One and done hand truck restoration

Car builds are great fun, but also an exercise in patience since many can take months or even years to yeild a final result (*cough*cough* my Prelude build *cough*).  But recently I've been enjoying those restoration videos like these:

Rusty Old Vise Restoration

Tonka Truck Restoration

I find these videos extremely relaxing.

Now, taking pictures and general production value aren't really my thing, but I did want to feel that satisfaction of a rebuilt item myself.

I have an old hand truck that a couple left at our house when they came to pick up the oven we were selling (when I moved into the house it had an electric stove/oven, I'm for natural gas all the way!).  It was pretty well used when they left it, and then I've been using it for several years since then, and the wheels have pretty much disintegrated off of it.

So this is what we were starting with:

First thing is to take everything off and work on just the bare cart.

Off came the crappy old wheels

And I guess that was it.  There was also that old peice fo rope on it.  That came off and here's just the bare cart.

Now for one of my favorite tools: the wire wheel.

Getting started with the wire wheel:

More wire wheel:

Even MORE wire wheel:

I think that's pretty much everything.  Now for the Rustoleum.  First is primer:

Bottom half first:

Let it dry for a bit and then do the top half:

Let that dry for a while and then get started on the paint.  I went with red.  Again I started with the bottom half.

The paint takes a while longer to dry than the primer.  Gotta be patient (I'm not very patient when it comes to paint drying).

Then you do the top half:

Lookin' pretty good!  I tightened up that hardware after I primed it, but before I painted it.

New wheels.  Got 'em from Amazon.  I tried to spring for some pretty decent ones since I figure those more or less make or break the whole truck.

Took some goo-gone to get the rest of the label adhesive off of my shiny new wheels.

Slap them on there and enjoy your like new hand truck!

I haven't actually had to use it yet, but hey, that just means I haven't had to move anything heavy in a while!  If restoring a hand truck means I never have to move anything heavy again then I would say that's money and time well spent!

In reply to BA5 :

I had truck is one of those tools I'm happy to have taking up space, despite how infrequently I use it. Yours looks as good as new now!

Curse you BA5!  I have one just like that, more like the "before" than the "after", and now every time I look at it I get this overwhelming urge to get out my wire wheel and attack it! Ahhhh!

Nice work, yours looks good!

Yourself said:

Curse you BA5!  I have one just like that, more like the "before" than the "after", and now every time I look at it I get this overwhelming urge to get out my wire wheel and attack it! Ahhhh!

Nice work, yours looks good!

Thanks! It really was just a pleasant afternoon's worth of work.

Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to BA5 :

I had truck is one of those tools I'm happy to have taking up space, despite how infrequently I use it. Yours looks as good as new now!

That is true.  It's definitely a good one to have when it's needed.

I don't know, red? You're just going to get pulled over.

But will you cringe at the first scratch?

Placemotorsports said:

But will you cringe at the first scratch?

I had wondered about that myself.  I decided I'd cringe if it got scratched while it was just sitting in my garage, but I'll be fine if it gets dinged up during use.

di just did something similar,  but i when with new wheels and rires with tubes.  I am sure that will have impact ol what i can actually move(load rating),  but aire them down and i can go up and down stairs.  are them up and i can go on grass.  tubes mean i done have to worry abot under inflation and losingthe bead.

So it wound up getting it's first use today.  Since covid kind of puts a damper on the birthday parties, we rented a big bounce house for my daughter.  

Also firewood for the fire pit.

Bounce house equipment:

Here we get to one thing I'd probably do differently.  I think a fair bit of my use will be through the yard for stuff like this: I might get some pneumatic tires instead of the solid ones.

Something like these.  The only thing is all the all terrain tires seem to be for a 5/8" axle and I have a 1/2" axle.  I guess I could probably get a shim from McMaster.

And all set up to surprise her!

One other thing I found: I laid down the hand truck when I was loading the bounce house itself.  The concrete took the paint off the handle.  Don't really care from the aesthetics, but I don't want it to already start rusting up on me again.

I'll probably find some sort of grip tape for it.  Or maybe just some bumpers?  I kind of like the comfort of the handle being just the painted metal.

A job well done.

scooterfrog said:

di just did something similar,  but i when with new wheels and rires with tubes.  I am sure that will have impact ol what i can actually move(load rating),  but aire them down and i can go up and down stairs.  are them up and i can go on grass.  tubes mean i done have to worry abot under inflation and losingthe bead.

What wheels did you go with?  I just discovered that I wished I had gone with pneumatic tires, but I'm wondering what size would give me want I want in off-road-ability.

I'm working on a 60's wagon restoration project.