Cast iron casters on concrete?

The wheels may hold up better than the concrete.
Expect to see white dust trails where the casters roll.
Those trails will be crushed sand agregate that was the roughness of the surface texture.

But, metal wheels will carry more weight with less friction than any other wheel.

Another good choice is called a semisteel wheel.
They are made of sintered powdered steel and are very smooth and precise in shape.

Good wheels

-- Shooting down the walls of heartache. Bang bang. I am. The warrior.

Your

I have a 15 year old heavy-duty HTC mobile base that holds my Grizzly 17 inch bandsaw that weights over 600 pounds. Over the last two years the plastic wheels have been falling apart.

[Snip] Each caster is rated at 330 pounds. My only concern is that I have no experience with cast iron wheels rolling across concrete. The concrete is old and rough with maybe 1/16 to 1/8 inch variations.

How well will cast iron hold up on rough concrete?

I e-mailed Grizzly this question on Monday and so far they have not bothered to get back with me, so I turn to LumberJocks for advice.

- WoodNSawdust

Your floor and mine are long-lost siblings—the rough concrete is a royal pain. The wheels you linked to seem small in diameter to get smooth moving over said concrete, and it’s hard for me to imagine iron wheels in that situation. I’ve used the black plastic wheels, and they’ve performed dismally. My tools (heaviest being a 14” bandsaw, not as heavy as yours for sure, and the clamp rack that holds the big parallel clamps, Jorgies and Jets, 18 or so of them) have or will be converting to the orange casters (polyurethane). Quality varies for sure, so far I’ve been OK with the $8 ones from Home Depot, they’re 3”D. You can get heavier ones, I think, from Woodcraft, et al.

-- My mother said that anyone learning to cook needed a large dog to eat the mistakes. As a sculptor of wood I have always tried to keep a fireplace. (Norman Ridenour)

I have cast iron casters on my 4’ by 8’ workbench, which has well over 1000 pounds of stuff in/on it. I have had the casters on it for 20+ years. You should be good to go, as long as your slab is thick enough to take it. Depending on how much you roll the band saw around, they will probably only last 30 years.

-- Steven.......Random Orbital Nailer

Thanks everyone for the replies.

I ordered a set from Grizzly.

@ForestGrl: the reason for the 3” is because they are the only ones with the correct hole pattern to mount to the existing base. I wanted bigger but I could not find any that had the correct holes.

-- "I love it when a plan comes together" John "Hannibal" Smith

We operated our molding plant in an old yarn mill that was built in the 1950’s. We were always buying industrial salvage items to use in our machine shop to make useful things for the plant. We bought all kinds of used casters over the years to use on various carts and never had problems with cast iron casters so long as they weren’t overloaded and/or abused. You can break anything if you mistreat it. Most people won’t be handling their equipment roughly in a home shop unless they are just irresponsible and careless.

helluvawreck aka Charles
http://woodworkingexpo.wordpress.com

-- helluvawreck aka Charles, http://woodworkingexpo.wordpress.com

Thanks everyone for the replies.

I ordered a set from Grizzly.

@ForestGrl: the reason for the 3” is because they are the only ones with the correct hole pattern to mount to the existing base. I wanted bigger but I could not find any that had the correct holes.

- WoodNSawdust

Somehow, I thought the were smaller than 3”. Let us know how they work for you! If they’re great, I might consider them for my Unisaw. The Delta “mobile” base I bought for it years ago is a complete under-performer. :-(

-- My mother said that anyone learning to cook needed a large dog to eat the mistakes. As a sculptor of wood I have always tried to keep a fireplace. (Norman Ridenour)