“CAN YOU AFFORD TO HAVE TWO MEN DO A ONE MAN JOB?”
Recently I got a chance to try a traditional Tilt door dolly, and compare it to the new Saw Trax pivoting Scoop Dolly. The differences were huge from a business stand point.
Saw Trax, a Georgia company, came up with the Scoop Dolly to move their 500 lb crated panel saws. They married a pivoting type mechanism to the side of their yellow dolly initially. It was later refined to use a dedicated “box”. The Pivot Door and Window Scoop Dolly allows one person to move 500 pound door and window sets alone or a crated panel saw. Traditional door dollies need two people.
It is unique in the door and window industry. The idea is that the “L” support mechanism of this dolly pivots on the dolly so the dolly itself stays
flat and just the “L” shaped part is moved. The 4 (or 5) casters used under the box of this dolly stay on the floor.
This way a large weight is not put on two angled casters so undue stress is not placed on the bearings as in the Tilt dolly. In use, the lone user can stand on the platform box of the dolly and either pull an item or use a pull stick to pull an item onto the L. They can continue to hold the item on the L while pulling the L back to the adjustable angle saddles. The item can then be moved.
What is nice about this arrangement is that one person is used instead of two. Other benefits are the ergonomics are much easier and you are not lifting the weight of the cart constantly loading and unloading items as in the tilt dolly. This causes less user fatigue and chance of injury.
The dolly box, blade and saddles are made out of 12 gauge powder coated steel. The square tubes use 16 gauge steel. Four casters come in the standard version that has an 800 lb. maximum lift. A weight upgrade to 1000 lb. uses a fifth wheel under the box.
Options for the Scoop Dolly are a directional wheel that allows the user to push the load instead of pull the load, dock transition wheels, a foot leverage step for wider loads like a refrigerator, brakes and forklift channels that allow the entire cart and door to be lifted from a truck to the ground or ground to a truck. 
A traditional Tilt dolly is structured similar to a dry wall cart but the “L” shaped holding mechanism is below the platform. The idea is you tilt the entire dolly onto two wheels picking up almost 60 lbs. so the L holding mechanism is on the floor, parallel to the floor. Then you slide the lip under what you want to pick up. The heavy duty one’s weigh in around 116 pounds so you need one person to lift almost 60 pounds to lift the dolly at an angle and another person to push the door onto the dolly. Once on the dolly, the dolly is lowered so all four wheels are back onto the ground and the door is on the lip and off of the ground ready to be moved. To remove the door from the dolly, the weight of the door plus half the weight of the dolly is lifted to get the door vertical. A second person “Catcher” is then used to catch the door and slowly tilt it against the wall or support structure. 
To sum up the benefits of a pivot dolly, you have better utilization of manpower because it only requires one person to operate it instead of two. You have less product damage because the product is more controlled and is never slammed into a wall unloading. You have less fatigued people and less chances of injury because employees won’t be lifting half the weight of the dolly all day.
For more information on the pivoting door Scoop Dolly contact Saw Trax at info@sawtrax.com, 770-974-0021 or go to their website at www.sawtrax.com.
