I have two containers with oak (?) flooring. I have a roll around router table, and a small table saw that I'd like to mount to the floor, but be able to unmount it quickly. Where can I find some type of t bolts that I can drill an oversized hole in the wood, put the female anchor in there flush with the floor, secure it in, and have enough room around it to blow out chips once I take it loose? I have a router table on a base, table saw, and metal bender I'd like to anchor down. I think if I use a lag, the hole will wallow in the wood. I could take some square plate, cut some vent blow holes, drill it, weld a nut on the underside, rout out a place on the floor, and mount that with countersinks, but I was wondering if there was anything available that was pre made that I could just slam down.
Have you considered mounting the tools to a piece of plywood that would give more stability to them, and not trying to temporarily fasten them to flooring? By adding rollers to the plywood base that could be locked, you'd gain the stability I think you want, while still being able to roll the tools out of the way quickly. I did this with my planer, jointer and sander, since all three were used with some long pieces and any suitable location for infeed and outfeed clearance would put them in the way the other 99% of the time.
I fabricated dust/chip pickups for each, along with a 4' to 7' long vac hose that I could plug into a receiver by the workbench, along with nearby suitable power. I could wheel the planer to its use location near the door, set up outfeed rollers, connect to the DC and power and be working in easily under 5 minutes, with tear down being even faster. When the casters were locked, it didn't budge and the larger plywood base gave it excellent stability.
The router/table already has a pyramid shaped base on it with locking wheels. It just seems a little tall and top heavy right now. I could shorten it, and put a plywood base on it. The bender MUST be anchored to the floor. With the other things, I just get a little shaky about them moving around at all, especially when you're working alone, and trying your best to get a straight cut.
The oversized plywood bases would also increase their storage footprint. Not sure what I'm going to end up doing, just looking for ideas.
Maybe you could use T Bolts. Just need a cut or fabricate a slot which should be easy to rig up somehow. You would just need to keep access so you can take the bolts out of the slot when you want a flush floor. Also with T bolts you would get some adjustment so alignment is less critical.
"Steve B" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news.infowest.com:
Take a look at insert nuts and T-nuts. The T-nut is easier to find, but has a tendency to come out if a pulling force is applied away from the prongs. The insert nut is better at staying put, but is a little harder to find and may not allow as large of bolts as the T-nuts.
How about putting a form onto the base, and pouring a concrete pad for the bottom shelf, that would act as a counter-weight.
Instead of anchors, or locking rollers, I welded up an angle iron base for my table saw at home, and put heavy casters on it so the base was just about an inch off the floor. I also welded a 5/8" nut next to the casters, so a bolt could be screwed in when the saw got to the correct location, and it would lift the saw slightly off the casters. I welded a quarter inch rod about 4 inches long onto the top of the bolt, so it could be used as a grip to turn the bolt without a wrench. It made it so it would not wiggle at all, and also had the advantage of being super easy to adjust the bolts like floor levelers when the floor was not exactly true. I'm telling you, with a heavy unit and leveling bolts, I have never wanted for hold downs. The system worked like a charm.
I do have an idea for a hold down, if a heavy base and leveling bolts do not work for you. Do you know what bench dogs for a work bench look like, and how they work? In case you or others do not, picture a capital letter "P" with the right side of the p cut half way down the right side. The left vertical part of the letter goes into a hole that is a slightly loose fit. You place the part projecting to the side onto what you want to hold down, and smack the top of the letter with a mallet. It grips what you want to hold down, due to it binding in the hole.
You could do the same thing by drilling a hole in the concrete. It could be left as just a hole, or by cutting a 4 inch section of pipe a little larger than a steel rod, then setting it permenantly into the concrete. The pipe would take the stress instead of possibly cracking out the concrete. Think that would work?
I forgot to add that you could weld a thin fender washer (with a diameter larger than the hole in the floor) to a rod that you could drop into the hole, so dirt and sawdust would not drop into the hole while you are not using the hold downs.
I like this idea so much that I may do it for my jointer table.
FWIW, Home Despot has a variety of inserts these days, however they don't have the type that are themselves threaded. OTOH, if you have a Harbor Fright nearby, they have a nice assortment of those boxed up for something like 10 bucks.
I saw one that had a concrete base on it, nicely poured into a wood form. It went all around the base. There was a small 2 ton bottle jack that jacked down a frame with four wheels that lifted it off the floor by the wheels. It only had to be raised 1/4 to 1/2" to make it roll, and that made it impossible to turn over. Get where you're going, and drop the jack. Of course, only a welder could make one. I'm a welder.
On my 4' x 10' 2" x 1/4" angle iron welding table, I have 7/16" x 4" carriage bolts with the nuts welded to the legs. The round heads face downward. When it gets where it's going, it is leveled with a wrench to turn the square head under the round head. If it is out in the dirt, I put four 12" square concrete blocks. It works pretty well, but this one is somewhat light, and I need to put two more in the middle. I did have one that was 4' x 10' made out of 4" x 3/8 angle. Sorry I sold that table, but it went with the business. It was a bear to move.
If you can fit plates to the feet, you can quickly attach to a simple hole in the floor with a cleko type device. I've seen 'em in half inch diameter, should hold almost anything, and they come loose with a push of a button.
A plate inset in the wood might be enough, or you can drill through to the metal underneath and screw the plate to that.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.