Retractable wheels etc for moving a Lathe ?

Hi,

My Boxford AUD is in a corner from where I occasionally need to extract it for access behind. It is currently on adjustable feet and there is about 25mm free space below the bottom of the cabinet as a result of these. Does anyone know a good way of adding wheels or some kind of dolly etc that can be inserted and used to lift the lathe so I can readily move it a few feet out of the way ? I live on my own and it's too heavy for me just to manhandle.

Thanks,

25mm doesn't give enough room for a simple solution. Perhaps some air wedges to lift each end high enough to slide bogies under?

pgk

Have done something similar for a wood-turning lathe but it is an order of magnitude lighter than you AUD. Something like this Universal Wheel Base available as an off the shelf but still probably too lightweight for your needs. A purpose made hefty angle iron frame around the base/bases of the lathe to support outboard castors and then use the levelling feet to stop it rolling when in place. The difficulty of course is getting the lathe up in the air enough to insert the frame under it. You could perhaps fabricate the frame in sections, use the feet to jack the lathe up and insert the frame under it and then weld or bolt it in place. Not perhaps so easy on your own.

Warco have a Machine Trolley but still looks a bit lightweight to me.

Good Luck

John

Edited By Journeyman on 25/12/2020 15:52:49

Can we have a picture of lathe in corner?

I became a widower and moved to a small ground level apartment and put a 25mm axle through Boxford A cabinet and put two airblown wheel (Dunlop) on.

Without air in tubes,cabinet rested on floor with plywood protection and inflated it could be moved with one hand.

I took pictures but cannot find them .

Edited By Niels Abildgaard on 25/12/2020 15:52:52

Edited By Niels Abildgaard on 25/12/2020 15:53:57

You haven't said which directon you want to move it - sideways or out from the wall.

Think along the lines of an oval cross-section bar. Say it was 2 in by 1in max and min axis, x 24 in long. You could put it under the lathe in the 1in gap on its side then rotate 90 degrees and it is 2 in off the ground.
Two of these one each end can move it sideways, bonk, bonk, bonk. Otherwise once up with the two inch gap put short rollers under each end parallel to the bed and lower it onto them - then pull away from wall.

Obviously the bar does not have to have the profile along the full length, only at the key bearing areas at each end. You can also think of variations with offset 1 in disc wheels etc. Even a 1in square tube will do the job.

Car Skates or wheel dollies

If you have a sufficiently strong base rail simple rods laid rail fashion in the direction you want to slide it will do for moving. Could drop it down by using the adjustable feet if you dont mind resetting afterwards.

I made a set of heavy duty versions of the inexpensive furniture moving roller sets to move my Smart & Brown 1024 out when I need to get round the back. Basically 1" square speed welded side by side into a frame with the ends cut away to hold lots of rollers.

Lighty modified car jacks fit into scaffold poles passed through the lifting holes to raise it. Can't get at the tailstock rear corner so a I fixed a long jack made for a Rover SD1 to the cabinet and left that scaffold pole in place. Welded a nut on the end of the screw to turn it as the standard handle couldn't be reached.

I be unsurprised to find that one of the better furniture / washing machine moving sets were up to handling Boxford weight.

Clive

Edited By Clive Foster on 25/12/2020 17:23:22

Mike, there's a couple of threads on this forum if you have a search around.
This was my solution, albeit, because I already had the brackets and wheels; ex of a coms cabinet.

There's a couple more photos in the album.
I also have a Boxford shaper mounted on another set.

Bill

Mike,

I just added some wheels to my new Boxford 11.30, I do it to all my machines as it makes it possible for 1 person to easily move them, and adjust the height.

Boxford cabinets benefit from being made from thick steel plate, I welded a 6mm steel plate in each corner with holes tapped to screw some castors to, and drilled and tapped some 40mm en1a I had laying around for the actual feet where it sits permanently, using the original strengthened area for the feet makes sure it's solid, and the wind down m12 feet also double as a means to level the lathe.

If you type Heavy Duty Castors into ebay, all sorts of useful things come up, including ones with built in winding mechanisms.

See Also Bearing Boys amongst others.

Bill

Edited By peak4 on 25/12/2020 19:56:00

Whatever method you choose the lathe basically has to be lifted. Either onto the wheels/roller/rails or off them using jack up legs as its normal support.

If the lathe is already in the corner the devilish detail is how to get it out so you can apply your chosen method to that corner.

In my case I had enough clearance between the tailstock end of the lathe cabinet to tilt the 1024 enough to slide some 1/4" or 1/2" diameter rods underneath aligned across the bed. I used a farm jack, the click-click-click climb up a vertical rail thing, to raise the headstock end. As I recall it I got a rod to within about a foot of the tailstock end. By using the rods as combination rollers and rails I got it out far enough to work on that back corner.

I suspect that if you choose to use a system like mine it will be possible to tilt a Boxford on its cabinet far enough that one roller frame will get far enough down to the tailstock end to achieve balance with the headstock end supported on the other one.

Not a method I'd use more than once tho'. I've done similar in another case and it was all a bit precarious untill dropped back onto the roller frames.

