This is how my 10L came home, it took a one hour ride in a friend's home-made race car trailer.
Sobel had spiked it to two 4X4s, with bevelled ends. He forked it onto the trailer, and when we got home we tilted the trailer up and gently slid it off onto the ground. From there I disassembled it into bite-sized chunks and brought it down to my basement shop.
If this IS by any chance a cast-iron pedestal base unit, watch out.
The base is far and away the single heaviest part that cannot be lightened any further. Any other piece of a 10L can be carried by one man, or two if it's the bed.
Mike, if the 10XL weighs in at only 800 lbs as others have posted, simply rent a truck with a lift tail-gate, a refrigerator moving dolly, and find 2 or three healthy friends to help you. The key is to disassembly the lathe into manageable size components as early as possible. Remove the tailstock, bridge, and other heavy assemblies from the lathe. The bed and headstock will likely then be the heaviest parts. This is where the refrigerator dolly becomes important, to help you move the lathe's bed and headstock assembly down stair when required. Several strong guy to help is an important asset. After that, what remains is somewhat trivial to handle.
Save the rigging equipment for the day in which you have to move your first Bridgeport.
Using nothing more than the above described methods, I've moved much heavier gear, including an antique Chandler and Price letter press.
Check with local Home Depot. They rent a kneeling trailer that raises hydraulically. I used one to move a 5000lb bedmill. I barred the mill to the door opening then winched it on with a chain hoist attached to the tow hitch by a short steel cable.
Unloading was the reverse. I dropped the trailer bed to the ground, drove the truck around the other end and winched it off with the chain hoist again.
Sometimes all you have to do is to ask the seller of the machine if they have (or have access to) a method of loading the lathe. Somebody had to get it into its current location. Even if the last owner has died, you'd be surprised at the number of people around the place who might have helpful information. If you got it at an auction, the actioneers almost always can be of help. I move things up to about a ton about twice a year. So here are some other thoughts from my own experiences:
- I like the idea of bolting a skid under the lathe.
-If the machine is on the same level as driveway you are driving onto, you can carefully pull the skid-mounted machine outside with your vehicle.
- Whenever possible, I try to find a neighbor of the seller who has a farm tractor with a front end loader. (That's what I have at home). Most of them will lift close to a ton.
-I like industrial quality lifting straps better than chains.
-I also like the disassembly idea.
-If you are not dissassembling the machine, consider using several rolls of duct tape to tape up everything in sight. You never know when some hard-to-replace part may come off during that 4 hour ride.
-Be prepared for bad weather. Take plenty of tarps, etc.
-If it will be helpful at the picking up end, take your engine hoist with you.
-I once moved a heavy old lathe by borrowing a pallet truck (the hand pulled kind) to lift the machine up in order to put the skids under it. I simply pushed the pallet truck under the lathe, stacked up cribbing until it touched the underside of the lathe (a cast iron pan in this case) then raised the pallet truck enough to slide skid boards underneath and fasten them together. By the way, when I got that machine home, I raised the skid and put heavy duty casters on the skids so I could move it around, since I was going to stor it for a while.
-ONLY use the engine hoist on a solid solid floor. If you have the machine in the air even a couple of inches, and moving, then a wheel digs in for any reason, you have this big pendulum and-----. Don't ask me how I know.
-Lastly, as others have said, think safety, safety, safety. If the thing starts to tip, it may well be too late to anything but get out of the way. Always be looking for an escape route and take time to keep the floor and work area free of things you could trip over.
Uhaul trailers are good up to 2,500 lbs. The price is hard to beat.
If you put a heavy concentrated weight on it, make sure to provide some footing for it that would make it have a wider "footprint", so as not to create concentrated stresses.
As for a truck or SUV, make sure that it is rated for pulling your desired weight and has transmission cooling.
