This was a fun little project I built for a client who is a mining engineer and a wine connoisseur. The overall design of the cart was taken from a miners dump cart. There is a mining museum here in Colorado that I visited to get reference material for the design. What I found was that real mining carts are awkward and ugly in proportions, basically designed to fit as much dirt in it and still be manageable.

So I took some liberties with the authenticity in the design to make it look sexy. The wood portions: top, inner arch, and wine rack I made from ebonized oak. The rest was fabricated from mild steel stock. The base is 3” channel, the bent arch is 2” flat bar, and the frame around the top was fabricated from angle iron.

The hook I picked up from the tractor store and fabricated a mount to attach it to the cart. The D ring on the other end I cut off a trailer tow kit and fabricated the mount for that as well.

The wheels came from a collector that the mining museum referred me to.

I added a patina to all the steel, kind of a black and rusted color using Cupric Nitrate solution.

I made the bucket out of oak and a light Japanese finish to it called Shou Sugi Ban. This give the overall bucket a nice aged patina.

I also included a screenshot of my SketchUp drawing that I used to present the design to the client.

Project Located in Denver Colorado

Video of the Bucket Being Built

Thanks for checking out my work, more at Denver Colorado Furniture Company Benham Design Concepts