Roller Stands

[fletchlu]

Okay. I've learned one lesson. No more cheap equipment. Anyone have any suggestions for roller stands?

[cabinetman]

I've made them out of wood, but they get tipsy pretty easy. Old tire rims work pretty good. I went to HD to get a base for a patio umbrella, and when I saw what they were and what they cost, I decided to use a patio walk stone. Some of them are really heavy when they are around 2' square or diameter, gives the bottom/base low center of gravity.

[Sonny Edmonds]

Well, it kinda depends on what you want them for.
They can tend to flop over if set-up wrong. But a bag of shot or sand can help a lot to hold them in place during use.
I keep looking for [link:www.amazon.com/Shop-Fox-G8982-Roller-Table/dp/B00004TQET | roller table or ramp].
In my experiance, I think one of these would be the most useful.
I almost was able to get one from salvage where I work, but alas, the turd that runs it has his buyer buddies he holds stuff for. (Only consolation is he has finally come under scrutiny and is under investigation now.) }>
Anyhow, I'd still like to have one for an extention to the left of my TS for sheet stock ripping.

[link:www.internationaltool.com/woodstock4.htm | HERE'S Sommore to gaze at.] ;)

:D

[link:home.earthlink.net/~pie/data/index.html|Sonny Edmonds ]
Saugus, CA
"Precision Firewood Specialist"
God Bless America !
In God We Trust !
"Lurkimus turdius orifus"


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[dbriski]

I like Rockler's http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=5914&filter=roller%20stand This is the flip top I bought. The feet are adjustable to level the unit. The height adjustment works well, it has a lot of heft and doesn't move around unless you set the height to high and miss the rollers. I like the ball bearings for wide pieces (sheet stock) and the single roller for smaller items. I had a cheep harbor freight and got fed up with it and bought this one.

[TrevorZ]

I too bought a cheap set of roller stands. They were the HTC stands from Woodcraft. They were never level and tipped over very easily. I'm currently trying to figure out how to take them apart and salvage the rollers. I did buy a set of adjustable rollers that clamp to the bench from rockler and am pretty happy with those.

Trevor

[Scooter B]

I was fortunate enough to snag a frame with six rollers from a demolition pile at my hospital but it has no stand. Actually it was in a trash can and never made it to the dumpster.

I have had a couple ideas to put it to good use but have not decided which woud best for a rare find.

There was an article or reader submission in one of the woodworking magazines that showed a DIY roller set up mounted on the top of a planer.

Parts used -

1. One 6' 1" diameter aluminuium electrical conduit pipe cut into matching desired lengths

2. Pipe flange caps that fit the tube perfectly on either end.

3. All thread rods for axles that ran the length of the tubes and then mounted these into a frame that positioned the the axles in a parallel line.

4. There [i]may[i/] have been some wooden inserts to support the inside of the aluminium tubing to prevent any caving in of the tubing under heavy loads as well as to spread the weight bearing points accross the rollers and not just at ends where the flanges were.

After running a pass through the thickness planer you lay the piece on the roller and roll it to a balance point on the center instead of carrying the piece(s) around to the infeed side again.


I also saw a home brew drum sander on a guitar building/luthier forum that used a similiar design concept with larger diamer PVC tubing. Along with the plywood circle inserts I believe he weighted the drum down a little by filling the PVC with sand between the wood inserts.

As long as you can precisely drill your hole for the all thread precisely at the center, the tubing is within tollerable limits and you can mount some type of axle bearing arangement in two straight parallel lines on either side the roller frame construction should be reasonably simple but I have not though to far into how to construct a sturdy adjustable stand to support one for outfeed tables.

Anyone want to tag onto this idea with a DIY stand suggestion for a DIY roller stand or is this one of those that would just be less expensive to buy one made of metal for for longevity reasons?

If anyone wants to tackle the stand obviously an inexpensive way to weight it down with a low center of gravity AND keep it easily portable along with being height adjustable would be desirable.

For those of us with not so level garage floors a way to level the roller support with a TS or TP might be nice.

I noticed on my light weight adjustable single roller stand from Woodcraft that the roller was either not remaining parallel to the floor or at least not with the stock coming off the TP so that one end of the roller might be at just the right heighth for the outfeed table but the other end would be a little to low or too high so I ended up sliding shims under the frame of the roller stand for a quick temporary fix.