(Hopefully Part Last for a while.)
After using the "mule" for a while to learn its faults I began working on another one, this time out of Mahogany, the dark wood, and Poplar, the light wood. Some dimensions are different. It's 2" shorter overall. For those of you who came in late, this is a guncart designed for a Black Powder shooter, but it would also work for a couple or a pack rat. The bottom box holds ammunition and supplies, cleaning equipment, the brass soaking jar, and the Windex sprayer. Thus the bottom is well waterproofed. The top box is the one I work out of with sections for shotgun, rifle, and pistol ammunition. In this case that means percussion supplies.
The floor of the base, both boxes, and the upper gun rack, are 1/2" Baltic Birch. The cutout shown above accommodates both doubles and singles. I lined it with leather and put leather on the facing side of the door. The door is 1/2" Baltic Birch with mahogany caps. The cart will carry 5 long guns of any SASS type. So far the only restriction I've found is the SXS shotgun can't go on the "driver's" far left if you're using an umbrella. The hinge and clip mount for the upper box is visible. This time I avoided brass fittings and went for zinc or chrome-plated.
The top mount for the gun rack serves as a base for the upper box. It is 1/2" Baltic Birch ply. Here it is capped with poplar so the plywood laminations don't show. The push handle is mahogany. The handle extension mounts are poplar.
The bottom of the gun rack is simpler than the original design of the mule, but more versatile, too. The floor looks very shiny because it and all of the floors are coated with a polyester resin finish designed for bar tops. It will resist water (the Playmate) and the other liquids that are kept in the big box (Windex, water for soaking brass), gun oils. The dividers are 1/2" poplar fitted in grooves. Everything interlocks.
This is probably the last time you'll be able to see the floor in the big box. You can see reflections in the bar top finish. The dividers are 1/4" poplar and fit in vertical grooves in the front and aft box panels. The base is in grooves in the side, so it's not going anywhere.
The hinges for both boxes hold at 90°. The finish is 3 coats of Danish Oil, with steel wool rubbing between coats, then 3 coats of Spar Urethane, satin finish, with sanding and 0000 steel wool between coats.
The big box in the mule fit perfectly. This one has a 1/4" clearance on each side. I haven't gotten sloppy. When pulling the heavy box (it carries LEAD after all) out or putting it back in, this is a good idea so it doesn't get out of alignment and get stuck. I also added side handles just to make handling the boxes easier. The dowels in the handles are Miller Dowels. They're stepped to smaller and smaller diameter. They reinforce various parts of the cart.
The box handles are mahogany. The cutouts in the verticals are partly for looks, partly handholds. The knobs screw into blind nuts. Removing the big star shaped ones allow the push handle to fold down for storage.
The vertical pieces are held in place by similar setups. The rear bolts, not visible, have 1" knobs and are screwed out for folding, pivoting on the front.The holes for the bolts have 1/4" x 3/8" x 3/4" steel liners epoxied in place to prevent the holes from wallowing out. The verticals have stops built in so when they're folded down, the stops ride on the base, and nothing moves very much. The Playmate cooler pulls up and out without moving any of the guns (barely). Note the crossmember has a large bevel on the inside top to facilitate that.
Dovetail joints are used where possible. All edges are beveled 45°.
If it's not too hot, it's raining, so the cart holds a big umbrella. It also has a hole for a cleaning rod, BP being BP.
14" wooden wheels were made by Dave Johnson, AKA Gripgrabber SASS # 22674 Old West Wagon Wheels. He obviously has a lot of time on his hands. The tires on these are rubber, but metal is available. The bushings are nylon, but brass is available. Apparently NCOWS wants authenticity in their gun carts. (Hint: Gun carts aren't authentic. Old West characters wore their guns or kept them on their horses. Make them out of whatever you want.) Wood is white spruce pine. I could have made these, but making the JIGS would have probably added 6 months to the project with my schedule, and Gripgrabber sells these way too cheap.
Folded up it fits in a 36" long space. To load it when it's full of lead I remove the two boxes and the Playmate Cooler and fold the verticals down. Then I put the upper box in the rifle-rack compartment and the big box in its compartment and the Playmate in its.
A closeup of the front. A Miller Dowel is visible reinforcing the joint with the crossmember.
A closeup of the reach half. Another Miller Dowel reinforces the joint with the lower crossmember.
Two 1/4" screws hold the vertical in place. They screw into blind nuts, and steel inserts reinforce the holes in the cart itself. The rear screw has a big handle because it is unscrewed whenever the top is folded. The rear is seldom removed. The vertical, in effect, uses the side reinforcements and the lower crossmember to sit on the cart. The screws don't hold anything up. They just lock the verticals in place. (This was an error in the first one. The screws supported weight. When I rework it prior to selling it I'll correct that problem.)
I don't remember when I started on this, sometime in '04. I usually only got to work on it 5-8 hours a month as I work 6 days and get home too late to do much during the week most of the time. But I probably have 30-50 hours in it. A) I work slowly. B) I make mistakes. It's not commercially viable. I bought $260 of just Mahogany. I doubt anyone would pay what I would have to ask for it, but if they do, I'll give them this one and build another one. For the record, these pictures were taken August 14. 2005. I'll count that as when I officially "finished" this project.
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