Mobile bases (yes again) and castors

[cambournepete]

[

I need a couple of mobile bases - 1 for the PT260 planer thicknesser (~85kg) and one for the JWBS-12 bandsaw (~70kg).

From the comments on the forum (yes I have searched the forum for both "mobile base" and "castors") it seems that the cheaper bases aren't up to much, and the expensive ones work but are well, expensive :roll:, so I like the idea of making my own. Feel free to tell me this is a Bad Idea, or you've got a base you want to get rid of...

I've found a link to what looks like a reasonable design that I can adapt, but that uses toggle clamps as jacks, so I might use the Axminster base method for lifting and also I need to find castors.

Alternatively I could just use some locking castors and just lock the wheels when I want to use the machine. I wouldn't need any kind of raising/lowering mechamism then either, but would the locked castors be firm enough?

So, any comments or advice on my thoughts or recommendations as to where's good for castors?

What have I forgotten or not explained well?

Pete (rather wishing I hadn't dumped all my dexion bits yesterday...)

[edited to include thoughts about locking castors]

 

[Waka]

Pete

All my mobile bases are home made and i wouldn't have it any other way. The main construction is angle iron 1/8" x 3/4 will do for your PT and bandsaw.

I have used the locking wheels from screwfix, the ones that will take 125 Kilo I think. Now to the question of does just locking these give you a stable enough platform to work from, for those two lightweight machines the answer for the PT is yes, I can't give comments on the band saw because its a machine that I don't have.

I even have my Xcalibar on this sort of set up 280 KG and it is perfect.

If you can weld then you can do it quite cheaply, the material for my Xcalibar was less than 50 pounds.

Also the advantage of having four locking wheels is the machine can be moved easily in any direction.

Hope this helps.

 

[cambournepete]

Thanks Waka.

I was thinking of wood construction, as I don't don't welding...

 

[Waka]

Thanks Waka.

I was thinking of wood construction, as I don't don't welding...

That would be even cheaper and just as stable. What I did with my PT was to remove the feet and sit it in the angle iron.

You could make a wooden base and put a lip on it.

I don't weld either, but I know a man who does.

 

[cambournepete]

I don't weld either, but I know a man who does.

And very good he is too...

 

[trevtheturner]

Hi Pete,

I'm in the same boat - don't (know how to) do welding.

I have four machines on wooden 'trolleys'. They are rectangles of softwood with routed housings at the inner corners. These take triangular plywood pieces on which the legs/corners of the machines stand. A locking castor is bolted to the underside of each corner, giving easy manoeuvrability in any direction. I usually find that locking just two of the castors is sufficient. The heaviest machine is 99 kilos.

The only drawback may be that the bases do raise the height of the machines about 4". For me, because I am tall, the extra height is actually a bonus. The overall cost was minimal compared to buying ready made bases.

Cheers,

Trev.

 

[devonwoody]

Before I went to the luxury of a proprietry wheel base I used one of those cheapie upright barrows and a piece of timber bolted to the side of my P/T.

 

[Mcluma]

Pete,

If you haven't started yet making your wooden base yet, I would consider to make them from angle iron.

I have now the Axmister mobile base, with one swivel castor, and I am going to make a new base for my PKF255 from steel wiht FOUR swivel castors. as the current three wheler isn't mobile enough to my taste

I have no welding equipment either, but I can make all the iron work ready for someone elso to just do the welding. and with current MIG welding it will not take that much time either

Surely there must be somebody within your neighbourhood who could do

 

[Chris72]

Hi
Ive made bases for my t/p, tablesaw and bandsaw.
I used 6mm plate and had it bent so that the machine is set as low to the ground as possible.I think Waka did basically the same but he used angle iron.I bought the locking castors from machine mart and they are solid when the locks are applied.
If you go down your local fabricators and explain how youwant it made they will knock it up in no time on their brake press for little money.I made mine myself in about half an hour.

