Couple Mobile Bases

[Cary Falk]

Matt,
The bases look great. I think the ones you weld up are far better than anything you can buy. If you can't find the brick ledge or want a cheaper alternative to the wide angel you used, here is what I recently did. It is 1x2" tube with 2.5 angle. You can double the tube where the wheels are if you need the extra strength or uses wheels with plates on them. This machine is only 300 lbs and still probably overkill as built

[Alan Schaffter]

My "local" steel yard--Potomac Steel & Supply south of DC--typically has a good range of "drops" they sell cheap. They are the left over bits from when a customer wants two 10' lengths from a 24' piece of stock, or a 4'x6' piece of sheet out of a 4'x8' piece. Whenever I go down there, I always ask to poke around in the drops, because the prices are about half of what you would normally pay, and for the stuff I do, I can work with off size pieces. The bad part, obviously, is that you never had any idea what you will or won't find.

I got the sheet steel for my first cyclone at Potomac.

[Mitchell Andrus]

Sweet. I'm getting a welder once I go to the new shop (this month). Can't wait to be able to do this stuff for myself. Thanks for posting.
.

[Matt Meiser]

For anyone starting out, I'd say MIG because you can teach yourself to use it and there's not much technique besides pulling the trigger and moving.

I think the best buy in a welder is probably a used name brand one from a hobbiest (Miller, Lincoln, or Hobart) but then you kind of need to know what to look for and how to use it to test it out. New, Hobart IMHO is a great buy for a hobbiest--good quality machine, readily available.

Alan--I like the integrated design too!

I was working on getting away from caster-bases for my shop and going to 2 wheels and a machine mover but then we got the idea to do this workshop and I didn't want to have to build 10 or so of the movers so we came up with these designs. This will work better for my top-heavy bandsaw than the mover though.

[Jason White]

This is exactly why I need to take a welding class!!!

Jason

These are a couple mobile bases I welded up today. I'm helping coordinate a mobile base build day for my club next week and mine are the prototypes. We gave everyone the choice of putting casters under or beside.

The tubing is 1x2 and the outriggers are 4x6x5/15 angle. The angle is EXPENSIVE and kind of hard to find but works out well.

Casters are from SES Caster Company. We also did a group buy on those, much to my UPS driver's dismay.

The one with the wheels underneath is for my Kreg machine which is sitting on a metal cabinet I got from a friend. The one with outriggers goes under my bandsaw to replace a Shop Fox model I've grown increasingly unhappy with.

[Tom Rick]

Looks great- I just picked up a nice set of casters and might give this a try as well.

[Matt Meiser]

Got them painted today (gotta love being able to take my coffee breaks from work in the shop ) and under the machines tonight.

[Noah Levy]

Thanks for the info on welders guys!

Noah

[Jeremy Schleiden]

Hey guys I'm new to the forum. This might be a silly question, but I just picked up a Craftsman 22116 Hybrid Table saw. It came in a "steel" frame. The tubing appears to be 1" square with the corner angle supports. Do you think this would be sturdy enough to turn into a mobile base by attaching some casters? I figure it's gotta be rated for the 400lbs+ shipping weight. Thoughts? I can take a pic later tonight if that would help.
Thanks in advance for the advice!
-j

[Jeremy Schleiden]

I can take a pic later tonight if that would help.

[Matt Meiser]

Wow, that's kind of crazy! Tractors, ATVs, and the like ship in cages like that but they ship them back AFAIK. That's a lot of wasted material.

Tubing should certainly be strong enough, but I'd want to cut it up and make it actually fit the saw.

[Brian Effinger]

I had the same cage around my Steel City saw, Jeremy. I don't think it is usable, though. If I remember correctly, the metal is really light weight - not structural steel. I forget what the correct term is for that type of metal.

[Matt Day]

Guys,

Any large construction site has more steel angle put in the dumpster than all of us combined could use. Stop by and kindly ask the superintendent of the GC if you can dumpster dive or have a few cutoffs - it's free clean up to him! Key times for this is after the structure goes up (steel of course) or when masonry is finishing up when lintle and brick ledge angle scraps are all over.

[Jeremy Schleiden]

Thanks for the replies. Seems like throwing that frame out would be a big waste...I'll tell myself that I can find a use for it eventually.

I had the same cage around my Steel City saw, Jeremy. I don't think it is usable, though. If I remember correctly, the metal is really light weight - not structural steel. I forget what the correct term is for that type of metal.

I don't know a lot about metal. I would agree that it's certainly not a heavy gauge, but one would think that if it can ship in that frame it can sit on it as a mobile base? No?

[Matt Meiser]

Our club had a lot of fun yesterday. We built 9 more of these in about 4 hours yesterday morning. A few folks were cutting stock, a few cleaning it up, and a few drilling while 2 of us welded. Then as we finished up a Ryder truck with something like 1500 bd-ft of lumber our club members ordered from a sawyer in SW Michigan arrived and we unloaded that, sorted, and loaded into everyone's vehicles. For some reason I was kind of tired!