Creating the workshop I always promised myself

[Slooby]

Well, the house that I've existed in these past 16 years is now gone, and I am technically homeless at present...well sort of...my fleet of rusty tat is all now in one place for the first time, as are nearly all my tools. Much to the chagrin of my family down here in Kent.

With everything in one place I have commenced fully reclaiming my workshop in an effort to create the metalworking shop and garage I've craved for so long. Unfortunately it's not as simple as it should be and me being me, surfing ebay when I have some money in my bank account leads to accidents, accidents in the shape of a Bridgeport Series 1 2hp Mill...which, while it should fit in my workshop, currently can't due to the stuff that shouldn't be in a workshop being stored there. I'm trying to clear it, but it's not easy when there's no obvious place to clear it to without causing a family rift.

There's also the slight snag in getting it here. Having destroyed myself and all my friends in February moving, in the middle of the worst storms since 1987, I have been looking to pay to have the Mill collected and dropped off, but being tight I have been baulking at the prices I've been quoted to shift it the 30 miles from Sydenham (in the LEZ) to the farm. The main issues are the offload options this end; I fear that at around 1 tonne the Mill might be a bit much for the JCB after seeing it grunt with offloading the Bradbury 4 poster. It also doesn't help that the P38 is being a P38 and features air suspension with a mind of its own so still has no ticket, mind you it probably can't set foot in the LEZ even if I wanted to use it and my trailer to go fetch it. I have no desire to attempt an offload with a pallet truck down my trailers beaver tail ramp

Anyhoo, I shall document how I get on with this little project...if anything to give you all a laugh at my misjudged take on what constitutes a simple task

[Jeremy Rowland]

Machine tools are very heavy so you may end up biting the bullet and paying out for a transport with a half decent lifting crane on the back, good luck let us know how you get on.

Jeremy

[Slooby]

Cheers Jeremy.

At the moment getting someone in to collect, transport and deliver the Mill is coming in at around 1/3rd the price i won it for. But I do seem to have got it for a pretty fair price.

The annoying thing is that I won't be able to take advantage of the long reach of the Hiab on the 18 tonne truck it would be attached to to get it into the garage/workshop and save myself the world of pain moving it in there by the inevitable pallet truck process that I will have to employ :/

[Jeremy Rowland]

Tim, I would check to see if you can hire machinery skates, that is a much better way to shift the weight of a machine tool rather than the risk of it falling off a pallet truck, just a thought.

Jeremy

[Slooby]

Machine skates are definitely being considered, but I'll also need some road plates because all the concrete around the double door access to the garage/workshop is in a shocking state and there is a 2 inch step because I laid fresh concrete over the original floor inside when I built it under the tractor shed in the early 90's

[MrF]

Nature finds a way! I have a lot of stories
Pity your not local, as I have a set of catepillar style machine skates with steering tables etc, along with 10t toe jacks and a nice selection of steel bars to roll on... We walked the vmc out the dirt floor barn on random steel plates I had lying round and these & using the forklift to push/lift one side before laying the floor. If you do get skates, do remember to have some means to constrain them in place, there's a lot of weight pushing down and without they can ping out at a really bad moment. I have a load of angle iron cut to form spreaders and lips to secure the machine from going sideways. I take a cordless drill and a load of bolts on the day for a new machine and adjusted them during the load.

But before I had actual rigging equipment... I collected my first universal mill (the arno seen boring jcb parts out in one pic) in the back of a old renault master panel van (the early fwd ones with a very low floor, I'm considering getting another now they are classic status...), I forgot my steel ramps and we had to build a ramp from wood sleepers, blocks and skin it with sheet steel, then the seller donated a old knackered pallet jack kindly and I winched it up into the van using a supermarket cheap electric hoist strapped to the inside of the van and a manual come-along as a safety backup! I still have that pallet jack too. When we moved from the other house to here, I winched the mill onto a low car trailer using it again for the move which was a lot easier.
I've also had the bridgeport interact in the jcb bucket, and a hydraulic surface grinder which probably weighs near a ton too moving them from the barn to the workshop after delivery, so don't discount completely the ability of the jcb to lift things. I booked tail lift delivery for my sodick wire edm (2.5t but in two cabinets...) with a company and when they turned up, their tail lift couldn't take the weight of the machine and I had no warning to get hold of my neighbor to have him unload with a telehandler so I had to fork it off the back of the truck using the 3c3 and its fork tines although that was a very very sketchy lift that I'd rather not repeat as the load was so heavy we thought the front tyres were going to rupture, and I'm surprised the ropey now replaced arms survived. But needs must, all it had to do was get it clear of the back of the truck then lower to almost down and carefully creep across the yard. If anything broke once it was down to near ground it wouldnt have been a disaster as I made sure everyone was outside the zone.

