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  1. #16
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
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    Southern Flinders Ranges
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    Those casters you linked only have a 38mm roller, they will get bogged at every spec of dust.

    Im going to put my RF45 on a similar type stand with a tool box, my plan is to weld threaded slugs into the legs to enable me to bolt some decent size casters onto it when I need to move it. The caster plate will probably be something along the lines of a piece of angle iron with some gussets in the necessary places to extend outward of the stands foot print for stability. I’m thinking 5” or 6” nylon jacket cast wheels or possibly some scaffolding wheels if I can find some at the right price.
    Im aiming to be able back off the lock nuts on the jack feet, wind them to full lift with a battery rattle gun, rattle on the wheels and then rattle the feet into the retracted position so I can move it. If I pay attention when I build them I should be able to use the caster set ups for all my other big machine shaped objects too. Only marginally more effort than a pallet jack to be used and they can be stored anywhere (in my case the dead space under my folder seems the likely spot at this time).

  2. #17
    BobL is offline Member: Blue and white apron brigade
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    Perth
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    Quote Originally Posted by riverbuilder View Post
    All my old man used to do was stick a pinch bar under one corner of a machine and roll three feet long peices of 20 mm round bar under the machines then just roll them around on those, easy as anything. Then just stand the rolling bars back in the stock rack for next time.
    That's how I moved my mill in my shed.

  3. #18
    Join Date
    Feb 2013
    Location
    Laidley, SE Qld
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    1,038

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    2" castors will be useless, 4" castors will be better, 5" or 6" castors would be best. But but but...

    With swivel castors you have the potential to dramatically reduce your effective base width, something to be avoided with a mobile top heavy mill or lathe. If both 4" castors for instance are pointing at each other, the effective base width will be castor centres minus 2" to 4". The actual amount depends on the castor design.

    If you can leave 100mm behind each machine that is enough room to be able to get a long handled brush or a long air nozzle in there for cleaning.

  4. #19
    Join Date
    Apr 2009
    Location
    Kingswood
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    930

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    For my surface grinder I made some outrigger beams with high step-ups and generously sized castors.
    There are bolt-on tie rods between the beams.
    These are stored in the roof of the shed.

    In use, the height of the SG is raised with the adjustment legs maximised and added packers, the beams slid under, tie rods added, and the SG lowered onto the beams.
    Works a treat.

    I have also frequently moved heavy machines on lengths of steel pipe.
    Sometimes a little too freely !

    John

  5. #20
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    Aug 2006
    Location
    Melbourne
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    1,105

  6. #21
    BobL is offline Member: Blue and white apron brigade
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    Just a heads up the some rubbers and plastics don't like oils etc. One of the "rubber" rimmed wheels on one of mens shed machines sat in a small oil puddle for just a few days and it just melted the tyres. A similar thing happened to the tyres on my thicknesser mobile stand when a chainsaw leaked canola oil onto the shed floor.

    Something like Polyurethane is generally pretty resistant

  7. #22
    Join Date
    Aug 2011
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    Perth, Western Australia
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    67
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    362

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    I have slowly replaced nearly all wheels that are rubber or plastic. As Bob said they can be effected by oils, petrol etc. Rubber ones can flatten over time if sitting with load on them. Nothing worse than thump thump, thump as a trolley is be pushed around.
    Steel or steel with a hard polyurethane coating is what I aim for now.
    The minimum size wheel is 4". Anything less is easily stopped by cr*p on the floor. I picked up 3 sets of 8" steel/poly coated wheels years ago from a scrap yard. Best thing I ever did. My welding bench weights approx. 400kg and with 8" wheels its easy to push around. I have to watch it sometimes, to much speed and it takes a bit to stop it.
    Unless absolutely necessary I don`t fit 4 swivelling wheels. 400kg + on wheels that have a mind of their own can be a bit of a handful.

    Tony

  8. #23
    Join Date
    May 2009
    Location
    Sydney
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    75

    Default My moving caster solution

    Quote Originally Posted by takai View Post
    Im just about to bring my AL320G and RF45 out of storage and set them up in the garage. While im doing that I will need a new mill stand, and after some suggestions in another thread I think I will build one out of a frame and a standard 650mm wide 5 drawer tool box.

