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Strongway casters from Northern Tool

blawless

Aluminum
Joined
Nov 30, 2013
Location
whitewater, montana
Hey fellas, Anybody have any issues using the 2200lb dual wheel casters from NT? I'm going to put these under my K&T 3B Mill that weighs a little over 7500lbs. I'm going to put one under each corner but was thinking of adding two more for the middle. Any thoughts???
Thanks,
Bryan
 
A few thoughts.

With rigidly mounted casters, you have to plan for three casters to support the entire load, due to floor irregularities. Paranoid people plan worry about temporary loads on just two casters, as it tips from one three-legged stance to another. I don't think three 2200lb casters are remotely safe for a 7500lb load. You either need heavier casters or a load-spreading mechanism (a suspension, if you will).

Given a choice between 6" wheels with fat PU tires and 8" wheels with thin PU tires, I would take the 8" wheels with thin tires. Significantly easier to push, with less set to the tires. Even easier to push, but much harder on your floors, would be solid metal wheels with no PU tires at all.

Do you really want the mill 8+" to 10+" taller than it already is? I'm short and already have to stand on a platform to operate my mill of a comparable size.

How are you going to secure the mill from unwanted rolling? None of the 2200lb dual-wheel casters I saw at Northern have any sort of lock, not even a swivel lock.
 
Bryan,

I wouldn't put casters under it, it's just to big and heavy. A better plan is to find a corner of your shop to locate the machine in and consider it 'stationary', much like a wall that can't be moved or a doorway that must remain open.

That's my two cents.

Stuart
 
Blocking at pallet jack height is another option -- if you have a pallet jack and some room.

Absent those, next is a frame to mount casters in a way that suspends the load just 1/4" to 3/4" in the air. If there's a failure, you want that free-fall really, really short.
 
Blocking at pallet jack height is another option -- if you have a pallet jack and some room.

Absent those, next is a frame to mount casters in a way that suspends the load just 1/4" to 3/4" in the air. If there's a failure, you want that free-fall really, really short.

I can't find or borrow a pallet jack that heavy. I definitely could use one.
 
Bryan,

I wouldn't put casters under it, it's just to big and heavy. A better plan is to find a corner of your shop to locate the machine in and consider it 'stationary', much like a wall that can't be moved or a doorway that must remain open.

That's my two cents.

Stuart

I need to rent a TeleHandler but i'm on BFE(35 miles out in the sticks). The ones close are 6K max. Same with the forklifts. No clearance.
 
Buy the 2600ib casters (last item on page) and use one in each corner. Probably depends on the supporting frame.

1,5�� Lbs. + Above | Northern Tool + Equipment

Use screw down jacks to anchor machine in place.

I think this is the best option. I may yet buy two more of the 2200lb and go with the six wheel design. And yes I will block and anchor it(if I ever get it in the shop. lol) Thanks for the link. Bryan
 
Hey fellas, Anybody have any issues using the 2200lb dual wheel casters from NT? I'm going to put these under my K&T 3B Mill that weighs a little over 7500lbs. I'm going to put one under each corner but was thinking of adding two more for the middle. Any thoughts???
Thanks,
Bryan

Casters?

NO FiNE WAY !!!

And I have some casters heavier yet. Useless, so they and the frame they are in are over a year in the back patio taking lessons in learning how to rust.

Once a caster gets stout enough to survive side-loading in those weight ranges it is already a serious pain in the ass to aim and may as well not BE a swivel "caster".

Have a look at their "machinery skates" instead. These two:

https://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200673818_200673818

https://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200679288_200679288

I have MANY of each, some permanently installed. No issues. "Casters" auto-steer. It is what their very name MEANS. Skates YOU must steer, but at least they don't go making decisions of their own. They are not hard to "pre-aim".

Placed two or four, each long side, "amidships" center of gravity, moving a machine tool is dead-easy 'coz you can "pivot" it on its own centre axis . I use a Vestil swivel-top 10K lb with handle for the "third wheel", move a ram, knee, or table, add a bandsag to tilt onto it.

Vestil - Machinery Skates

100% of the machinery here will eventually be on those "Strongway" skates, Most is already.

