How should I PROPERLY move a Senior mill and Colchester Master?

Hoping for advice on how to properly move both a Senior M1 mill and Colchester Master lathe off the pallets they're on, and then move them the 10 meters or so into my workshop.

I have never moved machinery of this size before (I've read the Colchester is ~700 Kg), and am mindful of the significant personal and machinery damage risks, if I don't follow correct procedure!! Obviously a pallet truck doesn't help in removing them from their pallets into their final positions.

My first thought is a branded 2 tonne engine crane, attached by webbing straps to the correct lifting points (centres of gravity). Is this correct?

Any advice gratefully received.

Edited By choochoo_baloo on 21/12/2017 11:46:09

Edited By choochoo_baloo on 21/12/2017 11:46:34

Edited By choochoo_baloo on 21/12/2017 11:46:57

These so-called "2 tonne" engine cranes are having a laugh. At anything near 1 tonne load, they turn into rubber and wobble about alarmingly. Be very careful...

I will reiterate my own experience with webbing straps - make sure they attach to lifting points that are ABOVE the centre of gravity or failing that, use several separate straps. Using long straps from one foot, through the lifting eye and down to another foot leads to this. Luckily nobody was hurt, underwear remained unsoiled, no puppies were had and the machine was undamaged.

The manuals for these machines show you how to lift them and where to attach the straps. Do you have them? If not, somebody here can probably upload the relevant pages.

Murray

If possible I would leave them strapped to the the pallets till you get them as close to the final position as possible. Then follow Muzzers instructions for dismounting them onto rollers ( lengths of pipe) and push into final positioion. You will find that if they are only about 40mm off the floor at that point you can use levers to get them onto the floor. On a good floor you can use fairly small rollers.

Good luck. Let us know how you get on.

regards

As Oldiron says Pallet truck as near as possible then look at lowering them on to rollers for final positioning. An engine hoist is ok if nothing else is available and have a selection of slings shackles and plenty of rollers of the same size. Check lifting points for centre of gravity in the hand book. When in place give plenty of room to allow the tilt of the machine as you lower on side and then the other. I always have a selection of pieces of wood so that I can lower using a pry bar a little at a time perhaps 25mm thick 20 mm thick and 10 mm thick about 150 mm square about 5 of each. A few people to help don't try and do it on your own and if you cant get the engine hoist either side of the pallet it may swing so be prepared to let it slide as the weight is taken up. Don't rush and make sure one person is in charge.

David

Worth checking the geometry of the engine crane to make sure it can cope with the size of the object and the height as well as the weight. On my 1 ton crane, it was easy to move a 240kg lathe into position with the boom fully extended. But at full extension, the crane is only good to lift 250kg, not 1 ton. I could have managed the job with the boom in the 500kg position, but not with it in the 750 and 1000kg positions.

Much depends on what you're moving. I had to lift 240kg and drop it on to a waist high stand. Fortunately I was able to do it without the crane wheels fouling anything. A different configuration might have made the job much harder, or much easier. My biggest problem was not having quite enough width to turn the loaded crane and drop the lathe in position against a wall. I could have used rollers to fix it, but, as it turned out, it's better to have it sideways on. Sheer good luck, not judgement.

Apart from that, the hardest part was balancing the lathe before starting the lift. As muzzer's photo shows, it's important to manage the centre of gravity - a heavy machine tipping over unexpectedly could ruin your day! It may be necessary to control the balance with extra ropes.

No consolation but it's another job that's much easier to do next time. An ounce of experience is worth a pound of theory.

Dave

Look carefully at engine hoists, the rating they like to advertise is when the arm is at its shortest extension. The same goes for real cranes a 1000t crane can sometimes not even lift its own hook at maximum extension. A pallet truck is a great tool on smooth and level surfaces. Machines always seem to have a very high centre of gravity so the weight is exactly where it is most dangerous. Once it gets away you will not save it just save yourself. Planning what you are going to do and having everything you might need readily to hand is a good start. If you can get an experienced person to look at your proposal on site with you it should become clear the best way to go. The more hands you can get to help should be useful. A well planned job should make things easy and safe. If you are not properly prepared it will go wrong and just hope it's only the machine that gets broken.

Mike

The proper way to lift them is to use lifting eyes and a shackle straight to the hook. Nearly all machines have a threaded hole for lifting.

As for moving them horizontally short scaffold poles used as rollers is the safest way. If the ground is soft use 3/4 ply sheets.

You will be amazed at the amount of weight you can move on rollers.

If it's the later master, they are a pain to move on rollers as the cabinet stand is not continuous, it's arranged as a box at either end, the centre section has nothing to roll on. You can still use rollers, but it's a tedious job, machine skates are better.

I find 20mm or 25mm solid round bar works well for rollers.

IIRC on my Student 1800, i had to remove the gap piece to access the lifting eye point, as said earlier most machines have one somewhere.

If you use a lifting eye make sure it is screwed right in so there is no gap to the flange.

Mike

I moved a three quarter sized bridgeport (Warco WM20) and a Myford 254s on a trailer, a good ivor Williams not a flimsy job. The hard part that needs thinking about is how to get them on and off.

Good old BIG crowbars, (wish I had full length bar with pivot but made do) and wedges to start raising it off the floor and several lengths of adequately sized scaffold tube. This will enabled you to get over thresholds and minor obstacles, and allow turns, ply needed over grass. Lifting it/them needs strops and shackles and strops or rope around mid points of the main strops and machine to prevent slippage. (belt and braces)

I used a modified non folding 2 ton crane to lift the mill and then move things away from the machine rather than try to move the crane, then drop onto rollers again. So you need to be able to get the feet /legs under the transport beyond centre of gravity. I modified the main pivot point of the crane to take out the lateral play with a piece of bar threaded both ends as an interferencee fit almost. If the weight starts going sideways it won't stop and you should not try to stop it.

