Out of Arms' Way

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For maybe a decade, I've been using a Northern  Tool plastic cart to hold my 2x72 and 1x42 grinders. Northern Tool says  it can hold 500 pounds. Don't you believe it. I have a fraction of that  on it, and the vertical members are bowed. It's a good product, but it's  not THAT good.It's also open, so storage is not good, and grinder dust falls on  whatever you put in the bottom tray. I have learned I can redirect dust  with little steel flaps on my tool arms, but the tray is still a bad  storage option.I got myself a 44" US General tool chest, and I used the existing screw  holes to mount two horizontal members holding up a vertical tube with 5  arm sleeves welded to it. When I put my big grinder together, I had a couple of spare VFD's, so I  didn't want to splurge on a new dustproof job. I bought a Bud Industries  box and turned it into an enclosure. When I started planning the new  cart, I wanted to go ahead and get a new VFD, but that felt like a  betrayal of the home shop community, so I made a shelf for the new  cart's arm rack and bolted the enclosure to it. Grinding dust has never  gotten into this box, and the control panel is mounted remotely.I got a piece of 3/4" plywood. I'm going to screw the grinders to it and put it on top of the chest.I usually paint my fab projects with truck bed coating, but I plan to do  this one in farm implement paint in John Deere green. I am starting to  appreciate color in the shop. It makes the place less dreary, and it  also helps aging eyes see what they're working on.People have said grinding dust will kill the slides on the drawers. I  think that's just Internet people, doing what they do best: talking  about things they don't actually know about. I should be able to keep  dust out. If it turns out to be an issue, I'll turn the plywood so the  dust falls on the back of the cart.This went really fast. Not a hard project at all. Now I need more tool arms.

I was socially distant before it was cool."A man who can't handle tools is not a man. You're disgusting." -- Willy Loman
Reply:I saw Death of a Salesman at a very young age on screen.   I never fully understood it, other than the general sense of depression it evoked.  Not sure how I'd react to it now as an adult.
Reply:Seems like a celebration of misery and hopelessness to me.I was socially distant before it was cool."A man who can't handle tools is not a man. You're disgusting." -- Willy Loman
Reply:Standing in front of armaments always makes me uncomfortable.  Especially when they look like rocket launchers.