Dollies for Big Box Heritage Klipsch

[HDBRbuilder]

16 hours ago, wvu80 said:

I am finishing up a couple of DIY 15" subs right now and I was wondering what, if anything I should put on the bottom.  I usually use those multi-purpose rubber mats cut to the size of the sub.

 

I have some of those grippers I use on a couch to stop it from sliding around and to protect  the floor.

 

Andy, what size would you recommend for these 3 cuft boxes, and in what thickness?

How big/heavy are they?  If not on any kind of riser, then I would recommend the 1.5" diameter Grippers.  If they are really heavy, then double them up by stacking one Gripper atop the other....because the neoprene foam squashes quite a bit under heavier weight....after all, their thickness is only about 1/8" thick or so.

[wvu80]

2 hours ago, HDBRbuilder said:

How big/heavy are they?  If not on any kind of riser, then I would recommend the 1.5" diameter Grippers. 

The subs are 90 pounds, they are a big cube.

 

I've used the 1.5" grippers before for furniture, I just didn't know that's what they were called.  Is this what you had in mind?

 

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Waxman-Consumer-Group-4118395N-1-1-2-Furniture-Gripper-4-Count/51344755

[ishwash]

With my tile floor I bet I would lose a gripper every time I slid one of my heavy speakers past the edge of a piece of tile.

 

The problem as I see it is not anchoring the heavy buggers to the floor but protecting the piece of veneer on the bottom edge of the speaker, and to provide something to facilitate moving the speaker. I would be willing to bet good money that 75 percent of every set of heavy speakers approaching 10 years of age has damage to the veneer along the bottom edge. It's two for two for me buying used speakers, two pair of Chorus. Throwing in my pair of Forte which I damaged myself, it's three for three; the sad part of the Forte is that I could have lifted it off the ground.

 

Don't forget, to be able to skid one along resting on a reversed throw rug or something else that is slick, since most of us ain't strong enough to raise one up off the ground we will be tipping the speaker. Additionally, I too have a great dolly to move stuff but what do you and I do to get it on the dolly? Uh, we tip it  All that weight on a knife-edge of veneer.

[HDBRbuilder]

2 hours ago, wvu80 said:

The subs are 90 pounds, they are a big cube.

 

I've used the 1.5" grippers before for furniture, I just didn't know that's what they were called.  Is this what you had in mind?

 

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Waxman-Consumer-Group-4118395N-1-1-2-Furniture-Gripper-4-Count/51344755

No...THESE:

They are just plain flat neoprene foam rubber, with a pebble-grain on one side and a peel-n-stick on the other side...stick them to the bottoms of the speakers.  Dirt cheap fix, too!

[HDBRbuilder]

3 hours ago, ishwash said:

With my tile floor I bet I would lose a gripper every time I slid one of my heavy speakers past the edge of a piece of tile.

 

The problem as I see it is not anchoring the heavy buggers to the floor but protecting the piece of veneer on the bottom edge of the speaker, and to provide something to facilitate moving the speaker. I would be willing to bet good money that 75 percent of every set of heavy speakers approaching 10 years of age has damage to the veneer along the bottom edge. It's two for two for me buying used speakers, two pair of Chorus. Throwing in my pair of Forte which I damaged myself, it's three for three; the sad part of the Forte is that I could have lifted it off the ground.

 

Don't forget, to be able to skid one along resting on a reversed throw rug or something else that is slick, since most of us ain't strong enough to raise one up off the ground we will be tipping the speaker. Additionally, I too have a great dolly to move stuff but what do you and I do to get it on the dolly? Uh, we tip it  All that weight on a knife-edge of veneer.

I totally understand you....but casters are not going to stabilize the speaker cabinet enough to eliminate destabilization of the tweeter WITHIN that cabinet if the movement of air by the woofer cone can wiggle the cabinet, itself, at all.  I always thought that if somebody wants to be able to roll speakers around they should mount plate-type wheels to the rear of the cabinet near enough to the bottom to allow the wheels to BARELY contact the floor when they are locked down, then just lean the speaker back and roll it wherever you want.  Because the wheels are still contacting the floor when the speaker is upright, resting on its bottom (with grippers on the bottom) there will be no possible noise coming from the wheels' bearings with that bit of tension holding them.  Locking swivel casters lock the wheel, but they do NOT lock the swivel, itself from what I have seen.  Of course, I only have one pair of speakers made with veneered MDF panels (Heresy II), my others are either plywood, or poplar-lumber-core plywood.

[ishwash]

You have thought a lot about this too, haven't you!

 

I know they shouldn't cause a cavity under them, but didn't know about lack of stability resting on the floor being a potential problem. Thanks for explaining.

 

I was so dissappointed after messing my Fortes up a bit...actually it is not noticeable from a bit of distance, but I know it's there and sometimes that is worse. I not only tipped them, I "walked" them, both actions are just such naturnal actions when prepping for a move.

