Experience with equipment skates?

[Smilodon]

I looked, but couldn't find anything about this. Maybe also called something other than "skates".

I need to move some heavy(ish) stuff around a shop and have had good luck in the furniture realm with "skates". But, the furniture ones I have aren't heavy duty enough for shop use. This is for stand mounted equipment, boxes of heavy stuff and the like that are "light" enough to hand lift one end, so not too awful difficult to get on the skates.

Looking around, I see many, but was wondering if there were ones that folks have used on here with good success. Price is a consideration, as I probably will use them for a reorg or two, not daily.

I could live with the "metal roller" type, but would prefer something omnidirectional (the price goes up on those).

For reference, this is the kind of thing I'm talking about. These are the common "metal roller" type, one of many I've seen on Amazon. But, no way to know what is total garbage to be honest. So, I'm looking for some real world experience.

 

[The Cobbler]

something like this ?

proto type freezer/crate dolley

Here is a few prototypes of what I would call freezer/ fridge.crate dolleys we do a lot of work in lived in rental units. it's always a PITA to move fridges and freezers around. I came up with this idea , essentially a 4 wheel dolley that we jack the item up with, then it has 4 swivel casters we...

www.garagejournal.com

 

[TurnipTruck]

I use snowmobile skates since I have several sets, and they are rated for at least 800lbs. One set suffered no damage when moving my 1000lb weld table.

 

[mm08822]

How low to ground?
Capacity?
Wheel size/type?

 

[Rusted Nut]

Search “machinery rollers”. I’ve used these to move large building electrical gear and transformers, industrial machinery, and the like. Might be a bit spendy for a home shop though. I have a couple of cheap furniture dollies that work for a lot of garage items.

 

[Cruzan80]

Hillman is the original. I just scored a set of 2T skates (8T total) for cheap on FBMP (less than new Vevor). This just esems like one of those things you dont want to cheap out on, when moving heavy equipment.

 

[Stuart in MN]

I have a set of car skates, those things with casters you put under the tires so you can push the car around. The difficult part is getting all the casters pointed in the direction you want to go, once that's done it's not difficult for one man to move a 4,000 pound car.
I imagine equipment casters have the same issue.

 

[whateg01]

... The difficult part is getting all the casters pointed in the direction you want to go, once that's done it's not difficult for one man to move a 4,000 pound car.
I imagine equipment casters have the same issue.

Think engine hoist that only goes where it wants to

 

[whateg01]

For reference, this is the kind of thing I'm talking about. These are the common "metal roller" type, one of many I've seen on Amazon. But, no way to know what is total garbage to be honest. So, I'm looking for some real world experience.

Pretty sure the ones Tom Lipton used were cheap ones from Amazon. I'm not sure that any of those really can be a bad choice. They are basically deep groove ball bearings on a frame or something equivalent to pallet jack wheels. Either way, not much to them.

 

[gorilla]

I have lot's of experience using equipment moving dollies so I'd like to share one thing I learned. Use three not four it's really easy to loose one if you use four on an uneven surface.

 

[OccupantRJ]

What gorilla said, with emphasis, and I don't even consider using the machinery skates I have on hand until the load is in the multi-ton level. They are also pretty expensive. Anything that I can lift one end with a pry bar gets a 4 wheel dolly or a two wheel hand truck. A proper furniture cart, two or four wheel with strap can move a lot of awkward stuff. Big boy items with proper underneath access get a pallet jack or fork lift. Are the furniture skates you have extra light duty? Any that would move a tanker desk should move the average level workshop equipment. You also need one of these shithooks below. Thank me later.

Get a hook into it!

This is a simple tool I made years ago, but it has turned out to be one of the handiest ones I own, especially as I'm not getting any younger. It is a 34 inch hook with a T handle, made of 5/16" rod with a pipe handle, and can be used for a variety of things that you never thought of. It works...

www.garagejournal.com

 

[matt_i]

EZ button is a pallet jack, just keep your stuff on pallets or build skids based on 2x4 "on edge". Then everything is quickly mobile and you don't have to horse on and off the skates. The front wheels of the pallet jack are very close cousins to those skates pictured.

In the machinery world I've used metal-tracked skates (Multiton) where the machine would only fit lengthwise into the shop, but these were machines weighing ~ (8000, 13,000 and 15,500) lbs. The steel wheeled "tank tracks" are hard on any concrete floor coating and so the "soft" pallet jack wheels are preferred at that point, just more wheels are employed to distribute the load.

The steel tracks have great capacity, I acquired a set which is rated 30k "per skate" for a sum total of 120k. Likely more capacity than I will ever need.

Edit: Gorilla said this and I skimmed over...but to reiterate......Beware when using skates that 3 is the best starting point. 3 points define a plane and so the load won't tip ever. But with 4 skates there can come a point where one is no longer carrying any load and is left behind. This makes for a puckery or scrambley moment where it looks like the object is going to crash back to earth. If you come across that, I stuff a wad of paper towel or cardboard or kraft paper under the offender to keep it dragging along even if the vertical load goes to zero temporarily.