Caster wheel

[Steve Nix]

For those of you that have caster on a 3520B so you can move it around, what is the best available.thanks

[Robert Hayward]

I have a home made version of the commercial Lift Lock and Roll A full swivel caster at each corner bought from Caster City. My 3520b stays up on the casters all the time when not in use and have not flat spotted. Caster City has a good tutorial on how to select the correct caster for your intended use.

[John K Jordan]

For those of you that have caster on a 3520B so you can move it around, what is the best available.thanks

Some people prefer a method that raises the lathe to use the casters and lowers to the floor when moved into place. The advantage is it can make the lathe more stable and reduce vibration depending on the type of caster. Lowering the lathe to the floor may also help a little with the height, again, depending on the castors used and in addition, how they are mounted. I've seen a number of designs in various clubs and schools and some are quite clever. One school used a big wooden-handled pry bar to lift each end of the lathe and insert a small platform with casters underneath. My favorite was a device on either end fabricated from steel that used a crank to lower and raise the casters. (I wish I had taken a picture of that one.)

Note that if doing delicate, precision work, simply moving a lathe to a different spot can affect the alignment depending on how perfect the floor is. Check to see if points in both the headstock and tailstock align. If not, adjust one leg leveler until the points align. I've had to do this nearly every time I moved a lathe, once on a club lathe in the middle of a demo!

[gordy haycock]

I called the lift, lock and roll guys. Their prices are ridiculous. It was 16% of the cost of my Powermatic lathe. When I commented to the owner that that was too much, he said, “well, we gotta cover the cost of the patten.” Yeah, well not all from me.

I bought a $200 lift table from harbor freight. It moves my lathe with ease and I use it for getting all kind of heavy items in and out of my truck.

[Robert Hayward]

I called the lift, lock and roll guys. Their prices are ridiculous.

That is why I have a home made version. With everything figured in I spent somewhere around $200.00 on materials. Casters, steel, welding and grinding supplies, hardware and paint. At the time the commercial one was not that much more money. Plus a significant amount of time designing it. I had never seen one in person, pictures on the internet only. I made a wood model of one corner and fine tuned that to get dimensions for the final steel assembly. It was a fun project but I cannot imagine why I would want to tackle that again.

[Perry Hilbert Jr]

My first lathe was fastened to a bench that had two wheels sticking out about 8 inches even with the floor. On the other end about thigh high, were two handles like wheel barrow handles. When the handles were lifted the other end of the lathe bench legs listed with the weight resting on the wheels. The lathe was fairly light (about 150 pounds so easy to wheel around. wouldn't work for heavy lathes,

[ChrisA Edwards]

Not my idea, but my solution

[ChrisA Edwards]

My prior solution, 1/4" angle iron and casters

[Lawrence Duckworth]

I try to avoid using casters, I use a pallet jack for moving stuff around…..could be something about having wheels on my house for so many years 🤷*♂️