roller bearing help?

Wingnut · May 22, 2001

ok, all you helpful folks .... I'm going off off-topic (i.e. not about guns or gas...). I'm putting the finishing touches on my shop ... guess I'll have to dig out one of the dgital cameras and show it to you ... but, in the meantime - I am curious whether anyone can ever seen a "rollwe bearing" which I'll describe below. First off ... what I'm looking for is an unobtrusive and "hidden" means of moving my doors. When I built the shop, I left off the 16 foot garage door and built my own. So ... what I have is 16 feet (4 four foot sections) of bi-folds. Each section is 4 x 4 by 4" think ... basically 2x4 frames with 3/4" ply on each side and insulation sadwiched in the middle .... hey, I live in Michigan, see.
OK ... so that's all set up for you ... what I want to do now is make the doors a LITTLE easier to move. I'd estimate ... based on the pain of lifting these into place ... that we're talking about 150 pounds per door. Which means, of course, they put a pretty serious strain on the hinges. So ... one day while pounding the keyboards at work, I suddenly though of the roller bearing supports for my saw table and it dawned on me that such a device would make a fantasic "wheel".
So ... what I'm looking for is basically a steel ball with a half cage. The cage would fit into a hole drilled on the underside of the door and the door, when remounted, would sit on the ball ... which would roll in the cage and be a perfect little invisible caster.
Anyone ever seen anything like that anywhere ... or do I now have to finish playing inventor and try to build my own??
Sorry to go so far "off topic" here ... heh heh.

too bad that common sense ain't

Bill_in_MI · May 22, 2001

Wingnut,

<blockquote>In reply to:<hr>

Each section is 4 x 4 by 4" think

<hr></blockquote>

I am still trying to get the picture here. I would have serious chronic headaches going through a door 4 feet high! Other than that, could you try a regular swivel caster and see how that works? You would only have to drill an approximate 1/4in. hole to try...but you would need to have the right clearance under the door...or mount them on blocks attached to the surface of the plywood at the appropriate height.

Bird · May 22, 2001

Wingnut, if I'm envisioning that right you're talking about a ball in a cage like your computer mouse, but steel on a much bigger scale? For some reason or other, it seems that I've seen something like that, but can't remember where (maybe just my imagination).

Bird

RobS · May 22, 2001

Wingnut, I think I'm envisioning what you want, but not completely sure. I've seen conveyers made of roller balls held in half cages. Basically a bunch of balls sticking up that boxes and such can roll in any direction. They usually have a couple of ears to screw them down. Seems you could mount these up-side-down under your doors and they should take the weight. Is your floor pretty smooth? It'll make for a pretty concentrated load on the floor which could lead to chipping etc. For sources, try Grainger or C&H distributing. C&H carries lot's of warehouse/material handling stuff. I'm not sure about a web site but I have one of their catalogs at work.

Have you considered a combination of hinges (like a bifold door), and an overhead track to support the loose end. You can get seriously heavy overhead track for big barn doors at TSC and Quality.

Good luck with whatever you do /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

scruffy · May 23, 2001

Wingnut, if you incorporate ROBS' suggestion, add an electrict motor and cable (via pulleys) and you can have your own automatic shop door opener/closer!

MJB · May 23, 2001

I have seen those. They are probably what RobS is talking about. We have an acoustic enclosure for one of our test stands at work which uses four of the double ball rollers to allow it to be moved around. One caution however, the enclosure that we have is heavy enough that the balls mark the concrete floor when it is moved, since the weight is concentrated on a very small area. If your doors are very heavy, or if you move them around alot, you might scuff up your floors. Also your floor would have to fairly smooth for them to work well. The ones we have will get stuck on a grain of sand and just skid instead of roll. Good Luck.

Fugitive from the Cubicle Police

WVBill · May 23, 2001

wingnut:

Maybe you could try refrigerator casters
(see item 93005 on this web page http://www.madicoinc.com/bcasters.htm)

Mortise them into the bottom of your doors and provide a hard-surface track for them to run on.

RobS · May 23, 2001

Wingnut, the website for C&H is http://www.chdist.com. They sell "individual ball sockets" for $3 to $20 each.

Hope this helps /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Edited by RobS on 05/23/01 08:59 AM (server time).

Bird · May 23, 2001

Rob, I don't know how you guys find these things./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif I knew I'd seen something like that, but still can't remember where.

Bird

RobS · May 23, 2001

Bird, I'm just trying to keep up with John. I do get some fun catalogs at work with lots of potential applications in my garage.

In this case, I do think the rollerball will tear up a concrete floor with much load at all on it. I'd go with an overhead track /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif