A moving tale...

Our rigging job on the 5400 lb, 12’ long Clausing Colchester lathe went well at the origin and badly at destination. Used the handy Sunbelt 6 x 14’ drop-bed trailer, worked perfectly. First 2 hrs. with the lathe were the 3 of us trying to get some daylight under either end of lathe. Was crammed in among other in-use machines and hard to access, couldn’t even get a workable angle with Johnson bar. We got the boss to drag HS end out in open with his machinery and everything worked better for us. Our trolley jack and toe jack couldn’t get under the very low base anywhere so I put a 9 x 24 x 1/2” steel plate under the edge and over a toe jack’s toe and got it up high enough to start work, and in about 45 min. we had HS end on an oak skid and TS end raised up by a 5000 lb. cap. Rol-A-Lift. We drove the electric pallet jack under the HS skid, raised rather legs, and slowly drove the lathe out of the building onto the trailer. Next 45 min. was securing lathe in trailer. We left our EPJ and a few other large items there as trailer was quite full with the lathe.

On arrival at the shop I guess I had become overconfident and didn’t have second thoughts about unloading on unlevel, potholed asphalt parking lot. I really should have thought that out better. The next four hours were very difficult, exhausting, and taught me to NEVER do that again. Somehow lathe didn’t fall over and no one got hurt, but many times it looked like the worst was about to happen. Scary and totally unnecessary. Load and unload heavy machine tools on smooth, level concrete only, unless there’s absolutely no choice, then get a crane or something that will keep it airborne.

 

Faith can move mountains, but moving a lathe takes a little more physical effort? I take it no toes and no lathes died in the attempt?

Next question - what does one turn with a lathe that weighs about the same as two nice pickup trucks?

 

This stuff is fascinating. Amazing what I've learned about big machines that I never would have thought about. If ever there's a giant tool Jeopardy, I'll be able to answer some questions!