Help! Moving a big lathe...

[Jonathan]

Basically my dad has said I can buy a lathe I've found, that weighs 650kg, if we can think of a way of getting it up the garden into the workshop. The seller says he will deliver it, so that's not a problem.

So any ideas as to how to negotiate my garden are most welcome. There's a couple of steps and a slope. There's slabs most of the way up.

I'm thinking use an engine hoist plus maybe a couple of sheets of 18mm plywood to provide a smooth surface to run it on. Hopefully the hoist, if I can find/borrow one, will be able to lift it high enough to place on top of the steps - about 2' high.

I've got until tomorrow to work something out...

[Jonathan]

pallet truck?

Can hire them...

http://www.pallettruckrental.co.uk/

if you need a hand though give us a shout:tup:

Wow, thanks for the offer :tup: Can't wait to get it if we can think of a way...

[Jonathan]

Update...

The man delivering it says he has got 'skates'. It looks like they need a flat surface, so I think some plywood or similar could provide that flat surface.

So the question is how thick plywood do I need to support that mass?

[Robin Hewitt]

When I first picked up a cannon with an engine hoist I discovered that those little cast iron wheels don't actually help a vast amount in the moving department. There is a reason why pallet trucks have rolling bearings in their wheels.

OTOH, if you had a couple of scaffold poles sticking out the ends, lengthwise, you could probably lift one end at a time and walk it.

To move it with an engine hoist would probably mean rising it on blocks so you have clearance below to put the hoist legs. Lift it, swing it, put it down, move the hoist. Repeat ad infinitum.

[i2i]

a pallet truck will give you a better rolling surface, but the hoist and legs of an engine hoist often give you more versatility. I've moved a few harrison m300's with an engine hoist, and you can drop the lathe onto the legs for good stability. Two full sheets of 18mm ply should do the trick, as you pass onto the second sheet move the first around to the front. A strip of 10mm ply under the joint will stop the sheets seperating when the wheels go over the joint.

[Jonathan]

Thanks for the advice everyone, I'll show my dad this thread and see what he thinks.

We've got plenty of logs for the fire. I'm thinking if it came to it I could turn a few of them on the wood lathe to make rollers and do it Egyptian style!

[Jonathan]

The next thing to consider is the floor it's mounted on. The workshop floor is thin plywood with the thicker flooring under it and 2x1 bearers under that, all on top of a 6" thick concrete bed. My Dad understandably doesn't want to cut a hole in the floor to mount it on the concrete.

Could we put the sheets of 18mm plywood used for shifting it underneath (how big, ideally not the full 8x4) to spread the load. Would that be stable enough?

[i2i]

you'll probably have to, 650kg is a fair weight.

[M250cnc]

I have done such a thing more than once so i am speaking from experience.

An engine hoist is a must i used one with a capability of 2 tons

A pallet truck will fail because of instability and the whole of the machine would have to be sitting on the forks and you will fail there too.

I made a dolly this would be as wide as i could get through the door way and as long as the base of the machine this was made from 2 x 4 steel tube welded fixed to this are 200mm dia castors HD around £23 each from machine mart.

To travel from the front of the house to the back, i used 2 x 4 steel U channel with welded brackets that fixed the channel to a cross member that fitted between a doorway. So you are effectively making a railway track so the thing cannot come off the rails.

They were cut to 8 foot lengths and even then it took an incredible amount of effort to get them up the rails.

Machines moved Bridgeport, J&S 540 surface grinder & Myford cylindrical grinder

The worst cast scenario is the machine falls over causing damage the worst case scenario is someone gets killed if it falls on them if you fail to take the required precautions.

One last thing, you have left it way too late to ask for advice.

Phil

[Hopefuldave]

I moved my Holbrook (2 tons of it), with the assistance of my lad and one of his mates - little sis towed it home with her Ringe Raver on a plant trailer, then the trailer was dragged up the garden with a Tirfor-alike (which cost more to hire than the 5-ton rated trailer...).

Once *close* to where i wanted it, we laid a bed of 2x4's on bricks (to level it) and Egyptianed (technically Hebrew Slaved, but the bosses always get the credit!) it with a 5-ft crowbar, wood blocks and some steel plate (fulcrum) until we could get a few 5-ft lengths of scaffold pole under it (the Holbrook base is a mighty, flat-bottomed piece of cast-iron) to roll it off the trailer, then winched it as far as we could before it "grounded"...

To get the beached lathe off the trailer, we hooked the Tirforoid to a convenient tree and dragged the trailer out from under it... the final 1/4" drop as the ramp came out from under it was quite exciting :)

Once on the 2x4 runway, a ratched strap through the lathe base, around a 6-ft scaffold pole hooked over the *far* edge of the concrete meant I could pull it up a slight slope 4" at a time while the lads wedged the rollers, then once roughly where we wanted it, we spun it on the rollers and levered into place with the big prybar - Robert was my parent's sibling.

I didn't have to lift it up any steps, but my plan would be to lift it a step at a time, using the engine hoist if you have one or a good lever, ensuring it's kept stable (thus only a short lift at a time) and raise the platform to match the step. If it has lifting holes in the base, USE THEM and put something substantial through to make outriggers so it can't f