On the above, the single best solution I've found is to use packing celophane. You can buy big roles of the stuff very cheap. Once you get it on the truck/trailer, just start going around every bit of the machine with three-plus layers of the stuff. It's great...it'll stick to itself really well so once you get around everything it's pretty water-tight. It also won't blow and flap as bad as a tarp will. I do still use a generous amount of packing tape if the trip is very far, though, to cinch it down good as it will ultimately separate in the wind if there is opportunity.
The best part? Just cut it off and throw it away once on the other end. Comes off *way* easier than duct tape.
A small hint noone else has mentioned; load the lathe offset from the centre of the trailer towards the road crown side. If you do this it will compensate for the high centre of gravity leaning toward the kerb side and causing instability.
Don't know if all SB 10 Heavy's are the same but mine (1969) comes apart easily. The seller and I took it apart, carried it out of his basement and into my F150. Heaviest pieces were a two person job. A buddy and I reversed the process at my end.
Heavy end to the rear? I would disagree with this as you want to have a load on a trailer loaded almost balanced with a slight bias to the front of the trailer to maintain some weight on the hitch.
You can acheive a little adjustment of the weight by adjusting the carriage.
Be sure to get good straps and binders to secure the lathe to the trailer.
You may have a legitimate grievance. I own a Dodge RAM pickup and would not know their rules regarding SUVs. I used their trailers many times to haul stuff. My only complains about Uhaul is that actually getting the trailer takes forever with all paperwork, etc.
load on a trailer loaded almost balanced with a slight bias to the front of the trailer to maintain some weight on the hitch.<
Hi Roger, If you'll notice I said "heavy end to the rear" but I did not say "weight toward the rear of the trailer". The reason for this is because when unloading a lathe, or some other, longer, off center load (where the weight is not centered), when picking from the end, you always want to get the heavy part toward you. That way the long part doesn't bump against your mast/lifting device. Naturally you'll want to have some weight on the hitch and if your trailer is extremely short it MAY be necessary to put the headstock toward the front, although on this small of a machine, I doubt this will be necessary. I must apoligize. After working 13 years as a machinery mover and moving many thousands of machines, I incorrectly take too many things for granted when talking with others who may have less experience. I should spend a little more time in description. Mia culpa (which I think means "my bad"). I should know by now not to ASSume.
I've moved a few lathes. Sheldon 11 Rivett 608 Atlas 6 Boley watchmaker some giant lathe from walton . Set them gently in the trailer and haul it home. flat trailer is the way to go. By the way I still have this nice Atlas 6 with tooling, chucks, nice bench, books etc it's for sale.
You wouldn't be in Northern California and want to trade machinery moving for machinery would you? ;) Oh well, I guess I'll just be patient. Sounds nice though.
Are you anywhere near Milwaukee? There's been an add in the Milwaukee Jurinal-Sentinal for about a week. A guy is looking to buy a small metal working lathe. Tom
I suppose the real issue is the turnovers - long time since passed - J-turns and bad tires.
Once written into the book - it is hard to get out.
My small S-10 pickup - Chevy - will make and sometimes not make a U turn from the turn lane to the right hand lane - often back out and turn again. Some roads are wide enough. The issue - Chevy put bars to keep the tires in from over turning. No turnovers... - but the turning radius went to hell. I get so many funny looks because of the funny turning radius. Parking is not as easy as it seems - while I am used to most of it - have had the truck for 3 or so years - it still didn't turn like the prior two blazers.
I don't know if they fixed it or not - but I've thought of making a statement to Chevrolet about it.
Martin Martin Eastburn @ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net NRA LOH, NRA Life NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder
I second the dissassembly method. I picked up two Logan 11x24 lathes with cabinet bases and just needed a little help with the bed and jackshaft cabinet - maybe 150lbs each. If it is like most used lathes you will want it apart anyway for a good cleaning and maybe some paint. Assembled, the lathes are 860lbs but I appreciated the reasonable weight components.
If you can, get familiar with the lathe first - manual or visit a local machine to learn what to do. Mike gave you a great start. Bring lots of tools and take your time. Steve
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