# Lift 1440GT via Bed's Crossmember? Update - It Can Work!



## Howard70 (Feb 13, 2022)

(Edit Note - This can work, see end of thread)

Well, it's been just over 4 years since I last posted here when we took delivery of our PM machines, including a 1440GT.... Wish I could say there'd been a lot of chips produced since then but no, just a variety of "life" away from the shop.

Anyway I'm looking to lift the 1440GT and have reviewed quite a few posts here, including Mark's plates/bolt/lifting ring set up.  However, I'm curious about using a lifting strap choked (girth hitched) around one of the bed casting's crossmembers as the primary lift point.  The strap I have is rated for 5,000 lbs WLL in choker configuration.  This seems so simple that I'm assuming I must be missing some obvious problem you all have thought of long ago?

Here's a couple images of what I have in mind (realizing the chuck would be removed and there would be jack straps in place for balance, etc.











Thanks in advance,

Howard


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## NCjeeper (Feb 13, 2022)

It is going to want to tip hard towards the head stock seeing that is where most of the weight is. I would choke around the bed using blocks of wood to keep the strap off of the lead screw and feed rod. That is how I lift my 13x40. when I move it.


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## IamNotImportant (Feb 13, 2022)

and the chances of it trying to "roll" on you are high


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## 7milesup (Feb 13, 2022)

It won't even be close to balancing at that cross member.  When I placed my Eisen 1440, I had the eye almost all the way to the chuck and the tailstock slid to the lifting eye.

Edit:  Pictures did not load initially.


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## Z2V (Feb 13, 2022)

Here’s how I picked mine. I agree with the others, you would be way out of balance picking it there.


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## Dhal22 (Feb 13, 2022)

I used 2 chain hoists to lift my 1440.


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## Howard70 (Feb 14, 2022)

Thanks for all the suggestions.  I should have mentioned initially that our 1440GT has the base installed.  That provides a bit of lower mass which may reduce rolling.  I’ll report back with where we eventually attach to lift.  The pull will come from a 3 ton chain hoist on a 5 ton gantry so that part is well covered.

Howard


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## B2 (Feb 14, 2022)

@Howard70 

Sorry to see you did not get to use your lathe.  I understand life changes! 

As I live in Pittsburgh, my 1440GT was moved for me by PM guys into my, nearly a, walk out basement.  The PM folks have always been very helpful to me.    At the PM facility they move these lathes around all of the time.  Mostly on the pallets, but if the pallet has been removed, they put the two forklift tines under the lathe bed and just lift.  By the way, if you are going to remount it on a pallet, there are bolt holes in the stand feet just for bolting it to the pallet.  These are separate from the holes for the lathe feet for leveling.  Do not mess with the leveling feet holes as they have a hard to get old English thread.  Only the leveling feet screw fit these leveling holes.  The pallet bolt holes are NOT threaded.  

They strapped the lathe pretty much as the other folks have mentioned above, with blocks on the bottom of the lathe bed, to hold the straps away from the lead screw and power feed bar.  The DRO was already installed so the blocking was also use to ensure the strap did not touch it.  You can always put a second strap on or double wrap them to prevent slippage along the lathe bed.  I cannot recall for sure, but I think I may have put a very large C-clamp, that I have, on the lathe bed to keep the strap from sliding on the bed. The strap was placed more or less at the center of gravity,  which means closer to the head stock as it is much heavier than the tail stock.  The head stock stand is also bigger than that of the tail stock.    There is a reason that there are 4 feet at the head stock stand and only 2 at the tail stock!    It also had the stands attached, as well as the back chip shield.  We used the tail stock and apron to help balance the head weight and it did not tip.  They used a tine extension on a fork lift to move it from my drive way  into a basement door.   There were about three steps to over come.  I built some simple ramps to add it the process and had already installed casters on the lathe stands so that once in the basement I could just roll it into place in a cramped back room.  To get through those a inside smaller door we wound up removing the chip guard. 

It all went well.  

Just so you know the stand does come off via the simple lathe bed bolts into the stand.  However, you have the foot brake etc to content with as well as all of the electronic connections as they are installed in the back of the head stock stand.   Likewise, the coolant systems on the other end.    I did not disconnect them, but Matt (PM) told me I could have just loosened the bolts at the lathe bed feet and twisted the stands a bit to have gotten the two stands more parallel to the lathe.   This was an issue when I was installing the casters. 

