Why Your Rigging Company Needs Quality Machinery Skates
You should already know how important it is for rigging companies to include machinery skates in their inventories. They’re an indispensable way to safely move loads that weigh even 100 tons while remaining both close to the ground and easy to maneuver.
However, not all skates are created equal. When you purchase machinery skates for your company, you need to make sure that you’re investing in quality and efficiency.
Here at Hevi-Haul, we offer an unmatched combination of technology and engineering to create a product that works for you. Read on to find out why your company needs quality machinery skates.
1. Keep Loads In Place
When you’re undertaking a project like moving an entire building, you need to make sure that your load doesn’t budge an inch while you transport it.
While you should always use things like wood skids or blocking when necessary, the best skates will also come with materials that help you keep everything in place.
Our compact swivel skates, for example, have a friction plate between the top surface of the dolly and the swivel plate underneath to make sure that the skate doesn’t move too much under your load. The last thing you want is for a skate to slip out from excessive movement.
There are also steel cleats standard on all of our skates that embed themselves into wood under large amounts of weight. This helps to protect your load and make sure it travels flawlessly from point A to point B.
2. You Need Machinery Skates That Protect Floors
Some machinery skates will mark or heavily damage the floors that they’re used on, creating an extra headache for you on top of the logistical problems of moving something that weighs thousands of pounds.
Instead, businesses should find skates that protect floors and are made of materials meant to reduce the likelihood of any marks or damage. Skates with polyurethane-coated rollers, for example, are ideal for floors that need the most protection.
If your needs change and you find you need to move a load across an uneven surface, good skates will have rollers that are interchangeable. Switch out the polyurethane rollers for steel rollers that will get the job done on even a rough floor.
3. Get Skates Customized To Your Needs
Every business’ needs are different. A moving company who needs to transport a building or historic structure all in one piece would look for something different than a rigging company looking to move heavy machinery.
In some cases, you need the ability to customize high-quality skates that will meet your needs. Hevi-Haul is proud to either modify our existing skates or create something completely new, just to make sure that they meet your needs and high expectations.
Solutions like these allow businesses to keep customers happy and decrease their production costs in a way that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise.
Learn More Today
Hevi-Haul has been a go-to company for rigging companies, large corporations, and even the U.S. military for more than eighty years. Let us help your business achieve its goals.
Contact us today to learn more or request a free quote.
Guide: Our Varied Collection of Custom Skates
Whether you are moving heavy machinery, performing structural moving or are a rigging company, you need to have options when choosing skates. You also need to know that the skates you use are durable and have been designed to fit your exact needs. We excel in manufacturing custom skates of different varieties to fit your specifications.
We use North American Steel and CNC-machined components to ensure strength and reliability. We also employ 3D CAD technology to design your custom skates prior to the production process. This helps ensure an end product that meets your requirements.
Custom Skates for Different Capabilities
To help you get an idea of the type of skates we can produce, we’ve put together this guide showcasing our varied collection.
Custom 10 Ton Reel Skate
The customer had a need for a skate they could lay out in a circle to create a precise shape. This was for a large diameter reel. All the skates were laid end to end in order to create a 15-foot diameter circle.
Each base plate was laser burned using a 3/4 inch thick plate. A laser-burned hole is located on each corner which is used to secure the dollies to the floor of the reel.
Custom 60 Ton Guided Transformer Skate
Made for the manufacturer of large transformers, these utilized a guide roller system which allows the units to follow along an I-beam in order to maintain a straight line while transporting the load.
The roller system is a fixed width and the guides are removable. Larger diameter axles, wheels, and bearings were used in this design.
Custom 20 Ton Oil Pipeline Skate
This custom design was built to accommodate dollies moving various sizes of oil pipe across hundreds of skates. Two different applications were developed for this project.
The skates produced can handle an overall capacity of 20 tons. They tilt forward and backward to accommodate the pipe. We used our polyurethane rollers to protect the pipe.
Custom 45 Ton Poly Wheel Machinery Skate
The customer required a roller dolly with a large footprint of stability with high-capacity wheels. This had to be designed to be able to protect their flooring.
The frame is made entirely of steel and welded. Steel cleats embed into skids or timber placed between the skate and the load.
Custom 22 Ton Nylon Wheel Machinery Skate
This design includes 22 tons of capacity per roller over nine 5 inch diameter nylon rollers. Stainless steel axles are used.
The top of the skate has a flat top with a custom drilled hole pattern in 12 places in order to mount the loads.
Custom 1.5 Ton V-Bloke Skate
This design was made to handle 2 and 6.5-inch diameter steel rods for ease of motion. The top of the frame is fitted with high-molecular polyethylene to be used as guide blocks.
The bottom of the frame has four mounting holes for attaching to an existing structure.
Skates to Fit Your Needs
These custom skates were designed to provide a specific function and to fit the customer’s specs. If you need a custom design to accommodate your needs, contact us today.
Custom Skates Offer Smooth Movement For Any Application
With over 80 years of experience in custom roller dollies, Hevi-Haul is proud to use our expertise and the latest in 3D CAD software and technology to design the best custom skates in a myriad of varieties. Whether it’s a modification to our standard skates or a custom solution, we will work directly with you through the design process to model a product that fits your requirements prior to production. We use high-quality North American steel, CNC machined components and fully welded steel frames for added strength and longevity for your toughest moves.Here’s another unique skate we’ve developed for one of our great customers:
Here’s another unique skate we’ve developed for one of our great customers:
Hevi-Haul was approached by a new customer who had recently admired a custom design we had developed for another customer in the Norwegian Oilfield Services industry. The new customer had a similar problem and needed our expertise to develop a unique solution. Their use case was for a very heavy, large diameter reel, best described as a giant hose reel turned on its side. The customer needed a skate that they could lay out in a precise pattern to create a circle.
To give a better understanding of the size of this reel, if you lay all of the skates they required end to end it forms a 15-foot diameter circle. They will be laid out and mounted a large distance apart, so this is a large structure that needs to move precisely. In all, we supplied this customer with an overall load capacity of 250 tons or 500,000 pounds!
Each base plate was laser burned to precise measurements using 3/4″ thick plate, including laser burned bolt hole patterns located on all four corners. The bolt hole pattern will be used to secure these dollies right to the floor of the reel. Due to contact with seawater, each wheel was custom manufactured with one of our CNC machines to accept a sealed bearing, ensuring a long lifespan for the rollers.
This project required the ingenuity of our specialized engineering team, and they developed a solution that met the needs of the customer exceptionally well. The solution has enabled the customer to decrease production times and overall was a massive success. At Hevi-Haul, we look forward to our next opportunity to design a unique solution that solves problems for our customers and increases profits as well.
Contact us today to learn more
Hevi-Haul Skates have been trusted by professional rigging companies and machinery movers for over 80 years as the premier owned American brand machinery dolly. Contact us today for a personal answer to all your inquiries.