Sliding big bulky objects on tile

RatLabGuy

RatLabGuy

You look like a monkey and smell like one too
Joined
May 18, 2005
Location
Churchville, MD
Looking for suggestions on the best materials to use for sliding something really heavy along a VCT floor.

Specifically, we are getting ready to set up some whisper Rooms (basically a big sound booth) in a lab.
They are made of MDF, double-walled, and covered in carpet (like speaker-box carpet). 6x8 unit is over 2k lbs!

You can assemble these things in place, but I can see the possibility of wanting to moving it around afterwards, in case we need to re-arrange the lab.

What I'm wondering is, what could I put under it, before building, that will provide the least friction on a VCT floor?
The bottom plate of the WhisperRooms is also carpeted MDF.

Here's the kicker - assembled height is 7'11", in a room w/ an 8' drop ceiling :huggy: so casters etc are out.
Thin carpet, upside down? plastic?
 
owl shit....no sure why but I always hear slicker than owl shit...so it should work.
 
Look into some kind of air mats.

Upside down thin carpet would work...but 2000 lbs is alot,unless you have 5 guys to push it.

owl shot would work too.
 
I'm not sure I'd put anything under it, but if I was going to move it, I'd use several 1/2" wood dowels .
 
Anybody use Slip Sheets before?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slip_sheet
somebody at work recommended that - in fact, apparently one of the guys in our organization helped develop them years ago.
 
I was gonna say the same thing,like those Miracle Sliders?I have used them to move extremely heavy things across a Hardwood floor.Problem is I think the heaviest thing I ever moved with them was like 600 lbs,that's a pretty far cry from 2000 lbs.Maybe you could use a bunch of them?
 
We moved a safe years back and used marbles, lot's of them. They were cheap and worked great, but the safe was flat on the bottom. Might try a plywood base or something and marbles. It let us push the safe in any direction we wanted, just kept sweeping the marbles to the front.
 
Marbles = interesting idea.
Dowels = only good for going in 1 direction, lol.
The bottom should be flat, just carpetted, basically felt.

Now that I think of it, the bottom of this things is probably very similar to those EZMoves.
But probably too much surface area?
 
Contact a plastics supply house and ask for sheets of UHMW. You can line the bottom of the booth with the sheet or cut into strips with a circular saw. This stuff is super slick. We used it where I used to work to create low friction surfaces to move large volumes of stuff.
 
I was gonna say upside down carpet but that is a lot of surface area to overcome friction. The marble idea seems about the best to me. I was thinking maybe BBs but I think those would probably get caught up and squish in the carpeted bottom.

Is there any way to build in low clearance casters?
 
sgtbriangreen said:
Is there any way to build in low clearance casters?
Click to expand...
Reid said:
uhm...any chance of putting castors on it?
Click to expand...
Constructed height = 7'11", ceiling is 8'.
so only 1" to work in.
Can't make recessed casters b/c they'd have to stick up through the inside floor, leaving no way to attach, and creating a major sound leak.

I had debated making a steel 6x8 platform w/ casters that stick outside, w/ their tops higher than the platform, kinda like a lowboy trailer, but that's a hella lot of pressure on the joints holding those casters on.

stevehayden said:
Contact a plastics supply house and ask for sheets of UHMW. You can line the bottom of the booth with the sheet or cut into strips with a circular saw. This stuff is super slick. We used it where I used to work to create low friction surfaces to move large volumes of stuff.
Click to expand...

Yeah I think that's basically what the plastic versions of Slip Sheets are.

I think it's going to come down to either slip sheets, or several large felt "moving" discs like the EZMoves.

OK you engineer-types....
W/ the EZMove type devices, is there a way to estimate a good size that balances the lower drag coefficient from a small surface area, vs distributing all that weight over larger space?
 
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