Good Luck,

Dave L.


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## Howard70 (Feb 15, 2022)

Update - I called Precision Matthews yesterday to confirm the crossmember was structurally able to support the mass of the lathe & stand.  They said it was.  So I removed the chuck and outside gear cover; moved the tailstock, carriage and steady rest as far from the headstock as possible & locked them in place.  I then carefully lifted lathe, stand & attached pallet a few inches & confirmed a moderate tilt down on the headstock end as @NCjeeper predicted.  I was able to level everything with about 50 - 60 lbs of "guesstimated" force lifting up on the headstock end, convincing myself that a ratchet strap from the headstock to the lifting hook would level the load & provide some protection from the lathe falling over (although it was surprising stable to lateral movement with just the lifting strap).

Added that ratchet strap & confirmed the lift was level & stable, lowered & removed the pallet & then did the final lift without a hitch - images below.  I wouldn't claim this is any better than other methods explained throughout this forum, but for my case & using a chain hoist from a gantry it was relatively simple and quick.

Details of primary & leveling lift points





Success!





Thanks again for all the suggestions.

Howard


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## davidpbest (Feb 15, 2022)

You did better than I did.


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## Howard70 (Feb 15, 2022)

davidpbest said:


> You did better than I did.


Mine was a lot easier than yours as I had the stand attached providing righting moment!  Years ago we had a 40' ultralight sailboat - over 50% of her 12,000 lbs was in the keel - can't beat some mass down below....

Howard


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## Phil_C (Feb 15, 2022)

davidpbest said:
You did better than I did. 

I think I'd have had to go change after I got it back down.

Phil


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## B2 (Feb 15, 2022)

@Howard70 

Looking good, perfect balance!  But make sure you do not put too much pull on the ratchet belt as it appears to be applying a torque to your spindle.... bearings!  An alternative was to weight the tail stock end.  Maybe a couple of concrete blocks?   But not as pretty!

At the beginning you did not say why you were lifting the lathe.  
But through the thread I got the impression this was to get rid of the original pallet.....  If this is the case it looks like you are DONE! Great.

Some folks have moved these lathes around by simply putting the stands on pipes.  

Dave L.


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## Howard70 (Feb 15, 2022)

B2 said:


> @Howard70
> 
> Looking good, perfect balance!  But make sure you do not put too much pull on the ratchet belt as it appears to be applying a torque to your spindle.... bearings!  An alternative was to weight the tail stock end.  Maybe a couple of concrete blocks?   But not as pretty!
> 
> ...



Hello Dave:

Thanks for the comments.  I was carefully about the spindle.  It's about 60 lbs of force (guessed from pushing up on it) so I'm hoping that isn't too much.  As you suggest adding weight to the other end would have been the same and I would have done that if that side of the lower base was empty (I wanted added weight to be low for the righting moment).  But the coolant tank & some plumbing is there so I opted for the other end.

Lifting was to get rid of the pallet and place the lathe on a mobile tray (500 lbs...).  I don't want to report on the tray until I've had a chance to test it out a bit.  It feels rock solid (it's track is about 10" greater than the width of the lathe's base) but the real test is vibration with the lathe running & machining.  That requires me hooking up a wonderful VFD system that @mksj put together for me too many years ago (yes, I'm embarrassed).

Howard


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## B2 (Feb 15, 2022)

Hello Howard,

Interesting.  Hope you can anchor the tray down and level the lathe against the tray.  I put steel casters on my lathe so that I could move it in and then, when I got it in place, on my sloped floor, I put the feed down to lift the lathe off of the casters.  If you want to see a picture of the Casters mounted to the lathe go to the following Thread:   https://www.hobby-machinist.com/thr...op-of-a-rolling-tool-chest.95611/#post-890062 .  It rolls around quite nicely.    The pictures are at the PM facility where I mounted them before the lathe was delivered.  Very helpful folks at PM!

