Loading a mill

S

Signguy

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Any ideas on how I can load a mill in a trailer or the back of a truck.
2100 lbs.
It's far away, widow is selling her late husbands mill with tooling.
But I got to figure out a way to get it loaded.

Tim
 
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Signguy said:
Any ideas on how I can load a mill in a trailer ar the back of a truck.
2100 lbs.
It's far away, widow is selling her late husbands mill with tooling.
But I got to figure out a way to get it loaded.

Tim[/QUOTE

The wrecker idea is good. But a tri-pole winch setup will do the same thing. Or use ramps of 2x12's and lots of under support and a winch or come along to get it into the truck. Or go rent a fork lift for a couple hours

David
Click to expand...
 
Way back when, we moved a many of machine with nothing more than pipe rollers and a ramp, and a pry bar. The length of the ramp boards depends on the height of the trailer.........jackie
 
Loading it and unloading it is not the real problem......................

Keeping it from flipping out of the back of a pick up truck is a major problem. (top heavy) Even a lath is top heavy.

Loading it in a trailer you will deal with getting the load balanced, so it will pull straight at speed.

I've seen some really big heavy stuff rolled on pipe. Plan on how to stop it. Sloooooooooooooooow!

Think, think and then think about it some more.

Wrecker? Why do they call it a wrecker? Not all wrecker operators are wreckers. Good luck.

Ax me if I've seen a lathe flip out of the back of a P.U.
 
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That's what worries me about the trailer I have. It's too small. I will have to find a better trailer to use for this.

Thanks guys,

Tim
 
Be careful with knee mills as they are top heavy, and laying one over can be done easily if not careful. Make sure it's tied secure before you move down the road. Hauling one in the back of a 3/4 or 1 ton Can be a handful.

I unloaded one years ago with a manure loader, actually most of them in farm shops are handled that way.

Lifting is the best way to handle them, but you can move very large pieces of equipment with pipe and a bar. Just like Lunch Box, when they move them big boats.
**
BTW, just a thought, when we ship equipment that is tall and narrow we lag the machine down to 4x4's, the width of the trailer. Usually 1/2-5/8 lag bolts. If I were to ship a knee mill I would do it the same way, with the 4x4's running parallel to the table. Just laying a nylon ratchet strap over the top of a mill and tightening it up may not prevent the mill from tipping over. There is a lot of weight in a very small foot print with a mill. The area its sitting on needs to be stable.
 
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Wow, a mill is brutal.... my kneejerk reaction is to rent a forklift or bobcat with forks... on an oversized trailer. Load with the fork unit and lash the whole thing together! The bobcat/forklift trailer will have chainbinders etc, it's topheavy too, then you lash the mill to the machine.

Smartest thing you did was to ask for ideas....yeahhh, I'd think this one thru really well before heading down the road.

al
 
If it is a Bridgeport type of mill take the time to rotate the head around as far as possible set the table and knee to spread the load around and lower the center of gravity. If you use a fork lift put 2x4' under the dovetail of the headstock ram or you stand a chance of breaking them, seen it done.
Good Luck
 
alinwa said:
Wow, a mill is brutal.... my kneejerk reaction is to rent a forklift or bobcat with forks... on an oversized trailer. Load with the fork unit and lash the whole thing together! The bobcat/forklift trailer will have chainbinders etc, it's topheavy too, then you lash the mill to the machine.

Smartest thing you did was to ask for ideas....yeahhh, I'd think this one thru really well before heading down the road.

al
Click to expand...

Standard Bobcats, and similar machines, have tip ratings of around 1300 pounds. You might want to find someone who has been through similar situations before, the learning curve can be a bit**.
 
I paid $500 for some professional machinery movers to move my mill about 15 miles. I thought it was money well spent and I am a very thrifty fellow that believes in doing things myself.

Buy at least 4 HEAVY DUTY ratchet tiedowns. 2" wide, thick straps. Duct tape all the hook ends so there is no way they can come unhooked. Drive a couple of blocks and stop and tighten the straps. Drive a mile or 2 and repeat. Stop on the highway ramp and check them again. I would also use a HEAVY DUTY chain to make sure the machine cannot leave the truck or trailer even if it falls over or you get in a wreck.
 
alinwa said:
Wow, a mill is brutal.... my kneejerk reaction is to rent a forklift or bobcat with forks... on an oversized trailer. Load with the fork unit and lash the whole thing together! The bobcat/forklift trailer will have chainbinders etc, it's topheavy too, then you lash the mill to the machine.

