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.

 

[Smilodon]

(Sorry, long response, just trying to explain what I was looking for in this thread)

I'm rearranging a shop that I inherited. So, the usages are varied. Generally moving stuff on a concrete floor, so "off-road" wheels not really required. Would like ones as low profile as possible. The snow-mobile things look interesting, but I'm a little concerned at their relative height.

Pallet jack isn't exactly what I'm looking for. While it would be nice to have one, they take up space (that I'm trying to free up by moving stuff) and many of the moves are in very tight spaces. As a result of this, something that was more multi-directional than the "roller" type would be nice. I know you can get the roller type to go around corners, but it's a lot of work.

I'm not constantly moving stuff, so not really looking for an on-going "system" of rolling stuff around the shop. This is kind of a one-off. Not a shop where I'm working on heavy stuff all the time (looking at you @zkdiesel ) and need everything stored in such a way that it can be equipment moved.

The house in my inherited property was first and a bunch of furniture had to be moved. It was just my wife and I, so we got pretty good at using the furniture-grade "skis" (stamped sheet metal with three wheels). Ended up having to buy some better versions of those with ball bearings rather than bushings. So, have some familiarity with working with them in a lighter weight format.

I have regular wooden dollies of various sizes and shapes. They always tend to be the wrong size for whatever I'm moving and the wheels on mine are generally not up to something like a bandsaw on a stand or loaded toolbox. I could get heavier-duty standard dollies, but could never get a size that works with everything. Discovered this with different size, legged furniture and that's how I ended up with the skis for those to begin with.

When I look on the appropriate sites, I find a huge array of prices, types, etc. I'm pretty sure "skis" are what I want, but I guess I was more looking for here was some way to narrow things down to a good price/performance point. And get steered away from stuff that doesn't work well. Not looking to totally cheap out, but don't need "Snap On" equivalent either. They are probably going to sit on a shelf a lot once I get the shop arranged.

I mean, is Venvor generally good enough for temporary use? They have both of the common types I've seen.

Roller Type - "Pentagon" Type

Also found some one-offs with ball rollers that look interesting, but tough to spring for them with no experience.

"Ball" Type

PS: How do I include the atomic partner stuff in the Amazon links?

 

[Stuart in MN]

The cheap small furniture dollies from Harbor Freight or other places (Menards sells them, for example) can handle a surprising amount of weight. When you have three or four of them of course the load capacity increases. You do have to be able to lift up the thing you're trying to move enough to slip them underneath.

I have a motorcycle right now that's sitting on a single one of them, I imagine it weighs 250 pounds or more.

Edit: I just looked at the HF website, their 18" x 12" dolly is rated for 1000 lbs.

 

[carlaisle]

If you can hand lift one end, you're solidly in the sub-500ish lb category. I've moved tons of things with some no-name dollies probably not much better in quality than these: https://www.ebay.com/itm/137016980229. Biggest problem is the tiny wheels react to a zip tie like a wheel chock. If the potential to lose control of the load upon loss of a dolly is a concern, use a ratchet strap or other means of temporary positive attachment to ensure that doesn't happen.

 

[Smilodon]

Yeah, some things are light enough to move like that, but others not so much. I may have implied that in my posts, but "lift one end" is sometimes with mechanical help.

As far as the ones mentioned in the last couple of posts. I have a number of these when I was doing the furniture, and they can't hack a lot of this stuff. I have tried. Ones without roller bearings in the wheels generally have to much load on the bushings and don't roll well.

My furniture ones I got later with the roller bearings might work on a lot of the stuff (it is amazing what they will move), but was just looking for something a bit beefier to add to the tool set.

Kind of saving out my "good" furniture ones right now, as I don't want to break them. Still need them for in the house furniture work and don't want to break one at the moment.

But thanks everybody for the suggestions. Being from Florida, I would never thought to look for snowmobile stuff!

 

[rawen2]

Here's two reviews of the Vevor sets from guys who know what they're talking about:

(zoom ahead to 3 min. 30 sec.)

If you want to make your own steering handle can't beat this price ($30 each until 8-31-2026)

VEVOR Machinery Skate Dolly – 6T, 13200LBS, 4 PU, 360°

Looking for a reliable machinery skate dolly? VEVOR 6T 13,200LBS model with PU wheels and 360° pad moves heavy loads smoothly. Shop now for power and precision!

www.vevor.com

 

[matt_i]

By far the biggest pain is getting your object up to 4-1/8" for the vevor and 4-3/4" for Multiton Mark 4 and then lowering it down every time you want to go out. You can't even crib with 2x4 on-edge as it's not tall enough. I was using an Enerpac porta power with 3/8" of stroke and a stack of 1/4" steel plates for my machine moves to get up to transport height and back down to resting height. Very calm but takes a lot of total effort.

It's still not totally clear what you are moving, nor the size of the space you are going into, but consider pro household movers show up to successfully move entire households with 4 wheel dollies, 2 wheel hand trucks and refrigerator hand trucks (with binder strap). They are well optimized to packing things closely, as would the pallet jack. You just have to figure out how to pack it tightly. I come pre equipped with the Pack Rat gene so I don't have to give it a lot of thought. My eyeball has a pretty close estimate although a tape measure helps make a lot of quick decisions on specifics.

 

[whateg01]

By far the biggest pain is getting your object up to 4-1/8" for the vevor and 4-3/4" for Multiton Mark 4 and then lowering it down every time you want to go out. You can't even crib with 2x4 on-edge as it's not tall enough. I was using an Enerpac porta power with 3/8" of stroke and a stack of 1/4" steel plates for my machine moves to get up to transport height and back down to resting height. Very calm but takes a lot of total effort.

I would generally not advise using 2x4 on edge for cribbing anyway. Some say you shouldn't use construction lumber at all. But to get over 4.125", stacking three 2x4 flat gets you 4.5" and let's you add cribbing as you go so the heavy thing has less distance to fall if the lifting thing fails.

 

[LXCam]

Not knowing what you’re moving probably makes this suggestion ****. But I have a set of these jacks. They have a set of fingers you only need 1.5” of needed bottom clearance then you strap them together around the whatever. Great for benches, cabinets, etc. not great for mills or odd shaped equipment but they will work for that, you just need a couple spreader bars in that case.

I moved al my heavy **** in my entire shop with these and even lifted and placed 40ft containers on slab when setting them exactly were they needed to go wasn’t possible with the delivery means.

This is one from my move. That bench/boxes were moved with allllll my tools still in them.

Btw, the lift fingers slide on the horizontal bars so you can go wide or narrow which is really handy.