Pinball skates, opinion?

telmnstr

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Hello everyone.

What is the consensus on pinball skates? The metal bars that go between the front and rear legs, and then lift the machine off of the floor?

My use is mainly moving machines onto trucks with lift gates for events, and moving them around.

I'm kind of nervous that it doesn't have any support between the front and rear legs, that would keep it square and in check. That it might bend the legs.

This weekend was the first time ever using a real pinball dolly and I had this vision of the bottom wood going up into the cabinet.
 
Pinball dollies have been around forever, if they had problems going through the cabinet they wouldn't use them. Personally if you are going to be using a liftgate a lot and such I would use a pin dolly not just the under the legs deal. When buying a lift, make sure that you check to see if the gas cylinder is any good. Makes all the difference of gracefully moving a machine or just "hulking it around".
 
I love my pinball skates...basically turns your machine into a "shopping cart" that you can push around. They've really allowed me to do a lot of pinball moving by myself, and they don't take up any space.
 
I have 4 of the little 3 wheeled dolly things that you get from Harbor Freight. I've tried them, but I don't think they are any good. The legs always slip off them. I guess a fix would be to weld something to them to keep the pinball leveler captive on it, but eh. Not a fan.
 
I use furniture slides on mine. (The discs that look like a plastic plate with rubber on the top side and teflon or UHMW on the bottom.) I have a set of "skates", but anytime I am rolling the machine forwards or backwards, the wheels hit something and stop. The board rolls over and the legs hit the floor. I'd get a dolly if I was going to move machines around more than once a year.
 
Yes, the ones I'm not talking about, the little triangle things with 3 casters, can be bought for $4.99 each at Harbor freight. They would work OKAY on a hard floor. But with carpet, the legs constantly slip off of the thing in my experience. And you don't want to see your cabinet flexing like that. It would work better if a round cup were welded to it so that the leg couldn't slide off. But still, I like the idea of the legs being kept square to each other so that there is no chance of bending them.
 
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