Thursday, July 31, 2008

Skate Wheels Etc,

Hi guys,
I'm still on nights so posts are a little skimpy. A discussion was started on skate wheels in the comments of the last post. Continue it here if you like. For newcomers, the older posts tackle everything from dance floor to Lambda Heads so if you're looking for info on these subjects, try the older posts. At some point , I will go in and rename and categorize them better so that it's easier to find a specific topic. The floor's open, I'm going to work so talk about whatever.
D

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

i checked out he willy widget skatewheels the price is right but they only have a drawing of them on their site
i will contact them but i am wondering if anyone out there has a set and what their experience is

D said...

A friend of mine owns a set and I've used them before. They're fine.

Azurgrip said...

I'll second that. The only draw back I've found is that there isn't a smaller brace to deal with smaller wheels (Pee Wee).

D said...

Yeah, you'll have to wedge them. The thing is, standard troughs, like the Moderns and Willy's are basically all fine. They will develop flat spots unless they have a special way of dispersing soft and hard or different size wheels, etc. but they all get the job done. The set I'm using now,(mine are on another show) is probably a 20 year old set with Bones wheels and they work great. They don't flatten out but I think its because they are older wheels and the EPA or someone won't allow them to use that compound anymore, or that's what I was told. The B camera Dolly Grip is using an older set of Matthews from Fisher and he hates them. He says they have a lot of drag.

Anonymous said...

i will second the opinion on the matthews skate wheels, they are some of the worst out there in my opinion. waaaaay too expensive for the low quality product that they are. the willy's widgets wheels look pretty much like the drawing, the trays are black and the wheels are orange. they don't seem to get flat spots quite as fast as the moderns, but they definitely still do. both trays seem to fit larger dollies (fisher 10, hybrid) OK but need to be shimmed for the smaller varieties as D said

Anonymous said...

sorry one more thing. if you are super curious you can see the willy's skate wheels in the trackjack video D had posted awhile back, it's on youtube as well

Anonymous said...

i called willy and was ready to order and he told me he is out of wheels they have gone out of production .he is trying to work out a deal.

Azurgrip said...

so, do we now petition JL Fisher to sell their skate wheels to us?

Anonymous said...

I just work with a Set of very heavy (billet aluminum cnc machined) Skate wheels from Arri Rental (germany) wich work very well.
The Brace is adjustable for any wheel size.
The first set had way to soft wheels so I asked for harder ones. I got a set of standard hard skate wheels which are much better but still need "Ironing" before the shot.

Greetz Dan

Anonymous said...

I had good luck with my modern studio deluxe wheels.

Andrea "Roo" Krout said...

I own a set of Modern skate wheels and ... meh. They're my back up. I got the Porta-Jib brand Porta-glide wheels and they are the JAM. Each wheel is a slightly different size you can let the dolly sit and go right into a shot and you get no bumps. Also, they way they are jointed (four wheels per joint, two joints per side) means they conform to tighter radius circle track and save the day, as well as any other crazy.

Ben said...

Also the Matthews wheels are too big for Gillard track. They bump the bolts holding the ties together.