Air casters

Stick it on a pallet and move it with a pallet truck. Simple Tech.

Regards Ian.

Circlip, I think your solution would not be an option. John wants his wife to be able easily to move the printing press away from the wall on occasions when she needs to use it. A pallet truck perhaps would not be acceptable in her workplace/studio.

To make a positive suggestion how about half a dozen or eight steel plates fixed (glued?) on the base, each with an escape hole(s) below and a piped entry on the side. All six to be connected together and fed from a remote compressor. Fairly easy to achieve but may still be too expensive.

I believe that expense was among Sir Christopher Cockerell's problems

Watford

Edited By Watford on 30/10/2016 19:26:27

Typical. You can't believe anything you read on the internet!

Cheers,

Dave

They used air skates to move very heavy storage boxes (~40 tons) at work. As long as your floor is flat and smooth it's worth a go, and vinyl flooring is ideal as long as there are no joins or punctures. If the air gets underneath it gets very interesting. However the problem is that once you've got it moving it can be the devil to control which direction it is going to go. If you want to just move it in and out I'd experiment with a set of wheels to share the load and control direction and an air skate to reduce the push force required. Ths will also help with getting the centre of gravity over the centre of the skate, it won't matter if it's a bit off. You then need to sew some skirts out of flexible but air tight fabric.

Edited By duncan webster on 30/10/2016 22:39:43

May I suggest white sail cloth

Go on the practical boat owners forum & you will get an old sail for nothing as yachtsmen do not have a use for them & they clutter up lofts

Dave, many thanks for doing that encouraging experiment! I hope it's representative of my Aldi shop vac...

I would go for one of these:

**LINK**

I have got two already, one carrying a cabinet housing vacuum/extractor and mounted mitre/bevel saw, the other carrying a cabinet full of accessories with mounted morticing machine (heavy cast iron bodied thing). The trollies are very adjustable for size and lock solidly to the floor when in use. The smaller version is rated at 500lb, the larger at 700lb, so either would cope with the 350lb printing machine. The casters are outboard of the frame so stability would not be an issue. Problem solved at very modest cost! I have no connection to the provider except as a satisfied customer...

Trev T

"Circlip, I think your solution would not be an option. John wants his wife to be able easily to move the printing press away from the wall on occasions when she needs to use it. A pallet truck perhaps would not be acceptable in her workplace/studio."

Problem with casters is that they allow movement in any direction and most who fit them put them under the machine making the whole unit more top heavy. The ones shown by Trev T greatly assist by locating the casters outside the machine footprint with minimal lift of the machine but still suffer from a castering effect when trying to move the machine. Airlifts are great but I wouldn't trust a single person to move a "Lump" without a helper and without trying to sound chauvinistic, not a woman on her own.

Ideally, for access, the press only has to be moved forwards and backwards so rails would be an ideal solution but not practical. At least with a pallet truck the lift height is totally controllable and the long handle on the front gives far more straight line control than free casters..

Sorry Watford, a real safe positive suggestion.

Regards Ian.

I was in a public loo this afternoon, and while drying my hands in the air blower (made by Dyson) I was thinking about this subject, I think what is required is a high volume of air through a slot around the periphery, and a flexable skirt around the outside.

My Mum had a Hoover Constellation vacuum cleaner, I know that when we were kids it wouldn't lift us.

I think there was an episode of Myth Busters about using a garden leaf blower to power a hover board.

Ian S C

Whatever system is employed, there will be a requirement to control directional manipulation. The machine trollies only have two swivelling casters, those where the lifting is actuated. This makes it easier for a single operator to control movement, as they only have to manipulate the assembly from one end. I have no difficulty in moving either of my outfits, sometimes involving taking them outside the workshop altogether, me being a 10stone short***** 81yr old!

Trev T

Oh, Trev, I wish you hadn't posted that link! That's the kind of thing I was avoiding having to make, and here it is off the shelf and at a modest cost! Maybe I'll go that route instead....how much do they add to the height please?

