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

davidpbest said:
You did better than I did. :oops:
Click to expand...
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
 
Last edited:
@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.
 
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!

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.
Click to expand...

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
 
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.
 
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.
 
Dhal22 said:
I used 2 chain hoists to lift my 1440.
Click to expand...


IMG-6402.jpg
 
Illinoyance said:
BTW: those using ratchet straps as slings need their ass kicked.
Click to expand...

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
 
@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.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top