dries, we take the marks for screwing the sheet metal that will create the bottom of the cart. I installed 3 mm self-tapping screws every 20 cm and screwed with the screwdriver.

If the cart you will create is larger you may need to put the screws closer to each other.

Since the holes are already drilles from a previous step, we proceed to screwing the wheels onto the metal flanges as well as screwing the handle to the main frame. Our cart is almost ready.

The easiest way is to put the mesh in 2 pieces for each side, so that we can take advantage of the little bit of left over to wrap the wire around the vertical bars. In this way, it is impossible to untie the grid from the force exerted by the firewood. On the upper side I preferred to simply tie it with cable ties since it was already too solid to bother with drilling holes etc.

Good luck with the project!