Smartest thing you did was to ask for ideas....yeahhh, I'd think this one thru really well before heading down the road.

al
Click to expand...

I've done it several times. Always with a forklift. I owned a forklift when I lived in CA. I moved two mills and lathes from CA to PA on my own trailer behind my PU truck.

A BobCat or generic SkidSteer may not have the lift capacity to do it unless it is one of the larger sizes (LS180, or LS185, or larger, New Holland, or equivelant, for example). I own an LS160 New Holland, it won't do it. An LS185 definitely will, I recently moved and loaded a mill with one.

The warnings about top heavy mills and lathes are right on. When faced with moving my shop from CA to PA I fabricated

DrillingholesinMillPallet-RS.jpg


a metal skid that was trailer width, bolted the mill to it, and bolted the skid to the trailer. It not only kept the mill upright, it spread the load over more planks on the trailer bed. I later sold the forklift in the picture before I moved.

This picture shows the machinery loaded on the trailer after it was juggled to give me 950 lbs of tongue weight.

Loaded-1-RS.jpg


You will notice the lathe benches are also bolted to the trailer. The trailer was at 9,875 lbs GVW in this picture.

I was going to be hauling it 2500 miles through whatever kind of weather, so I mummified it by padding it and then taping tarps over the machines so they wouldn't flap themselves into pieces before the trip was over.

Mummifiedandreadytogo-C-RS.jpg


It worked great.

Fitch
 
Thanks again guys,

Nice info Fitch much appreciated. I got this week to prepare. We will see how this goes.
I wish I still had my crane.

Tim
 
My mill looks identicle to the one in Fitch's pictures and my lathe is larger. I moved them with a bobcat skidsteer and loaded them on my equipment trailer. As said above, don't let a novice operate a skidsteer, recipe for disaster.
 
When we received a new mill at work it was Bolted to a wood palet with 1/2" bolts. The palet was made of 4x4's and about 5ft. square. The knee of the mill was lowered all the way down and the table was all the way in. The ram that slides on the dove tales was also all the way back. Bridgeport said to use only the Eye Bolt on the ram to lift the mill. Fitch's pictures show the eye biolt. They were never shipped with the head turned sideways.

Brian
 
Forklift is definitely the easy way!

But my last time I moved my knee mill I did it with out forklift by renting a trailer that drops down to within a few inches of the ground, they have outboard swing axles and and a hydraulic jack on the tongue. Rolled on 1/2" schedule 40 pvc up to the trailer gate then used a come-along hooked to the tie-down in the trailer to drag it in. Drug it out at destination with come-along and rolled on pvc to final resting place.

Rented 3/4 ton truck and trailer for one day for less than a $100.

zp3
 
well we call 'em all bobcats out here and some of them will lift a house...and some idiots can tip any one of them over in a parking lot.

rolling on pipes is scarey. A bucket of golf balls and some sheets of plywood will let you move the world too, 360 degrees. I've rolled around quite a bit of this stuff and absolutely WILL NOT do it without a serious confab, powwow, palaver, parlay, sitdown or safety meeting whatever all y'ALL's call it in your neck of the woods. Rule Number One with Heavy Stuff (IMO) There will be ONE guy in charge. For ME, this is gener'ly me, since I'm most often the one paying the fiddler. If I'm not in charge I back down, stay down, squat and grunt when told.

Here are a few of my rules :)

#1, I'm in charge. YOU WILL NOT MOVE without my sayso....
#2, we will go SLOWER.....
#3, if it falls, YOU WILL SCATTER!!! You WILL NOT try to catch it. If you're catching something I've already FUBAR'd the job. losing limbs doesn't make it better.
#4, if it's hard, we're doing something wrong. "Muscling" thousands of pounds is stupid.
#5, when the heavy thing stops moving when you want it to move, you will STOP and find out why!

etc etc along those lines.

I'm glad you're asking for ideas

al
 
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