All dolly sleds using skateboard-style wheels develop flat spots on the wheels very quickly. This requires the dolly grip to roll the dolly back and forth repeatedly to reshape the wheels until the bump from the flat spot is no longer detected.

Our new Porta-Glide sleds have solved this problem because each of the 16 wheels has a different diameter. They are positioned on the wheel block so that all wheels are touching simultaneously, and, like the other systems, these wheels will flatten slightly. However, as they turn, instead of 16 flat spots hitting in unison, each of our wheels returns to its flat spot at a different time, making the spot undetectable.

New Version as of July 2008

A new version of the Porta-Glide is now in stock, as of July 2008. It looks similar to the previous version, uses the same 16 different diameter wheels, and fits in the same case. What changed is that the armature and attached wheel assemblies can now be easily removed as a complete unit from the trough by simple removing 4 bolts. The hole pattern of the bolts is the same as the speed rail adapter made by Modern Grip Equipment, so our wheels can now quickly convert to a speed rail dolly, or they can be readily attached to any other platform if desired. The speed rail option gives the dolly grip the capability to put the dolly on sideways (what is sometimes referred to as the Chinese configuration), which is used to get the camera closer to a wall.

Note: Some of you may remember that we previously manufactured a sled dolly that was called the Porta-Glide 90. This new Porta-Glide is not the same. The Porta-Glide 90 did not have the multi-dimensional wheels, like our new version. However it did have an elaborate floating wheel system that allowed it to be used with a special, ultra-tight radius steel track that we also used to manufacture—90 degrees on a 2 foot radius, and 45 degrees on a 4 foot radius. The new Porta-Glide will not work on those ultra-tight tracks that we used to manufacture. However, they will work on the various curved tracks made by Matthews, Norms, American Grip, Egripment, etc. We felt that since there were not a lot of those ultra-tight tracks sold, it would be better to simplify the floating wheel design to keep the cost down.