Add common 3/4" hex-head bolts, drop a square of steel plate on the deck, grab the air wrench, run 'em down, load is anchored. Come back with hand wrench and level it.

It becomes a matter of mere minutes to move a machine-tool out of its "parking place" to work with it in the scarce "common town square" of a shared working space, then garage it again and use some other machine.

Cannot deal with limited space with a limited mind.

:)
 
I can't find or borrow a pallet jack that heavy. I definitely could use one.

Use two of the standard 5500lb pallet jacks. You can stagger them under the base from opposite sides, or put them together from one side, depending on access and base area. Or, do as Thermite suggests and get the cheap skates (sic), three of the 4400lb versions will do it.

Make sure the skates are anchored to the machine so they can't be dislodged, otherwise things get very exiting very quickly if you have anything but a perfectly flat, hard surface to move over.
 
It will if I ever get it in the shop. May be outside under the tarp for a while.

Those 4400 lb skates have a loop at one end, catch that drops over it at the other end, long axis. One side has notched pins, other side has key slots for them. They go together side-by -side and end to end to make a "magic carpet". The urethane rollers similar to pallet jacks, just a lot more of them.

I used that feature to clip a many-rollered "mat" together and roll one machine across an uneven, patched, asphalt driveway in the summertime when it was so soft a pallet jack would just sink its rollers "at once".

"Toe jacks" (I have a matched pair) and garage trolley jacks (mis-matched pair, one low-profile, one standard) are the other needful items.

Once a load is onto the skates or a "carpet" of skates, motive power is by "dog paddling". I just lever it along with a length of timber as pry bar, a few inches at a go.

It doesn't take a very strong man. Just a very patient one.

Easy does it.

If you break load, break equipment, break skin, or even break sweat, yer doing it wrong!

:)
 
Well now that we know you just need to move machine, not keep it on wheels, skates might be the best answer, but from my experience, skates need a pretty smooth floor, and you said concrete was rough. Pics of HD made in USA casters below, top plate is 1/2" thick, side plates 1/4" thick, ride height 9" and I believe it could be lowered by changing position of the axle. Superior website shows some casters rated at 6K, but not all casters have ratings listed, and I am not positive on the model# for these. These were removed from warehouse electric pallet jacks with super long forks designed to pickup 3 or 4 pallets at a time.

Edit: I believe these are the STR2000 series caster with a 6K load limit.
 

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Well now that we know you just need to move machine, not keep it on wheels, skates might be the best answer, but from my experience, skates need a pretty smooth floor, and you said concrete was rough.

Northerns with the ball-bearings using the ignorant outer-race as "tires" or my other 10K "straight" Vestils with half the bearings but thicker axles most assuredly need a smooth floor. And I have that, indoors.

The Northern 4400 lb with softer, larger, urethane rollers, or the Vestil 10K swivel-top and a 10k rating need but DE-rating and/or ganging-up to manage soft, patched and uneven rough asphalt on a slight slope. Caterpillar-tracked Hillman (style) skates I had trialed and found less useful than the big fat roller ones, ganged. Those are good enough at "rough" concrete, but just leave more interesting damage patterns when they sink into asphalt and have to be "dug" back out than simpler ones do.

BTW don't expect even rather good plywood to much help. Steel, even thin, or shiney-wood, thicker, as rollerway "highway surfacing" plates, rather.

Casters do not bring any roller goodness to the party that one form of skates or another does not have also. All they do is increase height and put a side-collapse structural risk into the failure-probability calculations.

The most important bearing to a swivel caster is NOT the one the wheel rolls on. It is the swivel bearing, and those love dirt and rust, UNfortunately those are not well-done even brand-new, and too many of them rely on a pivot pin that is upset, rivet style, into place and with sloppy tolerances.

They work "OK" for tool cabinets, a Burke #4 @ 400 lbs, a Panto-Engraver at 300 lbs or a bit less, and maybe up to a BirdPort @ 2K avoir or wotever it is before or after laying a dinosaur egg.

They start to fall over, literally, when side-loads are imposed 'coz a caster failed to re-align or hit a bit of chip or tiny hunk of gravel, and/or the mass goes above the 3K mark and can shift much of its concentration onto but ONE of several casters.

