Featured Maritime Artifact, Heavy

No, not an anchor, but a connecting rod from the triple-expansion steam engine of a WWii liberty ship. Never saw one before. It is about 4 feet long and must weigh about 300 lbs. The wrist pin bearing is bronze and the crankshaft bearing is Babbitt metal, and the rod itself is probably forged steel. There are some cryptic alphanumerics stamped on it but the photos of them weren’t clear so I’ll have to try again. A fellow Machinist who lives near me asked me to come over and take away some metal he doesn’t need, and on arrival he gave me that and showed me this, asking if I had any interest in it. Since it is heavy and utterly useless, sure I did, exactly the kind of stuff I accumulate!

 

I want the piston

 

And you got another pallet for your giveaway pile!

 

Hey I’m actually looking for nice strong pallets now. I fasten casters underneath the corners and put things on the pallet so I can move it around without having to get a pallet jack under it. Store more junk!

Usually this works fine but here’s a box weighing maybe 3000 lbs. I took the strongest pallet I had and put the wheels on it, then put box on the new cart. Seems the crate bottom is flexible and puts too much weight on the middle of the cart, sagging in photo. I put the board across to show the sagging. I’ll add some reinforcement under the middle.

 

Put another caster in the center middle!

 

I’ve decided to put a small 4-wheel dolly under middle as quickest option, just pick up everything with forklift and place dolly under, adding plywood to get correct height.