Sweet cart

The requirements

When we were planning our wedding we quite fancied a sweet cart at the reception so we looked into hiring one. Hiring them seemed obscenely expensive and most of the time they weren’t even sweet carts, they were tables with wheels glued to the side of them so they couldn’t be pushed around.

So, I decided to make one, these were my criteria:

  • Must be cheap
  • Must be able to be wheeled around
  • Must fit into my car, so therefore had to be flat pack
  • Must be quick to assemble

Wheels

The first thing I needed was some wheels. I put a wanted post on Freecycle asking for two front wheels from a bike; I wasn’t fussy about size but I didn’t want a back wheel because I didn’t want the extra width a cassette brings. Amazingly, I got a response from someone with two spare 26″ wheels, I picked them up from behind someone’s wheely bin on the way home from work.

The wheels as I got them from Freecycle

I cleaned the wheels up, primed them and sprayed them in silver so they looked a bit more presentable. To be able to mount them to the frame I used two M10 threaded bars and 3D printed some new cones for the wheels that would take the threaded bars. Once inserted into the frame they were connected in the middle with connector bolts.

Frame

The basic frame of the cart with the wheel in place

The frame of the sweet cart is made from 2″x2″ wood and the hole for the axle was reinforced with MDF plates. The legs are made from stair spindles.

Floor boards

Floorboards used to panel each side of the cart

Once the frame was complete I used some floorboards we got from a friend to panel the sides. and cut the radius around the wheel with a jigsaw. Each of the panels are connected with M6 bolts so the cart collapses and fits into a car.

Secret chocolate

Chocolate hidden on the inside of the sweet cart. You can also see how the axle is put together.

My parents don’t like sweets but love dark chocolate. So they had something for the evening I added some secret chocolate velcro’d to the inside of the sweet cart.

The finished thing

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