Great Lakes leveling casters on a bandsaw

[david kramer]

I have a Grizzly 555x band saw which needs to live on wheels because I have a small shop. Based on what I've read on this forum I thought I'd try the Great Lakes leveling casters, which I installed today. Based on the caster design I expected the saw to be pretty steady with the caster feet down. But the feet are made of a soft rubber and the saw seems pretty wobbly. I'm worried about the whole thing vibrating.

Also the adjustment wheels are not particularly easy to get at, so the casters are kinda annoying to deploy. I'm rethinking the Great Lakes idea and going with more traditional locking casters. Is anyone else using the GL casters on a band saw? Any thoughts or recommendations on using them?

Thx
David

[John Bush]

Hi David,
I use GL levelers on my BS(~600#'s), jointer(~850#'s), and lathe(900#'s). I built frames for the BS and jointer and just mounted directly to the "feet" of the lathe. The jointer is heavy enough that the horizontal push doesn't move it. When hogging out a large, unbalanced blank the lathe tends to vibrate a little with the feet engaged and I don't lower the feet if the blank is balanced. The BS needs the feet lowered when resawing but not for other uses. I don't notice any vibration problems but I do find the task of lowering the feet a PITA sometimes. Seems I can never remember which way to turn them. I think the lever action bases are easier to operate, but its nice to spin the machines around with GL instead of jockeying the two fixed-two swivel caster bases around.