A machine only needs to leave the floor by an inch or two to move across a plant. What it rides on for the rest of the trip is a set of machinery skates. They are the least glamorous equipment on a rigging truck and among the most used.
What a machinery skate is
A machinery skate is a low-profile platform on rollers or wheels that slides under a lifted load so the load can be pushed, pulled or winched across a floor. Skates sit a few inches high, carry rated loads from a few tons to several hundred tons per set, and let a rigging crew move a press, a CNC machine or a transformer without a crane, a forklift or an overhead structure.
The load is jacked up with toe jacks or hydraulic jacks, skates are placed under the corners or under a steel beam, the jacks are lowered and the machine rolls.
The main types
Roller skates
The standard rigging skate. A steel frame carrying a chain of steel or polyurethane rollers that distributes the load across many contact points. Rollers handle rough concrete, expansion joints and debris better than wheels do. Sold in sets, with capacities from a few tons per skate into the hundreds of tons per set.
Swivel and steerable skates
A roller or wheel skate with a turntable or a steering handle so the load can be turned in place or guided around a corner. Usually one steerable skate leads and fixed skates follow.
Wheeled skates and dollies
Polyurethane or nylon wheels on a steel frame. Lower rolling resistance than rollers on a smooth floor and easier to push by hand. Better suited to finished floors and lighter equipment.
Toe jack and skate kits
Packaged sets that pair toe jacks with a matched set of skates for a stated total capacity. Common on service trucks for repeatable moves of mid-weight equipment.
Air skates and air bearings
A flexible skirt inflated with compressed air lifts the load a fraction of an inch and floats it on a cushion of air. Very low friction, easy to steer in any direction, and gentle on finished floors. They need a smooth, sealed floor and a compressed air supply.
Powered rigging dollies
Battery-powered, remote-controlled dollies that carry very heavy equipment and drive themselves. They remove the need to push or winch, give the rigger precise control in tight spaces and handle loads that manual skates cannot.
How capacity is rated
Skate capacity is stated per skate and per set. A load is never carried on a single skate, and the rating assumes the weight is spread evenly. Riggers work from the actual weight and centre of gravity of the machine, then select a set whose combined rating exceeds the load with margin. An off-centre machine puts more weight on one corner than the arithmetic suggests.
Floor loading matters as well. Skates concentrate the machine's weight onto small contact patches, and a slab that carries a machine on its full base may not carry the same machine on four skates. Steel plate or cribbing spreads the load where the floor is in doubt.
How a rigging crew uses them
- Survey the path. Doorways, ramps, drains, expansion joints, floor condition and the final footprint.
- Confirm weight and centre of gravity from the data plate and the drawings.
- Jack the machine up just enough to clear the skates.
- Place skates under load-bearing points or under a beam laid across them.
- Lower the load onto the skates and check that it sits level.
- Move it. By hand, by winch, by forklift tow or by powered dolly, at walking pace, with one person directing.
- Jack it up at the destination, remove the skates and lower it onto its footprint.
When skates are the right choice
Skates suit moves across a floor inside a building: repositioning a machine on a line, moving equipment from receiving to its footprint, or clearing a machine to the door for loading. For lifts, for stairs and elevation changes, or for moves outdoors between buildings, the crew brings gantries, forklifts and floats instead, and skates cover the last stretch across the floor.
