Making steel pipe rollers

Howdy,

I want to make some rollers to help in moving logs. I'm gonna pull the logs over the rear of the flatbed trailer with a winch. The rollers will be arranged in a shallow V to help control the log and keep it loading straight and not sliding off one side or the other. Kinda like a boat trailer keel roller.

The logs will weigh up to 4000 pounds, though more often half that. I'm thinking of using schedule 40 3" pipe with solid steel plugs welded in each end and that plug turning on a 3/4" bolt at each end for a spindle. I'll turn the bolt down just enough to clean the thread off and bore the end plugs to fit. The bolt will screw into the bracket that the rollers ride in. Each roller will be 12-18" long. Does what I've described sound strong enough for the 18" length? Seems so to me but I'd just as soon not do this twice.

Thanks for your help.

I would think heavier that Sch40 is the way to go, but that's just me.

You aren't putting anyone or anything at risk, so Sch40 is not a risk.

But I would try to find some Sch80, Sch160, "thick tube", solid round, etc.

3 feet of solid round is a bit heavy, but it won't bend.

If you're shopping a local scrapyard, go heavy as possible.

If you're buying new, let your wallet be your guide.

You could always slip a smaller pipe in it, to minimize dents.

My guess is the #40 3" pipe would work ok. The 3/4" spindles are not nearly heavy enough, I would use at least 1 1/2" or bigger. I am thinking 2" would be better.

I agree the supports you suggest are not strong enough.

You could tap your end plugs and use shoulder screws eg MSC 40208373, but they are expensive

Perhaps best would be plug your tubes, then bore both ends (4-jaw chuck and steady-rest). Line-ream if you can, then press a 1-1/4" piece of CRS, or better, stress-proof, all the way through

If you want to turn OD and bore holes in one set-up, you'll have to drill a couple of holes through the plug to bolt it to face-plate, so you have access to both OD and center

Quick and Dirty and Stronger would be to take your 3 inch pipe and use whatever pipe that slips into it as your axle, and see how that works.

Weld the "axle" to its supports.

By your description, I believe that the 3/4" pins would not shear, though they might not exhibit great wear factor.

The "V" you mention could lie in the horizontal plane, leaving the rollers flat horizontally, thereby not effecting a load that might hang over the edge, while well guiding the loading to bed center, (if that's good) 'til the log finally falls over-center on the bed, now center aligned for the remainder of the pull.

My machine moves with sched. 40 pipe from 3/4" to 2", convinces me that your 3" pipe would come out unscathed, when asked to do no more than support heavy poles. A concentrated load of even oak, can't approach the concentration that a 3,850 pound mill, balancing on 2 points of a single 1-1/2" sched. 40 water pipe, 3/4" cast web of base creates. That produced no dents in a move over very rough concrete.

Of course roll-off lumber trucks use a full width solid bar roller with several deep grooves, filled with "C" shaped locater/bearings welded to the back edge of the bed, care taken to not allow them to project above the surface of the roller on top, while projecting out of the groove below for extra support. These need periodic oiling.

That in effect creates large diameter plain bearings with zero unsupported overhang and great strength and resistance to high shock.

I think it could be effected with say a 1" thick plate, lower, (supporting) portion that would receive the reduced diameter of the roll, smoothly machined, cradling from below, while the projecting upper "finger" would be cold forged, (beat on with a large hammer) to close the "C" to capture the roller. Of course attention to the forging not deforming the finger to jamb in the groove, thinning with a grinder first, should solve that.

With your short rollers, solid, reduced diameter bar, could be welded in each end of the 3" pipe then machined, full circle support plain steel bearings of flat plate, could be pushed over each resulting bearing pin, and welded to the bed, capturing the roller, "V" effected by varied stand-off lengths and alignment to the rollers.

I think I'd avoid sophisticated "frictionless" bearings in your application.

Bob

Let's put things in perpective: when you think about 4000 lb logs think of them as falling 4 feet onto the roller and supporting structure. That's what happens when you handle logs. They catch, fall, roll suddenly, and generally behave badly - not at all like a nice round wood thing. They shed bark, sap, dirt and gravel, peel off skin, wad up sheet metal, and obliterate paint. You never load on a wide flat where there's plently of room and its dry. Murphy's law dictates you will be working on slopes in the night, rain, and mud and you will have a head cold working towards bronchitis.. Hogs may be hard to handle but logs are downright willful and four to twenty times heavier than any hog. I been there.