    One of the things that would be nice to have is the ability to be able to move the mill and lathe to clean behind them, or sort things out. So I am considering building in some 2" low profile castors into the units. I plan on recessing these up into the frame, and using hockey puck levelers on the corners for supporting the machine/frame and to be able to take the load off the castors when the machine is in use.

    Leveling feet will probably use M16 hardware and a nut/washer setup to adjust the machine height, before being locked in place with another M16 nut and washer from the top.

    If all of this works well enough for the mill then I will probably do the same again with the lathe, but use a 1m wide tool box for that, along with two sets of castors.

    Anyone see any critical flaws in my dastardly plan?
    I don't know if this will be any use to you but here is what I did. Not an opinion, I have a small shop and often need to move things around, and this has worked for a few years now.

    On my Lathe (about 400kg) and mill (about 475kg) I put a frame all the way around with 50mm x 50mm x 6mm angle, and mounted the machines on standard levelers that bolt through the frame and the stand (the levellers hold them together).

    I have two holes on each side and I made two bars of the same material with these two of rollers (https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/131917766690)on each bar. When I want to move the lathe or mill I use a large pry bar to lift that end, sit it on a wood block, and bolt the wheel piece on with M12 grade 8 bolts. Same thing on the other end, and I can push the machine around very easily (my 48kg wife can move them easily, in fact). I've probably moved the mill six or seven times and the lathe three times. When you make the holes in the frames for the wheel bars set them so you only need to lift the machine 10mm to get them on. Oh, and oil the wheels. The Chinese either use no oil or so much that you can't find the thing itself.

    The floor needs to be fairly clean but it's just old concrete, not super flat, and I've never had any problems with the machine jamming on a piece of swarf or problems with the swivels. I'm definitely not the swarf Nazi, you can see my floors in the photos.

    Do understand that when you move the lathe you will almost certainly need to level it again afterwards, that's just a given if you want any precision. Also, note that the bars are about double the length of the base for stability. Lathes and mills fall over VERY easily, and if a 500kg lathe lands on you, then you are probably going to be the late, great Takai, though the lathe might be salvageable.

    Mill base.jpg
    Lathe headstock end.jpg
    Wheels.jpg
    Hope that helps.

    Phil
    Last edited by SP_Flip; 22nd Jan 2020 at 10:03 AM. Reason: Typos

  9. #24
    Join Date
    Aug 2011
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    Melbourne
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    Being able to move your heavy stuff around is more than handy.

    I have to use my engine crane to achieve that and it's a right PITA.

    A dedicated caster system that still allows the use of levelling feet is much better.

    Simon

    Sent from my SM-G970F using Tapatalk
    Girl, I don't wanna know about your mild-mannered alter ego or anything like that." I mean, you tell me you're, uh, super-mega-ultra-lightning babe? That's all right with me. I'm good. I'm good.

  10. #25
    Join Date
    May 2009
    Location
    Sydney
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    I'll add one more comment. Folks have talked about pallet jacks and such as the must-have moving tool.

    In my opinion, the one tool anyone with heavy machines *must* have is a big pry bar. Bunnings has a 1200m one for about $60, but 1.5m is a better length.

    Even with a 1200mm one, one person can easily lift 400kg 20mm. Give me a 1.5m pry bar and a stack of wood (and a spare weekend) and I'll lift a Maxxon lathe onto a trailer. A pry bar can lift, it can be used to lift and spin, and lift and push. Add a couple of steel round bars and you can lift and roll a machine everywhere, though it's nowhere near as safe and convenient as the way I did it above. I'm a one man band and have to do all my moving and lifting on my own (and I'm not special, that's for sure).

    While this *is* a machinery forum, as an engineer I appreciate that we rely too much on those machines. The Pyramids were build without the wheel, so no pulleys. Watch this guy move 10 ton stone blocks and a whole barn with wood, rope, little rocks and buckets of water: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K7q20VzwVs

    Phil.

  11. #26
    Join Date
    May 2008
    Location
    Perth
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    241

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    The small machinery supplier I worked for for a bit had some simple but damn effective dollies.

    One large piece of L-section for the machine to rest on, with a shorter length of L-section upside down on either end, with two swivel castors mounted on each of the end pieces, providing ~25mm clearance on the bottom of the main section (maybe more, memory is a tad hazy even after using them so often)

    Using whatever means to get the dollies under either end of the machine, whether it was a crane or a large gooseneck bar, there typically was enough weight to keep the dollies in place, though they had eyebolts on top of the castor sections so a strap could be used to ensure there wouldn't be any creep on a corner on slightly uneven surfaces.

