Mount a drill press and bench grinder on a shop cart?

I recently bought myself a benchtop drill press, to go along with a combination belt/disc sander and bench grinder. The problem, of course, is that I'm running out of bench, and there's no room for more of that. So I'm wondering if I might set up a shop cart with some or all of the power tools mounted to it. This HF unit is listed as having a 350lb working load, which should be more than enough for everything (though I doubt everything will fit). Any downsides to this? The only thing I am mildly concerned with is stability, but it has two locking casters; should I upgrade the other two so I can lock them all? The top is recessed as designed, but I imagine I can flip the top tray over to have a flat surface for mounting. Anything I'm missing here?

I mounted mine to a rolling bottom box of a tool chest. Gave me a convenient place to store all sorts of drill bits and everything else.

Doesn't seem wide enough and I think you'd want to add some square tube under the inverted tray to give the top some beef.  Those trays are usually pretty thin and flexible.  40" seems about minimal when you try to mount a drill press and a grinder together on the same surface; you can figure that out with the two sitting together and space them out a bit.  This assumes no overhang with the grinder, which might help, but then there's handles to mod.

Wouldn't worry about the casters until everything else is together and you can test it out; should be easy to change those out later if needed.

I built mine. Had a spare 2 drawer filling cabinet, bolted that to a harbor freight moving dolly and put an MDF top on. From there, drill press on one side and grinder on the other. The drawers let me keep bits and wheels and such out of the way. I haven't had a problem with it rolling during use with no locking casters, but 2 would be better than none I guess. 

I would be fine with it. I'd recommend attaching a sheet of plywood to the top to stabilize it reduce the chances of stress cracks in the corners. Probably across one of the long sides as well to prevent racking. Glued and screwed. T-nuts if you're feeling extra. 

Locking wheels alone probably won't be enough unless you have a lot of weight in the bottom. I'd plan to just strap or clamp or temporarily bolt it to a wall/bench etc with thumb screws when using it. 

That would work. 

Everything in my shop that isn't a portable tool is mounted on wheels. 

My grinders are mounted on a pedestal that uses an old manhole cover with wheels as a base. 

My drill press is a mill drill and has its own base with wheels. 

I hope your shop cart is stronger and more stable than mine! I like the idea but I worry about making a very tippy and top heavy cart.

Lots of good ideas here. Adding some plywood reinforcements seems like a good idea, and easy enough to do. Attaching it to a bench when in use makes sense, though I might have to reorganize some stuff to make it work; if possible, I'd like to make it stable enough to use without being tethered to an attachment point. I hadn't thought too much about the potential for top-heaviness - I could scrounge up a few weights to attach to the bottom tray.

Alternatively you could get some caster chocks or a couple floor brakes. 

They're a little spendy relative to the price of the cart, but will definitely stabilize it. 

Could also make a base on some threaded rods. Roll it into position and run the screws to lift it up.

I'm in the process of making/modifying some carts for groups of tools that I'll need in different buildings and I might execute that last idea on a really tippy cafeteria cart I have. 

Also, I didn't get a good look at the top shelf, but if you can mount it upside down, you can put the plywood on the bottom and not have a tray to fill up with grinding dust. That stuff is absolutely a rust accelerant.

In reply to Crackers (Forum Supporter) :

My mill has screw jacks to stabilize it and allow for leveling. 

I have my mini-lathe and benchtop drill press mounted on one of the HF Yukon cabinets... works great, and the drawers store all the kit.

I have a couple of the rolling 'tool carts' and I don't think they would be as stable as the above cabinet.

One problem with the tool cart is the top has a lip around the edge that may get in the way of using the grinder, you may want to put some wood blocks under it to lift it up a bit.  Otherwise I think it would be fine.  If it's tippy, just put something heavy on the bottom shelf (if you're like me you have plenty of heavy things around the garage looking for a place to be stored anyway.)

You can see my little set up in part on the left of the pic. Mounted my belt sander and grinder on it. Very convenient. Consumables/tools for both are stored in the cabinet.

I like the wood-topped cabinets, but they're all $300+, and I'm trying to keep this as (relatively) cheap as possible. I did see this all-wood bench - I wonder how this would do with casters mounted?

02Pilot said:

I like the wood-topped cabinets, but they're all $300+, and I'm trying to keep this as (relatively) cheap as possible. I did see this all-wood bench - I wonder how this would do with casters mounted?

Look for used tool boxes, not new ones.  And then put your own wood top on it.

Noddaz said:

02Pilot said:

I like the wood-topped cabinets, but they're all $300+, and I'm trying to keep this as (relatively) cheap as possible. I did see this all-wood bench - I wonder how this would do with casters mounted?

Look for used tool boxes, not new ones.  And then put your own wood top on it.

Exactly what I did. You can sorta see mine to the right upper corner in this one

Rodan said:

I have my mini-lathe and benchtop drill press mounted on one of the HF Yukon cabinets... works great, and the drawers store all the kit.

I have a couple of the rolling 'tool carts' and I don't think they would be as stable as the above cabinet.

Your shop is entirely too clean. Mine didn't even start out that clean.

I'm not sure you could make it work with a drill press, but I'll toss cabinetry like for a kitchen stand mixer out there for the grinder--

I mounted a universal bumper mount receiver hitch to the underside of a workbench and then bought a receiver mount tool mount to attach a grinder to.  It worked great, you could remove the grinder and stow it when not in use.

The only caveat is that receivers are a little sloppy.  So at the far end of the reciever, I tapped for a fine thread bolt (probably 10x1.0) and used the bolt to lock the thing firmly in place.  I had ideas to weld a rod to it to turn it into a fist sized wing nut but never bothered.

I got the idea from people mounting those receivers to the FLOOR and making pedestal mounts for things.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

That's pretty clever. It should certainly work fine for the grinder, and should be easy to rig up.

It was super easy.  I used carriage bolts to attach it to the bench.

The bench doesn't tow very well, much to the dismay of everyone I worked with.

I did something similar when I built my fabrication bench, but used square tube sized to nest together, with nuts welded on for lock screws.  Set up every corner this way.  Works great for my bandsaw, tubing notcher, etc.

Wouldn't mounting a drill press on a mobile base make it a bit wobbly for larger stock? 

brandonsmash said:

Wouldn't mounting a drill press on a mobile base make it a bit wobbly for larger stock? 

In my experience, yes. Locking casters help, but there's still some shimmy.

My drill press was mounted to a regular tool stand until I got cute and bolted it to the top of an office filing cabinet, similar to what RevRico described. It's great for storage, but the whole thing vibrates and tries to walk around when in use. It's worse.

At some point the drill press will go back on a stand, and the cabinet will go somewhere else. Or maybe I'll get ambitious and build a big frame around the cabinet and mount the press on that.

It took me forever to realize the advantages of rolling toolboxes. I have one supporting my CNC router, one becoming the belt sander stand, and one free-standing unit that just fits under my main work table. The big box stores sell just the wood tops separately, so they're convenient for upgrades, but do little to strengthen the tool box much. The one supporting the ~800 lb CNC router has strengthening frames around the base and under the wood top. As mentioned, additional framing may be needed. Oh, and if the grinder is out of balance at all, be prepared to hear every single metal-on-metal contact within the toolbox rattling at you.