I built this bar cart in the first months of 2020 for a high-end barista business looking for a chic, portable cabinet to house a nitro cold brew keg refrigerator.
Building without an established workshop during the Corona months had its challenges, but I was thankful for sharp hand tools and a patient partner who tolerated my takeover of, by turns, the backyard, the spare bedroom, and the dining room.
I ripped upwards of two meters of oak by hand. Also in the dining room.
By using a combination of birch ply and solid oak for the carcase, I was able to mitre the edges the old-fashioned way (using a Stanley #6 and the kitchen table) for a clean and traditional look.
As will happen, I had nowhere near enough clamps to frame the countertops, but wedges worked.
I ebonised the oak with an iron acetate homebrew. This means there was a glass peanut butter jar full of vinegar and steel wool on the bathroom counter for probably too many months.
Small details that made me unreasonably happy included handpainting the industrial wheels racing-car-red and using a rasp and file to shape the tap pull. I also managed to get the client's logo into the epoxy pour countertop, using both trial and error and trial and success.
I finished everything with three coats of Rambo water-based 1-component varnish. This was my first experience with this product, and I did not use a primer. I suspect I could have used fewer coats of the varnish, had I used a clear primer coat to begin, but that experiment will have to wait for another day.
All things Covid considered, a pleasing build that used plenty of problem-solving skills in addition to woodworking skills.