HF or Big-Box stop with casters in their bins at a certain max? That figure, brethren, happens to be right about the pragmatic limit before even heavier ones start to be more pain than gain compared to skates.

Heavier construction gets one a stronger caster. It cannot make them auto-swivel conveniently as those on an office chair are meant to do. And, FWIW? Sometimes FAIL to do, even then.

We have all "BTDTGTTS" on caster problems. We do not have to pay "real money" to find that those problems "scale up", still bite, but much HARDER!

You want good examples? Start with the B-26 bomber and come forward to an Airbus 380 or Big-Bong-Bong Boeing pick-up truck for space shuttles, or an Antonov flying carpark.

Tricyle landing gear. Unbelievable loads.

Only the nose wheel has to steer to get those big-ass birds to and from their gates with a precision but a tiny fraction their own size. A mere foot or three, usually. Possibly dead-nuts with photos, even, a certain part-time boat-builder and 'roo-driver among us takes it on as a challenge.

:)

Go thou and copy shit that JF works, ultralight to Scarebus. Skip the damned airline food, live long and proper.

3 skates worth. And yes, anti-tip skids to go at the corners that do not ORDINARILY touch at all can save yerazz. Not a lot of clearance needed. Can be adjustable bolts. May BE the "operating position" jack-down leveling screws, partially retracted for "travel mode".

Common hardware. Cheap insurance. Why not?
 
Sure would be easier to understand if you just spoke like a normal person.

I agree, big box chinesium casters, I don't care how many one uses, are just asking for trouble , BTDT myself. But if I had a 7K machine, that I wanted mounted on casters, I'd use what is pictured above. If op just needs to move a machine, then there are other options, including just a bunch of heavy walled pipe and a pry bar.
 
Sure would be easier to understand if you just spoke like a normal person.

I agree, big box chinesium casters, I don't care how many one uses, are just asking for trouble , BTDT myself. But if I had a 7K machine, that I wanted mounted on casters, I'd use what is pictured above. If op just needs to move a machine, then there are other options, including just a bunch of heavy walled pipe and a pry bar.

1/2" sucker rod would do it.
 
Sure would be easier to understand if you just spoke like a normal person.
Fair enough. But some people one just cannot reach. Bad habits grown off ignorance are in the way.

Concrete floors generally DO at least "attempt" to BE smooth, even nearly level. "Dragon's teeth" tank barriers are an exception, not the rule.

Machinery bases usually do the reverse of being dead-flat or smooth. They have skirts, curves, cut-outs, reinforcing ribs, casting draft angles, bespoke load-bearing jacking / bolting pads and are NOT featureless hard steel plate.

You "swivel-chair hipshoot" that rod or pipe are a good idea without even laying eyeball on PHOTOS of those convolutions of such a base?

Explaining why that is a Very Bad Ass-um-ption is waaaay above MY current pay grade.

:(

Skates. .are ATTACHED to a load. Where and how they were planned to be attached. They travel WITH the load, same points of loading and balance starting point of a route, long or short, straight or curved, side-slipped, crabbed, rotated - WHATEVER that route requires, clear to the final destination. Few surprises. NONE if you've done YOUR bit properly

Rod or pipe are "free agents", no frame holds them parallel. They are not attached to EITHER load nor deck. Each element is free to snag or partially unload ... and change its angle, if not also spacing. Even escape. IOW all can do as they please.

Including ruining your whole week.

"Dice roll" doesn't begin to cover the possible eventualities of loose rollers.

Where appropriate? Sometimes they can be.

Even then, they are not meant to be "single handed" as to management. Takes a team, minimum two partners. Both should be experienced and accustomed to responding AS a team.

Most especially as to "scotching" a skate. Which JF works.

Not all that much use with the lead pipe or rod roller. It may just unload, cock an angle, be skidded back up against the one behind. Nothing is "built in" y'see.

Stopping that load Mother Nature and gravity do FOR you when it runs off the last roller. Seldom where you wished it had gone.

She can be one seriously capricious old bitch on days she figures you are due for a lesson in humility.
 








 
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