Moving a bridgeport

[schor]

My friend Matt got himself a bridgeport and needed to get it home. This is how he did it.

This was the trailer I made for this series. I had a bunch of people wanting to see the vids but it took time to edit the hours of footage I had and make some shorts of the move.

[video=youtube_share;ywTyDOgKiQY]http://youtu.be/ywTyDOgKiQY[/video]

Onto the real stuff. This vid is of building the pallet under the mill and moving the bridgeport to the driveway. Using a pry bar we slowly lifted the mill off the ground 5/8 of an inch each step.

[video=youtube_share;dZPGUjxI6pE]http://youtu.be/dZPGUjxI6pE[/video]

Here we setup the rig Matt made to lift the bridgeport onto the trailer.

[video=youtube_share;JtXSlVZL9tc]http://youtu.be/JtXSlVZL9tc[/video]

And finally, getting it home and into his garage.

[video=youtube_share;n6p7-qiVr6o]http://youtu.be/n6p7-qiVr6o[/video]

Well, there you have it, moving a bridgeport without any heavy equipment. Hope you enjoyed the series.

 

[echesak]

Nice job. I rented a 40' Penske truck with a 2500lb lift gate. Drove in, scooped it up, and then returned to my house where I lowered it into the garage. I still had a few guys to help, but it was relatively easy. I found that although the lift gate would lift the mill, it flexed a lot. The flex caused the lift gate to tilt forward. So I had to make sure the mill didn't slide off. Also lowering the lift gate was harder, since it would bounce every time I stopped. I found out quickly, it was far better just to crack the valve and lower it smoothly and continuously, all the way to the ground - in a single motion.

When I had it in the garage, I used a jack from my truck (non-hydraulic) sideways, pushing against a 4 x 4 that was braced against the wall. I was able to nudge the mill into it's final position. It was not a trivial event, but moving heavy items never is.

Thanks for sharing your methods.

Eric

 

[benmychree]

I have moved many milling machines, and have watched professional riggers do so as well, in a manner that requires only one person to do so. I made a device to move them safely, by myself; this consists of a frame made of 1/2 X 6" steel flat bar, bent at each end into a "C" shape, wide enough to accommodate the width of the mill base and high enough on the ends so that a axle can be welded in; the one that I made is 29" wide, inside measurement, with the legs about 5" high. O drilled the holes for the axles at a height that allows 1/2" clearance to the floor when the cast iron wheels, which in my case were 8-1/2" diameter. This, combined with some wedges and a steveadore bar ( a pry bar with a double crook on the working end ) is all that is required to move many different machine of like character; The bar is slid into the niche in front of the base, the base is pried up and the wedge is slid in, raising the base to a height where the device can be slid under, then additional wedges are slid in at both sides of the base, and the front wedge is removed and the device is slid back as far as possible so the front wedge is re inserted and the side wedges removed, and the device can be slid back near the balance point; here it is best to avoid perfect balance, and have the back end dragging the floor so that when it is pushed, it will not tip to the front and make pushing very difficult.
Having said that, I have always had the luxury of a forklift to do the loading and unloading, and the videos of the tackle used make me a bit nervous. Especially grating was the use of chains for lifting the machine without any padding on the sides to avoid damage to the paintwork and filler; fitting a piece of firehose over the chains would be a good plan, combined with the wood blocking that was used. When a forklift is used, the forks lift on the underside of the overarm, wood blocks or old flat belting being used to protect the underside of the overarm and guard against the machine slipping on the forks when moving.
The movers are to be complimented for their imaginations and the fine videos they made and have shared.

 

[schor]

Thanks for the comment Eric. There are many ways to move heavy machines. When you have forklifts and other heavy equipment its nice, this one was about doing ti as economical as possible. The lift will be used on a future lathe and grinder my buddy Matt wants still. I think in the end rigging cost him about $300, including the rig and the 3ton hoist.

Nice job. I rented a 40' Penske truck with a 2500lb lift gate. Drove in, scooped it up, and then returned to my house where I lowered it into the garage. I still had a few guys to help, but it was relatively easy. I found that although the lift gate would lift the mill, it flexed a lot. The flex caused the lift gate to tilt forward. So I had to make sure the mill didn't slide off. Also lowering the lift gate was harder, since it would bounce every time I stopped. I found out quickly, it was far better just to crack the valve and lower it smoothly and continuously, all the way to the ground - in a single motion.