    There was a shorter pair and a longer pair for covering the various footprint sizes. Think the largest machine I got to handle on them was ~800kg, did take two of us to move it but was still possible (just somewhat effortsome) to do it single-handed.

    It might be my memory being overly optimistic, but I feel like we used them to get my lathe around to the back of my house, which required laying down sheets of ply to get across the lawn, and then brick paving. Wouldn't have wanted to have tried with a heavier machine though!

    Currently making my own set for moving my Robland X31 around, my pallet jack is handy but needing to use my engine hoist and not having that zero turning radius works against it. Though I'll likely come to regret my eBay castors, I've got enough headroom with their weight rating, but a little voice remains dubious about that claim

  12. #27
    Join Date
    Aug 2011
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    Melbourne
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    Give me a lever big enough and I can lift the earth! Making heavy machinery stands mobile?

    Simon

    Sent from my SM-G970F using Tapatalk
    Girl, I don't wanna know about your mild-mannered alter ego or anything like that." I mean, you tell me you're, uh, super-mega-ultra-lightning babe? That's all right with me. I'm good. I'm good.

  13. #28
    Join Date
    Apr 2018
    Location
    Perth
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    168

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    Quote Originally Posted by BobL View Post
    Not sure what you mean?

    I was a regular attended at my local mens shed up until a couple of years ago and am still a paid up member of that shed but these days I only attend the shed every now and then, usually to pick up or drop off odd jobs for them. The reasons I rarely attend are many and varied, one being probably because I had to work with a wide variety of often difficult people all my life and now that I am retired I usually prefer to work on my own. A few years back SWMBO gave a me a T-Shirt for Xmas with a large "WARNING Grump old man" label on - maybe that sums me up
    My brother a few years back before I retired bought me a " Doesn't Play Well With Others " t shirt. Much the same reasons I think.

  14. #29
    Join Date
    Feb 2012
    Location
    Sydney
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    Virtually everything in my workshop is on castors except for the pedestal drills & steel rack (no lathe or mill as yet). Over the last decade, I’ve tried various castors and lifting mechanisms, some of which echo other people’s contributions here. As my workshop floor has pavers, it’s more difficult for castors than a smooth concrete floor. Here’s what I’ve found:


    • Suggest large diameter castors: 100 – 150 mm. Small ones seem to find any impediment & can be difficult to steer.
    • Rubber wheels are preferable to steel unless your floor is clean and smooth
    • Reasonable trailing distance of castor to follow direction of travel i.e. between vertical centre line of bearing pivot to vertical centre line of axle, otherwise castor easily spins sideways
    • Check that rated castor capacity is “real”. One set of 150 kgs capacity from the green shed had castor arms made of cheese or maybe from jam tins.


    For lifting mechanisms, I’ve tried several designs as per photos:

    For the industrial bandsaw (300 kgs), SHS using M12 bolts driven by socket on impact gun

    For the workshop bench (250 kgs, 3m x 1m), I initially used fold down castors but often found I didn’t have adequate room to work the lever bar. I then changed to wind-down individual castor legs – SHS with M12 rod. I shimmed the bottom SHS exit to keep the castor post completely vertical. The other advantage of individual wind-down was ease of adding/subtracting shims under the six bench legs to achieve a perfectly level table for fabrication work.

    The gantry crane probably weighs 200 kgs but would have a lifting capacity of perhaps two tonnes. (Base of one side only shown here). Its castors are 150 mm diameter but I generally set them in the desired direction of travel first.

    One final suggestion would be to evaluate how often you want to move your equipment and by how much. That may influence your mechanical solution.

    redBandsaw 02.jpg redfolding castors 1.jpg redfolding castors 2.jpg redfwind down castors.jpg redgantry castors.jpg

  15. #30
    BobL is offline Member: Blue and white apron brigade
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    These are the cam operated wheel lifts on the bench supporting my small surface plates.

    The whole bench plus plates only weighs about 100 kg but by resizing things I reckon this mechanism could be made to lift 400kg. The wheels are PU but here's usually relatively little swarf around this bench so its not really a problem.

    Small surface plate bench-tuckedunder2-jpg
    Full WIP here https://metalworkforums.com/f65/t202...ce-plate-bench

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