mobile compressor cart for under $50

Well since my garage is a mancave/tinkershop, my compressor and hoses are stored at the rear of my property in my shed and it has been cumbersome to make several trips hauling the compressor out front to my vehicles so I have been wanting to put it on wheels so when I saw a really good harbor freight coupon for a hand cart plus this challenge I thought maybee its time for my first ible. I wanted to stay under $50 so most of the materials I used coupons to purchase at harbor freight and got the aluminum and hardware at work. Please be kind and vote for me. Thanks.

Step 1: Materials

gather materials: I bought a handtruck, manual air hose reel, and electric wire reel for under $50 at harbor freight with coupons and even got yet another free set of screw drivers. I measured and cut 1/4 inch aluminum plates by using the compressor and hose reel foot prints as templates at work and also snagged some 1/4- 20 bolts and a carriage bolt with washers, locks, and nuts. I re-used some of the bolts that were on the compressors rubber feet , but they were too short to go through both the the aluminum all the way up through the rubber feet. Different compressors would dictate what would be needed here and is not that hard to figure out. I already had  the hoses, an electrical extension cord, as well as my tire inflator which is also from H.F.You could spend more and get spring loaded reels for both the hoses and the electrical cord, but I wanted to stay cheap. After I gathered all my materials, the first step was to remove the rubber feet from the air compressor.

Comments

[pcollin]

Thanks this was my inspiration for my project today, I had all the material in the garage so zero cost. Pretty happy with end result, great idea and simple design.

[pcollin]

Thanks this was my inspiration for my project today, I had all the material in the garage so zero cost. Pretty happy with end result, great idea and simple design.

[chobbs1957]

I am not sure I understand the coil hose use and modification. Why would you not just run a short piece of hose with quick connects from the compressor to the reel?

How much was the hose reel?

Great idea, I like it. I'm giving it 4.5 stars.

[jarikcbol]

he simply was making a short hose to do just that. (out of a old air hose he had that was to long for the job, recycled the end bits from it to make a shorter hose)

[fzumrk]

I decided to do this for my Sunday afternoon project. I had the compressor and hose reel already. I found a pretty heavy duty hand truck on Craigslist for $25.00. I used about $8.00 worth of additional hardware. The extra steel tubes for mounting the hose real are left over pieces from a garage door opener kit. I put hooks on the back to hold an extension cord (on order) instead of a cord reel. I may add some additional hooks and or clips to hold tools and accessories. I used 1/4" bolts with lock nuts to fasten everything together.

The center of gravity is a little further out from the axle than I would like, but I did not want to cut the frame on the air compressor to move it in any closer. It still works pretty well and is much easier than lugging that compressor around.

[klincecum]

That's awesome. I was just sitting here wondering what this would look like with my compressor...then I scroll down and the first comment is my compressor :)

[razenhazen]

very nice job fzumrk! It will definitely make life easier

[fzumrk]

Great job on the cart!

I have been meaning to do something similar for a while, but alas, have not gotten to this project. Lugging my compressor around is not fun.

[daleruisky]

Here is one that my father built. Yours looks very clean!

[razenhazen]

his looks very nice too and bet it gets thr job done

[spradlinb]

This is an incredibly useful and well thought-out hack! I have to haul my little compressor, about the same size, from the garage into the house and back again every so often. Having it mounted to a cart like that would make it much more convenient!

[l8nite]

great idea !