When I had it in the garage, I used a jack from my truck (non-hydraulic) sideways, pushing against a 4 x 4 that was braced against the wall. I was able to nudge the mill into it's final position. It was not a trivial event, but moving heavy items never is.

Thanks for sharing your methods.

Eric

 

[schor]

Thanks for the comment. Yes, paint was not considered during this move:rofl:. I expect the whole mill will get a total makeover in time. Thanks for the compliments on the imagination, I cannot take credit for that, my buddy Matt came up with the idea from someplace else, but got the engineering down to make it happen.

Oh, and thanks for the kudos on the edit. It took a long time, but I really liked how this series played out, short and sweet if I do say so myself.

I have moved many milling machines, and have watched professional riggers do so as well, in a manner that requires only one person to do so. I made a device to move them safely, by myself; this consists of a frame made of 1/2 X 6" steel flat bar, bent at each end into a "C" shape, wide enough to accommodate the width of the mill base and high enough on the ends so that a axle can be welded in; the one that I made is 29" wide, inside measurement, with the legs about 5" high. O drilled the holes for the axles at a height that allows 1/2" clearance to the floor when the cast iron wheels, which in my case were 8-1/2" diameter. This, combined with some wedges and a steveadore bar ( a pry bar with a double crook on the working end ) is all that is required to move many different machine of like character; The bar is slid into the niche in front of the base, the base is pried up and the wedge is slid in, raising the base to a height where the device can be slid under, then additional wedges are slid in at both sides of the base, and the front wedge is removed and the device is slid back as far as possible so the front wedge is re inserted and the side wedges removed, and the device can be slid back near the balance point; here it is best to avoid perfect balance, and have the back end dragging the floor so that when it is pushed, it will not tip to the front and make pushing very difficult.
Having said that, I have always had the luxury of a forklift to do the loading and unloading, and the videos of the tackle used make me a bit nervous. Especially grating was the use of chains for lifting the machine without any padding on the sides to avoid damage to the paintwork and filler; fitting a piece of firehose over the chains would be a good plan, combined with the wood blocking that was used. When a forklift is used, the forks lift on the underside of the overarm, wood blocks or old flat belting being used to protect the underside of the overarm and guard against the machine slipping on the forks when moving.
The movers are to be complimented for their imaginations and the fine videos they made and have shared.

 

[sdmuleman]

Nifty use of improvised materials. One suggestion however, and it's an important one - Anchor those a-frame legs in a axial direction as well. I see you have them tied together to control spreading which is wise, but you've also got a force pushing them towards the jeep and nothing but friction with the ground holding them. This force will be equal to the tension in the line to the jeep and a function of the angle off the vertical - it's likely a decent amount. More importantly, if it starts to slip because of this force then the force will increase and the leg(s) are going to kick backwards dropping the mill and likely moving fast/hard enough to cause serious injury if someone gets tagged by them. Easy thing to correct though, just make sure you have an anchor in front (opposite from the jeep side here) and tie the legs to that. Or brace them against the jeep somehow. Much more of an issue on concrete too, though either way it's a serious concern.

Also important to consider how the load is connected to the a-frame. What I typically do is wrap a chain through the 'v', around both legs then back through the 'v' and hook one end to the lift rig and the other to the anchor line. This way the load helps clamp the legs together. If you just go right over the 'v' then it's possible for the wood to split around the pin and fail that way. You could also put together a reinforcing plate setup, but that's a decent amount of work.

Here's the setup I rigged to do something similar. Not sure I'd want to try hoisting a BP, but I'd say it's good up to about 1500#. The base frame mounts in the truck hitch receiver and is braced by plates bearing on the bumper, and the main hoist is a winch mounted to this frame. The top line is a come-a-long for angle adjustment that anchors to the gooseneck hitch in the bed. Something similar could certainly be used for a BP with some beefing up and likely a heavier truck.

 

[fastback]

I was impressed with the move. I would not have thought that the 4 x 4's would have taken the weight. Nice job!

Paul