 

Have to think about your wheels at the rear thought. 

[HDBRbuilder]

40 minutes ago, ishwash said:

You have thought a lot about this too, haven't you!

 

I know they shouldn't cause a cavity under them, but didn't know about lack of stability resting on the floor being a potential problem. Thanks for explaining.

 

I was so dissappointed after messing my Fortes up a bit...actually it is not noticeable from a bit of distance, but I know it's there and sometimes that is worse. I not only tipped them, I "walked" them, both actions are just such naturnal actions when prepping for a move.

 

Have to think about your wheels at the rear thought. 

And you could even put something like a screen door handle Near the top rear of the speaker...grab the handle, lean them back on the wheels and take them wherever they need to go....just like they are on a two-wheeler.

[ishwash]

I believe you could alright! The castors wouldn't have to swivel either, and you could probably use your grippers.

 

Do you suppose the grippers would serve to raise the speakers just a bit and protect your speaker bottoms from wicking up water if you had a minor water event, say a sheet of water on the floor?

 

I guess you might still have a problem and have to scoot the speaker a bit to get it into place since your handle and castors (and your body) would be at the rear of the speaker near the wall and hindering the tilt of the speaker...that's a problem isn't it.

[ishwash]

Well, stupid me...buy risers with your speakers!

 

Each of MY bottom-edge damaged heritage speaker has damage to the riser only, not the main bottom of the speaker box assembly. 

 

It finally occurred to me that I can fix this if I remove the risers, take them apart, and use my table saw (with a sharp blade sawing in the right direction with tape applied to where I will be sawing the boards so I don't damage even more veneer with the saw blade) to shave off a sliver of each board taking the damaged portion with the sliver, put them back together stick on some grippers or cleats, whatever, and reinstall them....a fairly easy fix that likely can be done several times.

 

Wonder if I will ever get around to actually doing that....ma...hehe...hahaha...this is me going nuttier than the fruitcake that I actually am....

[ishwash]

I don't know...enough time has passed for me to rethink this....I still like my caster solution best for this problem:

 

To prevent bottom-edge damage due to tipping, "scooting" or "walking" a pair of heavy speakers into position, this is what I did to a recent pair of Crites Cornscala speakers that will weigh 140 lbs each when my finishing work is done and they are reassembled (You may also note the tile on the floor; this is great for damaging the bottoms of speakers):

 

The speaker is shown resting on its rollers. Notice the clearance off the floor at the bottom of the speaker. I doubt this small amount of space will sacrifice bass response, and the use of 8 rollers should take the concern a previous poster had with regard to tweeter distortion that might be caused by unstable floor support by just 4 rollers.

 

These are bass reflex speakers and the grey you see at the bottom is screen wire for vermin-proofing the interior of the speakers. In my country, you hadn't better place any speaker, especially some of the Klipsch heritage speakers in your shop for any length of time if you don't want them to be havens for mice, dirt daubers and other imagineable creatures in search of a home.:

[ishwash]

In the evolution of my employing rollers, I have gone away from dolly-style roller support toward screwing each individual roller into the bottom of the speaker because the dolly-style of support were not as stable a means of support. They tend to hang in my tile mortar joints a little easier than mounted rollers. Also for the larger speakers such as my LaScalas,  Cornscalas and Chorus, I use 8 rollers per box (for my Forte, I used 6 rollers per box), and I employ spacers between the rollers and the bottom of the speakers to make sure that there is no greater clearance of the risers above the floor than there is when only factory-installed cleats or buttons are used. The control of this clearance value to be no different than factory-clearance means I will have no greater loss of bass-response due to the existence of space beneath the speaker than the factory situation of using cleats or buttons for the speaker to rest upon.

 

Also, for the no-riser situation and small speakers such as my Super Heresies, I use 4 rollers per box. This lifts the speakers up off the floor about 2", and being lifted that much may cause a significant loss of bass. (I actually could have tilted them with the rollers and made the rollers work like a riser, but I didn't think of that until after I was done.) To prevent this potential loss of bass problem, I cut a rectangular piece from 1/4" PVC and installed it along the back bottom of the speaker, the full width of the back of the speaker and made its height off the floor equal to or less to the normal clearance off the floor when button cleats are utilized. This was a very easy thing to do. See Pics.

 

If we had done this sort of thing to our speakers back in the 70's and 80's, making speakers wife-moveable, we might never have had to move them out of the living room...grin...

[ishwash]

 

Other speakers with rollers installed that I have adjusted roller positioning so that gap at bottom is no greater than gap that exists with factory-installed cleats: Door thresholds can still damage the bottom edge of my speakers, so speakers have to be lifted over thresholds...this represents the best I know how to do to prevent damage tp the bottom edge of speakers or the bottom edge of their attached risers. Yes, these have 8 rollers under them, a child could relocate any of them. Did the same with my Crites Cornscalas, Chorus and my Forte III's.