Machinery Moving

Me and the lathe in the back of Jack's Suburban

I helped my friend Jack move a lathe from his mother's basement to his garage today. He had helped his father move it into the basement 20 years ago and he remembered it being fairly easy for the two of the them to do the job. Still, the lathe is heavy, and it was going to be a project to move it, so he made some inquiries to see if he could have it done. He got an estimate from one outfit for $1800, which he thought was exorbitant, so he scratched that idea. He decided he would to move it himself with a little help from his friends. I happened to be available today so I went and gave him a hand. Last weekend he removed all the easily removable pieces so all we had to move was the bed and the headstock. It was still a bit of work. I estimate those two pieces together weighed somewhere between 500 and 1,000 pounds. If I put some grunt into it, I could pick up the tailstock end. The headstock end was impossible. The lathe sits in a big tray that is there to catch metal shavings and cutting oil. We needed to get the tray out from under the lathe so it wouldn't get damaged in the move, and we wanted to get a plank under the lathe so it would slide without catching on things. We accomplished this by lifting one end of the lathe at a time with a six foot long pry bar. After we had the lathe bolted to the plank, we slide it off the bench and onto a cart, wheeled the cart over to the stairs where we hooked up the cable from the winch on the Suburban and hoisted it up. We had a bit of trouble getting the cable started off the spool. The ferrule that holds the hook on the end of the cable was hung up on the feed rollers. It took some fooling to coax it out. We also had a little trouble getting the lathe started up the stairs. We didn't really have enough lumber with us. We managed to make do with some scraps of wood we found lying around. We had one block of wood nailed to the riser of the top stair to keep the cable from digging into the edge of the stair tread. Once we got the lathe to the top of the stairs we were able to slide it on rollers across a board and into the back of the truck. Piece of cake. When we got to Jack's house we performed essentially the same maneuvers in reverse, except we didn't have to negotiate any stairs. Before we moved the lathe onto the new bench, we needed to drill some mounting holes. The two at the tailstock end just went through the wood top, but the four holes on the headstock end went through some angle iron as well. We drilled quarter inch pilot holes to start and they went through without a hitch. Then we tried the half inch bit, but it would jam when it was just about through. The cordless drill we were using just didn't have enough oomph to cut through the last little bit. The drill did fine up until it started to break through the far side of the steel. Once the cutting edges reach the far side and it starts to enlarge the hole, they start to dig in because there is less surface area to push against. We ended up having to use a series of bits to finish these four holes. We went to 3/8", then 7/16", 15/32", 31/64" and finally 1/2". Actually, it was several more changes than this because as soon as one went all the way through we would then switch to the half inch bit, it would fail, and then we would have to back off. Real pain in the neck, but we got it done. We celebrated with a shot of Old Crow when we were done.

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