QUESTION! Welding cart wheels... with bearings?

[Mikel_24]

Hello all,

I am about to put together a welding cart for my inverter in order to securely hold the argon bottle. My MIG has its own factory cart so this will hold only my inverter, consumables and argon.

I do have a few swivel casters to put in the front and I am searching for the back wheels. I have checked all the threads I could find here in WW but none of them answered my question.

Did you guys use wheels WITH bearings or WITHOUT bearings?

As far as I know the MIG cart wheels don't have bearings but we all now that factory made stuff is not always looking of the best solutions... only the cheapest.

I want to go with 10" solid (or steel+rubber, but not pneumatic) wheels for ease of rolling it arround and clearance purposes. I have found a couple used AFO 58 series wheels on ebay that look promising but I am wondering if they are just too expensive. Being it an Spanish auction I don't think any of you is going to jump on them (LOL) so here it is...

http://www.ebay.es/itm/LOTE-2-RUEDA-.../221567826758?

Any suggestions? Thanks in advance!

[Slob]

Either or in that type application. If you get casters with sleeve bearings try to get ones with a grease zerk and they will last your lifetime as would ones with roller bearings. Keep them somewhat clean and free of water intrusion is about all they would require.

[Bistineau]

This would be a good time to build one cart to hold your inverter, MIG and shielding gas bottles together. It would take up less floor space overall too, over having two separate carts. Whatever you decide on, don't go small with the wheel size front or back. Larger wheels roll over obstructions on the floor easier, like extension cords and such. If it were me, this is what I would be doing, to keep both welders at the same place, and you should end up with a better cart than you now have for the MIG. You could probably use some of the parts from the MIG cart in the new one.

[Mikel_24]

... try to get ones with a grease zerk and they will last your lifetime as would ones with roller bearings.

Thanks for the suggestion!

This would be a good time to build one cart to hold your inverter, MIG and shielding gas bottles together. It would take up less floor space overall too, over having two separate carts. Whatever you decide on, don't go small with the wheel size front or back. Larger wheels roll over obstructions on the floor easier, like extension cords and such. If it were me, this is what I would be doing, to keep both welders at the same place, and you should end up with a better cart than you now have for the MIG. You could probably use some of the parts from the MIG cart in the new one.

I think I didn't explain myself correctly. My MIG welder is a three phase separate feeder machine that has wheels built in, gas bottle shelf on the back, etc.... The feeder sits on top and allows you to take it anywhere in a radius of 4m of the power source. If I was dealing with a self contained unit (like most of the machines I see in this forum) I would surely put both machines in the same cart but with this machine I would end up with a 6 feet tall franken-cart... XD. That's why I was planning to make a separate cart for this one and leave the MIG alone. However I would recheck, just in case I could mount them somehow on a single cart (is not going to be lighweight by any means).
I would take your advice and try to get as bigger wheels as I can. My shop floor is far from perfect and bigger wheels roll much easier.

I just contacted the seller on Ebay and he is 90% sure that the wheels do not have roller bearings... so that item is no longer looking ideal to me. I will make a couple calls to some hardware stores and see what they carry.

Mikel

[Mikel_24]

Finally I bought two wheels meant mainly for hand trucks. But not the pneumatic ones. These ones are solid cored and cannot be punctured. They have needle bearings and according to the seller they shouldn't deform under load. I will keep you updated.