Building a coffee cart from scratch (pt 2)

Building a coffee cart from scratch (pt 2)

Things we've learnt so far:

  • Everything takes ages- the bare structure of our coffee cart came together very quickly but all the extra little bits (brackets, braces, mounting points, staining the cladding, adding building paper, adding the damp course etc, etc) all take a lot of time and don't add very much to the visual progress of the build. 
  • The colour of wood stain varies dramatically from the description (and the stained display samples) when you are working with rough sawn surfaces so save yourself time, headaches and money and just go to the Resene store and buy a whole bunch of little test pots.. Don't be chumps like us who bought a 10L bucket of stain off the shelf at Mitre10 based solely on the description. That was a painful mistake but thankfully we did a test patch and realised that our cladding was going to look more orange than an Oompa Loompa before we stained the whole lot of cladding and had regrets. 
  • The cost of little things add up fast- the obvious stuff like the steel, the cladding, the trailer components (wheels, axle, tow hitch, lights etc) are all kind of buy once, cry once costs.. but don't forget to factor in the price of consumables like silicon and fasteners because every trip to the hardware store seems to add upwards of $100

So as of the time of writing, this build has taken us around 100 hours to get to where we are (which had mostly been in the weekends and evenings)

Things we have achieved so far:

  • The full steel structure is done
  • All of the cladding had been stained on the outside and sealed on the back
  • All the building paper and damp course is up on the frame and all the corners of the building paper have been sealed
  • The roofing is on
  • 90% of the cladding is up 

Things we still need to do:

  • Custom build the door flap where customers will be served
  • Fit the flashings to the walls and roof
  • Order a side entry door
  • Electrical fit out (wiring, sockets, lights, fuse box, 32a inlet) and get an ewof
  • Line internally
  • Internal fit out- install bench, install equipment install plumbing
  • Take the trailer for a wof
  • Install signage
  • Probably many other things that I have forgotten about but I will stop the list here before my anxiety level reaches over 9000

Here's a progress video:

 

 -Heather 

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