Bigger Wheel for Roll-around sheet goods cart

[woodchuck]

I made a roll-around cart using 5" swivel casters. It is sorta like the borg ones, except has wheels on each corner of a 2' x 8' platform that has a center T-vertical support that holds in place 4 (or more)

1/2" conduit rods that keep the sheets from tipping over. The concept seems to work well, but when loaded (about 20 sheets), "roll- around" becomes nearly stationary. I had some 5" x 2" wide swivel casters. They have an outside "tire" that is rubber-like. Even with all wheels aimed in the same direction, it's extremely taxing to move.

Would 10" pneumatic tires make a difference? HF has them for about $15 each. I'd imagine 20 sheets is pushing 1500#. That is fully loaded though.

[Ed Pawlowski]

? "woodchuck" wrote

10" would make a difference, but I don't know about pneumatic. If they would flatten a bit it would be even more difficult to move. If you check McMaster or Grainger you'll see the loading recommendations. They will be considerably more than $15 though.

[Lobby Dosser]

Why do you want to roll around 20 sheets of plywood?

[Michael Kenefick]

[RicodJour]

20 sheets of 3/4" ply. I was going to ask, but I thought better of it. ;) R

[Gerald Ross]

Nice drive-by. My sheet goods are leaning against the wall behind the paint shelves in a 1' space left for that purpose. If I could roll them around, there is nowhere to put them.

[Ecnerwal]

What is your floor?

Assuming a hard floor (concrete or plywood) a harder caster tire is going to help - diameter is plenty big at 5", but the "rubber-like" tire is doing you in, I suspect. A very hard rubber/plastic or plain steel/iron wheel makes for less rolling resistance. Heavy mill carts are nearly always noisy cast iron wheels, and roll easily with thousands of pounds on them. If your wheel allows, you might just want to remove the "tire" part. Putting on pneumatic tires will be going the opposite direction...

[Leon]

You are asking the castors to do a pretty heavy job. Get wheels like the ones under the carts you fashioned your cart after. Take a closer look at the Borg cart wheels. Wheels that stay perfectly round, all steel or steel with a thin hard rubber tire, are going to provide the least resistance.

[dpb]

Don't disagree w/ any of the other responses; I'd note, however, it's likely the bearings on those casters as much as or more than the actual diameter or tire that is the problem. Don't know what those would be rated for, but 1500/4 -->pushing 400 lb/each. I'd reckon that's probably at or beyond their recommended loading.

[J. Clarke]

Remember also that a wheel that works perfectly well in daily use like at the Borg may flat-spot if it's sitting in the same place with a load on it for months at a time.

[Lew Hodgett]

Contact me off list.

Lew

[-MIKE-]

Those HF tires are hit-n-miss and I wouldn't want to find out if I got good or bad ones after they're holding up a 1/4 ton. :-) They tend to leak over time and it sure does suck to have to inflate them every time you want to move the cart. Spoken from experience. :-)

[RicodJour]

I'd think that the spoken from experience in that situation would be followed by a :(

R

[clare]

Untill you come to a bit of crap on the floor that stops the iron wheel dead in it's tracks, while a rubber tire deforms over it and keeps rolling.

[-MIKE-]

At the time, yes. But we can all laugh in hindsight, right?

[-MIKE-]

If you build a floating platform, you can flood the shop and those little pieces of scrap will just sink to the bottom and the wood cart will float, freely above.

Is it that difficult, people?

[clare]

Use a "nascar jack" for brakes on the cart - pull the handle and the weight is on the jacks and off the wheels, and the cart won't roll away. Need to move it? Flip the lever up to drob it onto the wheels and push.

[Lee Michaels]

"-MIKE-" wrote

I did a little work in a machine shop that had a hovercraft cart. You could load tons on that thing and just push it around easily.

It was noisy as hell though.

[Ecnerwal]

Just put a skirt (bicycle inner tube, perhaps) and an air fitting on it, and hook to the compressor when you want to move it. You need about 0.65 PSI to float 1500 lbs on a 2' x 8' base - unfortunately a bit over typical shop vac blowing pressures (and likely too much leakage for most air compressors to keep up with.) Might be a sweet spot with a venturi, but probably loud as all get out.

Then again, hard wheels and a broom work quite nicely.

[RicodJour]

That would be the communist woodshop way of doing things - redistribute all of the sawdust on the floor equally all over the shop!

R