Anyway, my basement floor has about a 1" drop between the head stock feet and the tail stock feet! but I was able to level it with the leveling screws that I added.   It is firm to the concrete floor and does not vibrate or walk on the floor when running.   There are more pictures in Part 1 of my VFD conversion write up.  Part 1 is a description of how the electronics worked in the lathe as it arrives from the factory.  This might be of use to you if you want to understand what you are pulling OUT of the lathe or should you decide someday to put it back to factory condition.  I wanted to understand this well before I started the conversion so I wrote it up.    Part 2 and the pictures that are posted in the thread with it  describes my conversion.  Other than the VFD code the similarities to how Mark does it is very limited. One of my objectives when I started was to get it all into the lathe stand so that there would be NO external boxes.   Anyway, Part 2 would be of only limited use to you.   https://www.hobby-machinist.com/th...tronic-components-pm1440gt-vfd-3-phase.95058/ 

Good luck,

Dave L.


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## Illinoyance (Feb 16, 2022)

Nardini and Clausing manuals both specified lifting with a sling around a bed cross-member.  Both machines were floor models, not a bench lathe on legs. The latter are top heavy without the legs attached.

BTW: those using ratchet straps as slings need their ass kicked.


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## Dhal22 (Feb 16, 2022)

Dhal22 said:


> I used 2 chain hoists to lift my 1440.


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## Howard70 (Feb 16, 2022)

Illinoyance said:


> BTW: those using ratchet straps as slings need their ass kicked.



Don't know who you're referring to, but most examples I've seen used ratchet straps for balance points not as primary lifting points.

Anyway, two chain hoists really do a great job for balancing the lathe.

Howard


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## Musky_Hunter (Feb 17, 2022)

You guys are pro compared to how I lifted my GHB1440


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## Dabbler (Oct 10, 2022)

@Howard70 there's quite a bit to unpack here.

First: congrats on your pick.  you did just fine.

Second.  putting a cinch in the middle of the lathe bed works very well, but you need a second lifting strap at the headstock end to manage the tilt.

Third.  There are times that ratchet straps can be use for good effect - if they are not handling the primary load. Example: for load balancing where the expected tension is less than 1/10 of the strap rating, they are fine to use.  In a difficult situation I have used 4 - 10,000 ratchet straps on a wierd tool and cutter grinder to lift.  it weighed 750 lbs.  The worst case load in this case was 275 lbs. 

The reason you cannot trust them for a *primary load* is that they fail catastrophically.  Always use a sewn strap or chain rated at 4X the expected load.

I was a rescue rigger for 20+ years, and machine riggers use the same principles, safety factor, direction of pull, etc , etc....  In machine rigging we use 4X safety factor,  In rescue rigging with live loads,  we use 10X safety factor.


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## Just for fun (Oct 10, 2022)

Dabbler said:


> *I was a rescue rigger for 20+ years*, and machine riggers use the same principles, safety factor, direction of pull, etc , etc....  In machine rigging we use 4X safety factor,  In rescue rigging with live loads,  we use 10X safety factor.



@Dabbler  Not to take away from the lifting thread, but what is a rescue rigger?


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## Dabbler (Oct 11, 2022)

Just for fun said:


> but what is a rescue rigger?



When people fall down a cliff, or break a leg in a cave,  We went and got them.  Stretcher.  Rope.  Carry up to 2km to the ambulance. Longest recovery:  3 days.  Shortest:  35 minutes.

I was a certified rope reswcue instructor before IRATA was founded.


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## Just for fun (Oct 11, 2022)

Sounds like an interesting job.   Thanks for the info.   There are some specialists around here that do that kind of stuff.   I just never heard them called rescue riggers before.


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## Dabbler (Oct 11, 2022)

I was in Search and Rescue for nearly 30 years.  Rescue rigging is just one discipline that is required from time to time.  At least that's what we call it up here in Canada.


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## Just for fun (Oct 11, 2022)

Sounds like fun job and somewhat satisfying most the time I would think.  Here in the states, they may call it recue rigging also, I have no idea.


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## Dabbler (Oct 12, 2022)

I wish it were a job, like fire fighting in the city.  Alas it was an unpaid volunteer job, costing thousands each year to be ready.  But we all need to contribute back to our community in some way.  that was my way.


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