Implement Dollies

Gem99ultra · Apr 7, 2018

ericm979 said:
The Harbor Freight furniture dollies are not useful for implements with any decent weight or size to them. The casters are too small and the bearings are poor. I put an empty ballast box (about 120 lbs) on one and it didn't want to roll on my concrete barn floor. The dollies themselves are not that large, so for a tractor width implement you'd need multiple dollies.

I can weld but wood is cheaper so I made mine from 2x6s and 2x4s. The box blade dolly works well. The combination pallet fork and grapple or bucket dolly saves space but with two attachments it's pretty heavy. Even with 6" casters it takes some effort to get it rolling.

I'm afraid absolute statements like "Harbor Freight furniture dollies are not useful for implements" is a little over the top. I have one on each corner of my 1,000 rotary cutter, and those have held up fine for over 10 years. I've bought them before just for the casters which I put on the bottom of pallets. Those are handy for just about everything such as tiller, straight blade, etc. I also don't have any problem of them rolling on my shop floor...

Sure, I'd prefer some 5" heavy duty ball bearing casters. But at over 10x the price, these cheapies do just fine>

justinramani · Apr 7, 2018

When we had our house built they delivered the CMU blocks on some really nice wood pallets. I made sure to grab all of them before they disappeared. I added casters to the pallets that I purchased from eBay and used them for implement storage/movement. Works fantastic and I have less than $10 into each one.

ericm979 · Apr 7, 2018

Gem99ultra said:
I'm afraid absolute statements like "Harbor Freight furniture dollies are not useful for implements" is a little over the top.

That's been my experience. The ones I've tried under implements just don't want to move when loaded with a few hundred pounds. Maybe they send the junk ones here and the good ones elsewhere. I've been using 5" and 6" HF castors on my dollies. They're $6 or $7 each but roll a whole lot better with weight on them.

fried1765 · Apr 7, 2018

Gem99ultra said:
I'm afraid absolute statements like "Harbor Freight furniture dollies are not useful for implements" is a little over the top. I have one on each corner of my 1,000 rotary cutter, and those have held up fine for over 10 years. I've bought them before just for the casters which I put on the bottom of pallets. Those are handy for just about everything such as tiller, straight blade, etc. I also don't have any problem of them rolling on my shop floor...

Sure, I'd prefer some 5" heavy duty ball bearing casters. But at over 10x the price, these cheapies do just fine>

AGREED !!!

psvines · Apr 10, 2018

Scrap lumber and a few casters made a useful FEL dolly. It is great now being able to move it around inside the garage.

I also have a HF dolly under my 350lb ballast box.

bdhsfz6 · Apr 11, 2018

npalen said:
Search results for: 'furniture dolly'

You wouldn't be able to buy much steel tubing and casters for the price of these. Could use a pair of them in tandem if weight was a concern.
Harbor freight has a 25% off coupon ending today. (Sunday)

+1 !

I bought an 18" and four 12" dollies at Harbor Freight. I really beat them up but so far, I haven't busted one. I haven't tried 1000# on one yet but I bet they will handle it!

newbury · Apr 11, 2018

fried1765 said:
Why not buy the Harbor Freight wood dollies?
They are cheap, and strong.
The larger size are rated for 1000 lbs. each.
I have everything on HF dollies (a pair of the small, 500lb. ones, for each implement).
My KK tiller, my KK box blade, my TSC brush hog, and I will also put 2 dollies under my new ETA deluxe scrape blade when it arrives.
I want to work on my welding skills also, but the HF dollies do the job just fine for me.

They are both rated for 1,000 lbs. I'm pretty sure they use the same casters.

I would suggest the OP buy several of the small HF dollies so he can get things rolling immediately then start to build his own. They will always come in handy.

ericm979 said:
The Harbor Freight furniture dollies are not useful for implements with any decent weight or size to them. The casters are too small and the bearings are poor. I put an empty ballast box (about 120 lbs) on one and it didn't want to roll on my concrete barn floor. The dollies themselves are not that large, so for a tractor width implement you'd need multiple dollies.<snip>

I've my 5' tiller, my 16" planer, my 8" chipper, my 5' rotary cutter on HF dollies. The chipper and planer weigh about 800 lb each. On the tiller and rotary cutter I use three on each, the others only use two, they all role fine on MY concrete floors (and wood, and asphalt). Along with PECS they make it much easier to hook up 3 point implements.

bdhsfz6 said:
+1 !

I bought an 18" and four 12" dollies at Harbor Freight. I really beat them up but so far, I haven't busted one. I haven't tried 1000# on one yet but I bet they will handle it!

I busted one, I was moving 4x8 sheets of 3/4 marine plywood and dropped a sheet from "portrait" to "landscape" orientation so it chopped across the long axis boards and it broke the boards.

I must have 20 to 30 of the small ones. I use them under 55 gallon trash cans to make an easily rolling trash can. I like to keep one by the front door at my houses, so if we get a heavy delivery of something we can roll it around on our hardwood floors easily. I've a Makita mac2400 that has lived on one for the last few years. Sometimes I need it at the front door to work on vehicles, sometimes at the back for projects. It, heavy and rolls well from front to back.
Oh, and occasionally I use them for moving furniture.

lennyzx11 · Apr 11, 2018

I wanted to trade the tiny wheels on my old tombstone welder with some large pushmower wheels.
I did that but during the process, I used the smaller HF Dollie to set it on. Lo and behold, that Lincoln tombstone and HF Dollie fit together like a match made in heaven!
Those new wheels only touch the ground when the rig goes outside.

cabover4us · Oct 30, 2018

Same here with an old tombstone welder, has a plywood surround and small wheels, many a time pulling I've had it start to fall over because of wheel turned and frozen. New wheels will be coming.
I bought harbor freights plastic dollys and use them in my 40' container, and they roll awesome on wood floor.
We are in transition right now as far as how to store implements. Our new garage is on the way, slowly, or extremely slow to be precise. As I walk around the slab mapping out where what will go. I really want 3 point stuff to have a home on rollers in the container, is that realistic? Was thinking of 4 x 4 rack system to store in garage if dollys dont pan out. I will build a rolling platform for my backhoe, that can be stored in a corner, upright fashion, probably have to chain outriggers to main unit. Will be a work in progress for sure, when we get closer to completion I will take some photos to show. Have two cars, a pickup and a tractor to store, oops, let me refrase that, one new tractor, (Yanmar) and 3 other vehicles, those are the staples, everything else is secondary. Well, maybe there are a few more 1sts. Air compressors, welders, you know, hands on stuff. Old barn is directly behind new, so been trying to get in there and strip electric and florescent light fixtures, convert them to LED, have 9- 8' fixtures only need 31 more.