Follow Along Project - Part 6 - Wheels

Carol Reed

In Memoriam
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Coolidge, AZ
It was easier to prepare for the installation of the wheels before the assembly of the cabinet. So I marked and drilled the bottom to receive the tee nuts for wheels. I chose tee nuts for two reasons. I had some (always a good reason!) and I didn’t want either bolt heads or nuts to protrude up from the bottom.

First thing is to mark the location of the hole. There are 16 of them (4 for each wheel) so it is good to have them all in the right places.

I used an Incra gauge (actually I have 2) against the wheel mounting flange and set each wheel in a corner of the bottom. This is the inside face of the bottom because the countersink for the tee nut gets drilled first. I marked the holes with a transfer punch. If you don’t know what they are, think ‘long-handled dowel centers. You can get them from Harbor Freight for `$10. They come in a set by 64th’s up to a ½”. Darned handy to have in the shop. They leave a dimple for the center of the drill bit to get the hole exactly where you want it.

14 Marking wheel locations.JPG

Here is a shot of countersinking for the tee nuts. Depth is restricted to slightly more than the thickness of the tee nut flange. I used a ¾” spade bit for these tee nuts.

15 Counterbore for tee nuts.JPG

The spade bit leaves a nicely centered ‘hole’ for the barrel of the tee nut. I simply reamed the hole with the appropriate drill bit. Don’t try a brad bit here. You don’t want the outside spurs. A regular drill bit works best.

16 Drilling tee nut barrel hole.JPG

Then hammer home the tee nuts. I used the big punch to make sure the tee nut wasn’t left proud of the surface. I used to use sockets from my socket set to do this, but the hammer wasn’t very friendly to them!

17 Inserting tee nuts.JPG

Here are the wheels mounted to the carcase assembly. There are flat washers and lock washers under the bolt heads. I used 1” bolts as I didn’t want them to extrude past the tee nut flange on the inside surface of the bottom end.

28 Wheels installed.JPG


Part 1

Part 2

Part 2 - Update

Part 3a

Part 3b

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6
 
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