 

[frank]

pete if you look in fww basic skills and techniques they have made a portable saw base it might not be what you need but may give you some ideas .
if any members have a clarke type t/saw them this might just be for you .


frank

 

[Bean]

If you cannot weld or you do not have access to welding kit, why not bolt the thig together.. Brace it properly and it will be a rigid , without the problems of distortion.................At a later date you can strip it down and make it into something else, you cannot do that easily with a welded construction.

Bean

 

[cambournepete]

Thanks for the thoughts.

Had another think in the garashop tonight and reckon that as I'm nearly 6ft tall it doesn't matter if my bases raise the tools a bit - I seem to remember reading somewhere that raising the bandsaw is a good thing anyway. My bases can therefore simply be suitably sized bit of plywood, with a border on the top to keep the tools on the base. The castors can be simply screwed to the underside of the plywood. Using 3" castors I reckon this will raise the bandsaw by about 4.5" and the planer/thicknesser by around 2.5" as I'll remove it's feet. I'll use swivelling lockable castors on each corner for maxiimum moveability a la Waka.

Crude but simple and effective methinks...

 

[trevtheturner]

....... but simple and effective methinks...

Yes. :wink: Virtually the same as I have done, Pete, and they work just fine. The extra few inches is a bonus, too.

Cheers,

Trev.

 

[garywayne]

For those of you who want a welded base. There is usually someone nearby who works on cars, they usually weld and I am sure would oblige for a small fee, or a few beers.

ATB Gary.

 

[pooka]

I recently made a mobile base for a JWBS-14, to replace the metal base that it came with. I used 25mm-thick birch plywood to make a cabinet-style base (I plan to fit drawers to it next but right now the front of it is open), about 50cm deep and 65cm wide (from memory so these figures might be out a bit - basically it is slightly larger than the dimension of the bottom of the original base). I wanted the overall height of the saw to be the same as with its own base/stand, so I adjusted the height of my base accordingly.

I used these 3-inch casters, from Woodcraft, and just screwed them to the base. I used two fixed caster and two locking casters. The locking mechanism on the casters locks the swivel action as well as locking the wheels, which is obviously a huge advantage.

The bottom "plate" of the bandsaw is designed to overlap the sides of the original bandsaw base, and bolts pass through the overlapping sides to secure them together. Instead of this approach on my base, I added (with glue and screws) two thick pieces of wood to the top of my base (these wood pieces are just shy of the same width as the top of the original base, for a neat fit). The bandsaw sits on these two pieces of wood, and I used carriage bolts fed from underneath to bolt the bandsaw to the bits of wood and the base cabinet itself. I added a layer of cork tile to the top of the two wood pieces in the (blindly?) optimistic hope that it would help minimse vibrations - it also helped keeped the lip of the bottom of the bandsaw from touching the new base cabinet by 1mm or so though, which was also a help (I didn't want the contact point between bandsaw and cabinet base to rely on just the small surface area of that metal lip).

The weight of the base was very substantial in itself, when done. I haven't put the bandsaw to any use yet, since attaching it to the base, but the whole setup so fars seems very robust. And it is stable when the casters are locked. My only regret is using two fixed casters as it makes the whole thing awkward to move in a confined space - these swivel casters lock so well that I might have been able to use them in place of the fixed casters and still end up with a solid platform when all four wheels were locked.

 

[Adam]

Remember you are raising the centre of gravity, of a machine which is very high compared to base size. If you workshop floor is uneven, and it hits a groove/small object, it could tip over.

Just a thought!

Adam

 

[Waka]

Pooka

I have router tables, sliding mitre saw, mortiser and sanding machine all on the type of cabinet you are describing, also my PT and table saw. On all of these I have used four swivell casters, it is certainly much easier to move the stuff around, for example my excalibar whinh is 8 feet from one end to tother, weighs 280 kg and can be moved with one hand.