# Easy Moving a 12 x 18 Surface Plate



## ShopShoe (Dec 17, 2015)

When got a 9 x 12 surface plate, I made a box to keep it dust-free and found it easy to move around the shop. Over the last year, I kept wishing I had a 12 x 18 stone and finally bought one, despite the high shipping cost.

In my multi-purpose shop, there is no location where it can live permanently, so I found myself trying to move it fairly often. The problem is there is no easy way to pick it up, or even to drag it a foot or two across the bench.

What I ended up with is a frame welded up from angle iron which incorporates two 3/4-inch steel rods as handles eat each end. 







The stone is secured by a row of 1/4-20 set screws at each end, pushing against a strip of "hardware-store" 1/8-inch aluminum bar to pad the contact points against the stone. Rather than relying on tapped threads in the thin metal of the steel frame,   wood-furniture-type TeeNuts are tack-welded into holes drilled into the angle.






Although this may look kind of flimsy, I just made it for moving the stone around on the bench, or from one bench to another, I have no plans to tip the assembly upside down or move it long distances. 

Like a lot of my projects lately, I think this is incomplete: I would like to build some kind of a dust-excluding cover like I have with the smaller surface plate. Unfortunately, if I waited to complete the perfect design nothing would ever get built.

--ShopShoe


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