Safety wise you need someone who is in command if it doesn't look right or someone is getting carried away (and they do) you need to stop it fast and rethink. Brute force will help but only if applied in a safe thought out way mostly best avoided. Imbalance of the weight is the main problem not the actual weight. Loading the milling machine was made so easy with a tractor and fork and the other end on a farm with a telehandler done safely in minutes, problem was to get from there to suburbia.

Alan

Absolutely.

Help is great but you must know your crew.

Be very wary of the "mate who knows how to do this sort of thing". One such helped me shift my Bridgeport, Smart & Brown 1024 and P&W B 12 x 30. Bridgeport went fine 'cos I had him under control, S&B a bit iffy 'cos I was sold wrong capacity wheels for the moving truck and he got to re-think on the fly, P&W was beyond scary 'cos he decided we didn't need a gantry crane! Its amazing what you can get away with but finding out can be hard on the nerves!

Lateral thinking time. Just how good and how strong are the pallets the machines are on? I know of more than one person who "temporarily" pallet trucked the machines into place and started using them whilst he decided on the final workshop layout. Far as I know they are still on the pallets apparently it makes it easy to pull them out to get behind et al.

An alternative to rolling on pipes is to lay them rail fashion in the direction you want the machine to go and slide it along them. Steel or cast iron on steel slides easily. Quite slender rods work as well as, maybe better than, pipe. I've used 1/2" diameter bar.

I moved my Bridgeport, sans head, on a very heavy duty dolly. As the move included a couple of off camber corners I strapped some rectangular frames of OSB re-enforced 2 x 2 under each end of the table and adjusted the knee so as to limit any tipping. Maybe 1" of clearance to the ground. Worth the effort I think as one side did ground out once leaving the machine safely supported whilst we figured out what to do.

Those click-click-climb up a pole farm jacks can be very useful for easing one end of a machine up to slip roller or cribbing under.

My 1024 sits in a corner of the workshop so rear right hand corner is totally inaccessible. Before moving into place I fixed a tall, push in the sill style, car screw jack to that back corner of the machine making it relatively easy to lift the inaccessible corner when sliding my patent uber low sakes used to move it out when needed. Jack from a Rover 3500 SDI I think. Took the handle off and welded nut on. Ratchet and socket worked OK but a windy gun is magic.

Clive.

Edited By Clive Foster on 21/12/2017 18:12:55

John Stevenson recommended the use of pairs of angle irons laid in the direction of travel, with the pointy bit up. Never used it myself but apparently cast iron slides beautifully and easily on them.

The guy who tried to invert my milling machine mentioned later that it had done a similar thing when he picked it up from the seller (I wasn't present then either). He described himself as a machine mover of some decades experience. So yes, "experience" doesn't always translate into safety or trouble-free operations. Or learning from mistakes.

When I moved the workshop out of our Canadian house, I hired a forklift truck to load the container - this was a breeze. At the other end, the container was unloaded using a Hiab jib thing by a friendly team of Scousers. At the other end of the scale, I had a real experience bringing my Bridgeport (1 tonne) home using a tail lift truck and 2 of those engine cranes - never again!

Murray

The biggest problem is getting the machines off the pallets, both will be top heavy. The Stevenson method using angles is OK, or use a suitable engine hoist just to lift the machine enough to slide the pallet out, and lower it onto rollers without attempting to move it. The picture shows what happens when you lower the machine (a Tom Senior by the way) onto pallet blocks under each corner. The pool of blood is mine, the machine toppled off the blocks trapping me underneath, I was lucky in that my father lived nearby and was alerted to my plight by a neighbour, and he used the block and tackle shown in the picture to raise the miller enough to let me out from under. Rule number 1 is never get under the machine or in a position it can fall on you if things go wrong.

Chris Gunn

Yikes Chris! Glad you're OK

Dave

Dave that was in 1988, and lucky I had a camera handy. I used up one of my 9 lives that day. I had to get the miller up a sloping floor in my garage, and then over a step into the workshop. It was the step that caused the problem really. NEVER BALANCE A MACHINE ON PALLET BLOCKS.

Chris Gunn

These are industrial machines bought by companies. We do not have that sort of resource available to us.

Therefore I think everyone on here has improvised.

Engine Cranes,

These need the legs to go under the load so you need the jib at nearly max length, you can get decent ones, this is mine here https://www.workshopping.co.uk/shop.php?sec=prod&prod=WF10

that gets you 700kg lift at full stretch - note the price.

They do not like turning corners loaded.

​Make sure any slings or ropes cannot slip as all the jerking as you wheel it around will test that. It also helps if the pallet is the small type.

Skoots,

​Don't let them trip up on an obstacle, the load wants to continue so always make sure you are behind it so you can watch all the sticky out bits bend and or snap off safely.

Good luck

Sometimes, you just need the help of a mate with a little tractor.......😂 The crane used to be my old mobile engine crane, it was rated at 2.7 tonnes or 700kg extended, and was huge, came out of a commercial garage and probably weighed 150/200kg, How they rate those flimsy chinese jobbies at 2 tonne is laughable.

Edited By Alan Waddington 2 on 21/12/2017 21:32:33

I try to use the seemingly unpopular method of taking the things apart, then moving them around in sizeable chunks!

Although I am a complete wimp when it comes to heavy lifting, safety first!!

Perfect excuse for a good service and check over too.

Brings back "Happy Memories" of moving my workshop,not once but twice.Some very scary moments !

If the machine wants to go-----LET IT !

Slinging is all important and plenty of rollers,and time,more so. Dont rush it,it can all go belly up in seconds.