If you decide to follow Bills suggestion with jack up castors make sure the jacking system is nice and solid.

I have a large set with the wheels welded to a square vertical tube which runs inside another tube fixed to the thing to be moved. A big screw with a tommy bar head moves it up and down. Wheels are 6" diameter, load capcity is high, pushing a ton each according to the specification and they cost the firm a fair bit of money. In practice the relatively loose fit of the tube in a tube means they don't actually work very well at the moving thing. I hauled them out of the scrap bin thinking they couldn't be That bad. With a ton of Pratt & Whitney sat on 8 I found they were worse actually! The slop in the tubes meant they really didn't want to swing around as castors should. Turning meant crowbarring up to take the weight of each castor in succession and lining them up by hand!

Clive

Absolutely so, the last thing you need when something is already moving is to have a collapse on one corner so it tips over.
For one job I did, I raised the machine off the floor, then inserted packing between the castors and the angle brackets and jacked it back down, such that the tops of the castors were directly supported by the frame.

Also wheeled heel bars can be quite useful; care is needed as obviously metal-to-metal friction can be quite low.
This can work to your advantage though; use a large crowbar to raise the machine slightly and slide a length of angle iron underneath it; one at each end. The machine will then slide along the top points of the angle iron, with no fear of it running away from you on rollers.
When it's away from the wall, with better access, you can then move onto rollers/castors.

If it's top heavy, add a couple of tie off ropes to keep everything vertical.

Bill

A long bar with a flat piece welded on at one end - like a hockey stick or golf club - so you can slip it under one end of the cabinet, then rotate the bar, levering the cabinet up a little, enough to slip some 1"x1"x1/8" angle (corner upmost) underneath (or 2"x2" if it needs to be higher). Repeat at the other end. You should then be able to slide the cabinet along the tops of the rails. Of course, they'll need to be long enough to get it far enough out of the corner so some other method can be substituted if required, or just carry on using the rails.

I used this method for shifting my Boxford C about unaided, safe enough if care is taken.

Rob

Edit - Just read the post above in more detail now - exactly what I mean

Edited By Grindstone Cowboy on 25/12/2020 23:45:16

I did it a slightly different way! I used some scrap as they couldn't be certified for insurance 2 tonne pallet racking joists and made an over head gantry to lift the new 500kg lathe into place after the Myford had come out. I leave the gantry in place and remove the rear leg, shown on the left hand in the picture, that is stored by the other one behind the lathe, the free end is roped to the roof joist through the loop above. I made the trolly out of 4mm plate with 50mm roller bearings as wheels.

I used one of those trolley affairs from Warco to mount a very heavy victorian printing press on. Your lathe might be a bit heavier but I'm sure that the trolley would take more weight. Moving it isn't easy but is at least possible.

Thanks all for the replies, Jacking Castors or else the Warco trolley look like the way to go, I'll have a think and post back when I've done it.

Does anyone know how much an AUD weighs btw ?

Boo

Edited By Mike Davies 3 on 27/12/2020 20:59:55

Mike

Depends on bed length and exact specification. 550 to 600 lb will be pretty close but likely on the high side.

Might be worth noting that the cheap set of Powerfix furniture mover rollers I got from LiDL (mainly to get the lifting handle thingy which is much cleaner in the house than pry bar) are rated at 150 kg / 330 lb so two sets should manage the Boxford OK.

Quick Google showed LiDL did two types. The one I got had the 4 square puck things with multiple rollers underneath. There was a heavy duty 300 kg / 660 lb capacity version with larger L shaped bases and three lots of more substantial rollers (or maybe castors). A bit taller but still significantly lower than the plate on castors furniture dolly. I imagine the same things under other brands can be found quite easily or E-Bay /Facebook marketplace may turn up a used set or two for £ very reasonable. £10 (ish) new I think.

Clive

There's always the 5 wheel option, especially useful for the taller person wishing the lathe was higher.

Pete

A note of caution on the subject of castors.

The general recommendation on the use of castors is that the maximum load should be limited to 2 times the allowable loading of an individual castor, not 4 times as would seem at first glance to be acceptable ( for a unit with four castors). The reasons being to allow for uneven distribution of weight ( think lathe here ) and to allow for any irregularities in the floor surface which may result in the weight suddenly bring transferred to only two of the castors.

Individual circumstances will vary, but generally I stick to the recommendation as the additional cost of higher rated castors is small when you consider the value of the item being moved.

Ready built dollies or kits are generally rated to take this into consideration.

With higher load rating castors used on items that are constantly loaded and infrequently moved there is also less tendency for the tyre of the castor to develop a flat spot which can make subsequent movement difficult. Steel or other rigid tyred castors reduce this problem ( as the bearings also play a part ) but are less pleasant to use than the resilient tyred castors which are more commonly encountered. However comfort is probably not an issue when the item is being moved very infrequently and over very short distances.

Pero

all my lathe's and mill's are on frames with adjustable feet....

this way I can move em about with a pallet truck......

the big mill is a full size Bridgeport......easy peasy....