For the cincinnati arrow vertical machining centre I have, as its 4.5t bare I decided it was a bit out the range of the usual flatdeck car trailer I use, we went and hired a van recovery lorry (meant to recover motorhomes and box vans etc, so 7t capacity) and put the vmc on skates using a toe jack to lift it each corner in turn and slowly working it up dunnage of various thicknesses until it was at skate height, and skated it onto the deck using the hydraulic winch. It cost me to hire it of course, and I had to get a accomplice with a current hgv and tacho card to drive it so it wasn't a cheap move and it took 5 gruelling hours to load it without rushing as we also had to skate it out the building etc, and rushing is when you make mistakes. Slow and steady and plan every move.

For the bridgeport specifically, the main risk I think will be toppling, they are quite top heavy and you would do well to lower the saddle as low as it can go, and rotate the head so the weight of the motor etc is at the lowest point. In fact I'd just take the head off on arrival and fit it last once its in situ. You can get the head onto the table with a engine crane in situ then use the table lifting mechanism to lift it up into position if the jcb cant fit in the workshop. I made a jig from old bits of steel welded together to bolt the table that held the head to do this as the interact head is even bulkier.
Mine arrived with the head off already done by the seller which was super handy because my workshop door is too small to pass with it in place. He bolted it to a machine pallet then wrapped it for transit (really nice job, but he really knew his stuff, RIP John Stevenson), and he loaded it that end to regular freight transport with a fork truck and I dealt with unloading it this end myself.
The bridgeport manuals that are on the net in various places detail how to do a safe lift on the machine with slings without damaging them, and how to sling the head so its not damaged if you remove it. You should pay attention to this as it would be a shame to destroy any accuracy by mishandling it. And if you book a random hiab service, there's no guarantee they will know this info either. When my surface grinder was being delivered, I was working down the road so my wife let the company in the yard and they started to unload, by the time I got there I was greeted by the sight of it hanging with a chain around its workhead dangling from the hiab. It took me a year of work to get that rebuilt and back into alighment correctly and I was lucky the slideways weren't damaged also. Its sad because it has sling points built right into it, but that would involve them a) caring, and b) having a machine sling available.
Another tip, if you do use a pallet truck to move it around, a thin skin of plywood will help stop oily metal on metal sliding, and strap it to the truck! Having a machine slide on a pallet truck on a ramp is a brown trouser moment...
Here's how to sling a bridgeport head properly, you can see how much more bulky the interact is...


Yeah I have masses of room now in the barn workshop, but where the machines are, everything is super tight. In fact I had to loose the varihead sheeve drive and go to a single belt pulley and vfd for spindle speed control and even then its tight!


Perhaps the cost of someone moving it properly doesn't seem quite so bad if you consider the price of skates, suitable vehicle hire etc as my wife would most definitely point out. Perhaps I just like the adventure of it and like to know a machine has been treated properly during transit.

[Slooby]

Cheers for all those pointers Phil

Been trying to get hold of the chap who gave me the most sane (to my eyes) quote to pick up the Mill and drop it off here but he's gone quiet on me :/

Still not sure the sanest way to get it into the workshop with the horse tack in the way of the big doors and knackered concrete...

[Slooby]

Heard back from the guy who gave me the best quote to move the Mill and have just got off the phone with him. All being well we'll be moving it on Monday next week, assuming that fits in with the guy I'm buying it from too.

Fingers crossed I can get the workshop clear enough this weekend coming and make space for at least the Lathe and get that in there in case we can't move the Mill in as well so it can go in the other workshop (where the business operated out of and what is essentially a woodwork-shop

[MrF]

If you have to leave something outside temporary while you get sorted, you can buy lorry trailer sidings in heavy vinyl on amazon for under 100 quid. They're rather robust and way beyond the protection most tarps will give you. I had the machining centre wrapped up outside for a few weeks when we were doing the floor with one.
And now its doing sterling service sheeting over the front of the barn while doors/permissions are sorted out.

[Slooby]

I'm fairly sure I can get it undercover somewhere, that is assuming nothing else breaks and means that I can't get on with clearing the workshop because I'm needed to fix it!

I'm also hoping that longer term I can create another tractor shed out in the orchard from the rather large sections of dexion pallet racking I have brought back. That will enable me to claim the two bays in front of the workshop to create a much larger work area that I can set my ramp up in and have parts storage to get on with building the Land Rovers in under cover, all year round not dependant on the weather.