How to Unload/Unbox new 14x40 lathe

[Harry Knutz]

Also remember the Harbor Freight load rating system is very accurate. If something is rated for 1,000 lbs, then it will fail at precisely 1,000 lbs. Remember, in China, they read right to left, so to arrive at that rating system is purely logical, but we think differently in the west and assume that the capacity is the safe handling capacity. It surely isn't.

This looks cute, but was actually quite violent. The photo doesn't tell the story of the trailer breaking free of the hitch (it was secure!) and being stopped from flipping by the safety chains when the mill hit the back end as the hoist failed and kicked out sideways. The hoist boom has a twist in it. I know the sound of bullets sizzling by, and the surprise of turning to be surrounded by shrapnel pockmarks that weren't there a second ago while spending my '04 holidays in Iraq. This ranks up there. This was a near miss that nearly became a Class A mishap. And it was all my stupid fault for thinking I could move a knee mill on an engine hoist because the guy I saw on YouTube make it look easy. I also didn't know how much lighter a Series 1 is than my mill. Ignorance is bliss when it works out, it's something else when it doesn't. One of the best outcomes for a catastrophe is being alive to fill out the insurance paperwork afterwards. Best avoid the whole mess, swallow some confidence, and ask for some extra hands.
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I remeber seeing this photo you posted on the blunders page. I bought and still have this Taiwanese made shop crane in the late 80's at Costco, (PIC IS FROM GOOGLE) But mine is identical. Anyway it is clearly marked and came with an 8 ton long ram which still works. I have rarely used it without moving the extensions out due to clearance issues with what I was lifting.

 

[pontiac428]

That ram looks a lot beefier and those outriggers on all four corners surely help. But at the end of the day, they are made to go straight in to a narrow spot, lift a concentrated and small mass straight up and back again before being lowered to the floor. In other words, they are made for picking engines. That is what they do best. A gantry hoist on the other hand is wider than what you are lifting and stable, much safer than the cantilevered compromise of the cherry picker.

 

[rabler]

I don't completely understand it, but I find that humans have an innate sense of how something handles when they pick it up themselves. We spend years as children learning these skills. When we move to using large mechanical devices, hoists, lifts, cranes, forklifts, those senses don't work. Often seems to lead to surprise when things go awry because our senses didn't give us the usual warnings.

 

[Harry Knutz]

One of the projects I am going to do when this snow melts, Is rebuild my shop crane, It's on my DO LIST. I am going to cut the bottom legs apart and weld them parallel so it can straddle a lathe easier and I'm going to upgrade the casters, Beef up the lifting arm and legs, And lastly replace the ram with either an electric over hydraulic or an air actuated ram.

 

[Harry Knutz]

I'm thinking a 12 volt dump trailer pump setup and 2 12 volt batteries on the rear of the hoist to act as counter weights somewhat and a ram for like a tractor loader lift. And just leave a battery tender on it. With a nice set of casters it could be used for lifting anything in the shop. I have a forklift, But it's too big to fit inside my shop, I can come in about 6 feet or so.

 

[pontiac428]

I've seen guys chop the legs and widen the stance of the engine hoist, and it looks a thousand times better than the setup that has to fit between the inside track of my Honda's front wheels. It solves the office chair problem. The government requires all wheeled office chairs to be 5-legged, because it's made life insurance payouts for 4-legged chairs. Given the same base diameter, the 4-legged chair will pop out from under the user at a much shorter radius of offset as the CG moves outward, like leaning sideways to reach for your coffee. Engine hoists want to pop out like that in a severe way. So widening that base circle (or ellipse in the hoist's case- major and minor diameters exist) is a good solution to that. If engine hoists were fixed to the concrete floor instead of on wheels and legs, they would probably be great for all kinds of uses. On wheels, they're just scary.

 

[Provincial]

One of the things that surprised me during my years in Alaska was the number of people that tried to live in the Bush without having any native or learned practical skills. Nor common sense, in many cases.

When presented with a task that could be accomplished several ways with the resources at hand, these people couldn't come up with even one usable plan. They would either not try, or come up with some crazy scheme that failed spectacularly, often resulting in damage, injury or death.

The book/movie "Into the Wild" gives an example of this phenomenon.

 

[StevSmar]

This worth looking to see if anyone around has one to rent.

I am using my engine hoist a lot more than I anticipated, I thought it would be a one off usage tool to help get my lathe into the basement.

Now I’m wondering if in the future there is some way to permanently mount a gantry crane in my workshop. I can see that maybe 10 years from now it’s going to become really handy.
If I had to chose between an engine hoist or gantry crane, I’d sure prefer a gantry crane if there was space to store it.
(I largely disassemble my engine hoist when it’s not being used…)

 

[jareese]

One of the things that surprised me during my years in Alaska was the number of people that tried to live in the Bush without having any native or learned practical skills. Nor common sense, in many cases.

When presented with a task that could be accomplished several ways with the resources at hand, these people couldn't come up with even one usable plan. They would either not try, or come up with some crazy scheme that failed spectacularly, often resulting in damage, injury or death.

The book/movie "Into the Wild" gives an example of this phenomenon.

That’s nice and all, but no real advice or suggestions.

 

[Dabbler]

Now I’m wondering if in the future there is some way to permanently mount a gantry crane in my workshop

By judicious planning, a jib crane can also be very useful in a basement workshop - jus' sayin'