John...

Sorry for the delay in answering your query - been having yet more trouble with my wayward laptop which resents the imposition of 'critical updates' by MS!

The additional height involved in mounting my stuff in the machine trollies is an astonishing 20mm! I had forgotten how little this was, which is due to the casters being mounted outside the frame (which is where the additional stability comes from).

Assuming your wife's machine is mounted on a wooden base (eg: cabinet/bench) with the weight bearing on the four corners, mounting will not be a problem. Any introduced baseboard to achieve this would, of course, increase the additional operating height. A few screws through the frame into the structure would complete any 'H&S'(!) issues...!

If you have any more queries, feel free to pm me.

Trev T

On the assembly line, the Perkins V8 engines (circa 800 Kg complete), on their assembly stands were rotated on the steel plate base by connecting an air line with regulated pressure. Once rotated, the line was disconnected, and everything was rock solid again.

The air lifted the engine stand, and provided effectively frictionless movement. hence the need to ensure the ability to stop the movement.

(Think air bearings for precision grinding machines)

For linear movement, it would be better to apply the hovercraft principle, and as already said, have an inflatabl e skirt.

Simple calculation:

Measure Weight of press and base, and Area of base. Then calculate the pressure required to be applied to that area to support the weight. With a large area, a low pressure will provide a large force to "float" the load.

Example: Load 500 lbs, Area 1,000 in^2 : Pressure required for equilibrium = 0.5 psi

Howard

Well, after all the comments and suggestions, an update. I decided that Trev's suggested solution was low risk, though boring - I could spend a lot of time trying to get air lift to work and not succeed, but the machine trolley was low risk and available quickly. (Swamps and alligators come to mind.) So I ordered one last Monday, arrived Thursday, fitted yesterday, reassembled press today. It does the job.

Sorry the pictures are sideways. This shows the press, the trolley base, and a vew looking under the bed. The top, driven roller is about 5 x 15 inches; the lower one 6 x 15, both solid cast iron. The bed is a 3/4 inch steel plate 15 inches wide and 36 long. Assembly was quite hard work considering you have to lay one of the sides flat, insert the rollers vertically, then drop the other side on top, bolt it together, and finally tip it onto its base.

Many thanks to Trevor for the suggestion, I'd never have found those bases without.

Edited By John Haine on 06/11/2016 14:30:41

John..

Glad to be of help.. Boring, quick, but effective solution, leaving You more time to enjoy Your thing!

Hope your wife gets on with the arrangement too and enjoys her printing related hobby(?). I was very interested in printing (in the old times of letterpress and Adana machines) MANY years ago! That was before modern technology almost killed the industry off, seemingly overnight! The old skills are still, in my opinion, the more interesting and challenging, as in Model Engineering!! But then, I would say that wouldn't I, being a 'silver top' struggling to keep abreast of this wonderful new world of ours...!

BTW, on a similar note, I have a stack of traditional (film) photographic equipment cluttering up the place, cameras, projector, and a complete B&W darkroom in a fitted cabinet, all of which was quickly made 'old hat' by the introduction of digital technology! I bet I am not alone in being able to say something like that either! But, I digress! It's flippin' cold in the workshop, so what's left to do, other than mull over what to make next...

Have fun.... Trev T

Trev T you are not alone. Just cannot bring myself to dump all the SLRs, Enlargers, Colour and B & W processing kit, and studio lighting. Too many happy hours spent with them.

Wife has suggested that i do and move the mini lathe in to the darkroom. It would avoid a few steps in the dark and rain to workshop.

In some respects, the march of progress isn't as much fun.

Howard

Shame on you. I know it was excellent advice, cheap, quick and totally appropriate but I was looking forward to hearing all about John's solution. I think it would have worked.

Also, in the spirit of Fireworks Night, I was half-hoping to see a photo of that printer stuck in his ceiling!

Cheers,

Dave

I am trying to understand Smellimeters and now Trev T introduces Stone!