First look at how the big dogs make mid-tonnage rollers. Go look at log conveyors in sawmills, stone conveyors in quarries, fairleads on winches and tugs, etc. See how they are supported and the kinds of bearings they use. The shafts and bearings are pretty stout. 3 IPS Sch 40 pipe pretty stout too but it has a low yield strength. Think mechanical tubing, heavy wall. The worst thing that could happen is bad enough: a failed roller with a big log half loaded.

Bearings. Plug the ends of the pipe and bore for bearings right in the blanks. Sink them in a ways and use a snap ring to retain them. Use pillow block bearing units with the extra shielding and seals. Support the rollers on the biggest through shaft you can fit in the bearings. No cantilevered axles. Support the roller shafts on a stout bracket 1" x 2 1/2" drilled for clearance with the shaft. Weld the bracket to a 3/4" thick 4" x 6" saddle to be welded to the sturcture. This will spread point loading.

Thanks for all the good comments.

This is for a small but heavy duty flatbed that I pull behind my pick-up. I have no real equipment to lift the logs. I can carry about 5000 pounds so only one or two good sized logs. And I don't do this everyday - its for my hobby sawmill. If I had a big knuckle boom loader I wouldn't be asking this question.

Currently I lift with a wagon jack and a "log-lifter" that I designed that hooks under the log and has an eye for the nose of the jack. I then put a block under the log, move the jack and back the trailer under the part of the log that's up in the air. From that point its just ugly grunt work draggin' the log on the trailer bed with come-alongs and levering with a big peavy. Sounds pretty crazy huh?

I have a winch on the way and I want to take as much of the struggle out of this as I can, hence the rollers. The more I can control the loading the better as I am almost always doing this alone. Being able to be well away from the log will be much safer than now. The winch and rollers will let me do that, I think. Not that I act foolish but its best not to be too near a big heavy roundish thing that can instantly roll and crush you.

The other part is that I have only a 10 inch lathe, power hacksaw and stick welder to do this with so don't get too sophisticated. I'm headed to the scrap metal place now to see what they have.

Keep it coming.

Hauling two-ton logs behind a PU truck for a hobby? Why worry about heavy-duty rollers?

Sounds like you better get a truck to handle the hobby before you get in lots of physical trouble, and maybe even killed. First things first.

Just my opinion .

I drive moderately on mostly country roads and do not travel very far. The weight is within the truck and trailer tow rating and the trailer has good brakes and proper tires. The load is well strapped down. I have thought about this a bit before I jumped in. Thanks for your concern.

The scrap yard had a bunch of 3" pipe that looked really good on the outside but looking down the bore it was rusted and deeply pitted. Looked like a boiler installation that was torn out. They did have some flat stock that may be useful. And I'm liking the through axle idea. Tried to find some pieces of pipe that slipped together but not anything there.

Keep it simple. 3" sch 40 is plenty strong for what you're doing. There is a lot of over engineering going on here... you have to keep things in perspective. They dont need to be bored and turned perfectly concentric.. the bearing surfaces dont need to be ground or line bored, no need for press fitting the axle or using pillow blocks.

I disagree about using pillow blocks, or some other way of handling the thrust (at 45 degrees to vertical, if your rollers at at 90°) though you may want to think about a single block handling 4000lb (because, you KNOW things will get all akimbo and one roller will be handling all that weight, and the force will be down, and the block will be bolted to a support at 45° giving you both radial and shear force). Forest's admonition that these things bounce around, shift, stick and release sounds about right, so the dynamic load will be higher (2-4 x?) than the weight.

This Timken Tapered Roller Bearings in Pillow Blocks catalog cites strength numbers in the 2 to 4 thousand pound loads for 1-3/16 shaft double tapered roller bearings. May be overkill (these blocks are for industrial duty stuff), but the guys here suggesting "go large" may have a point.

Jim