[How do I?] Moving a lathe

[Toolmaker51]

Thanks Tony; after all, you brought me here! I've moved a few items, that one trickiest, maybe. 16 gauge shear, another, dang ol' separate feet.
Note his phrase - - "right equipment over another person most time because with the kinds of weights we’re talking about a person won’t matter."
No kidding there!

And 'peeler cores' still make the best machinery skates; considering smaller equipment. Good enough for ancient Egyptians, good enough for TM51. They'll roll over grass, dirt, gravel, uneven paving, even sand with 2x's underneath. Try that with skates?

One thing not apparent in pics above. Mount a manual, two-speed boat trailer winch on plate for a receiver hitch. AIso dumped the cable for 3" webbing. Less overall length, but no kinking or broken strands, IIRC 28 feet of blank webbing, stitched on loop for hook myself.

One more find, though recent. Found heavy aluminum extrusions a lot like threshold material, much heavier, same thickness as trailer angle iron, 1-1/2". Will screw those to 10 gauge or so plates, one edge bent up to 'clip on' underside of that angle iron, easing the transition from ground to trailer bed. A guy could fabricate wedges for same in a variety of ways.

Wheeled prybar aka a Johnson [not to be confused with semi trailer brake lever] or wheeled truck. I think regional phrases are in play. Anyway, they turn up in CL, various auction sites, McMaster, Northern etc. That one is 7', $100 used. Very comical watching me dangle if the machine has a low pinch slot, always some joke 'dangling by my johnson'. . .

Contrary to usual experience with HIBORE-FRIGHT, (terrific clue there, bold red letters, lol) have two full size pinch bars about 60", and two 30", they are up to snuff. Speaking of pinch bars, I regard less than two inadequate, and MUST BE SAME PATTERN. That allows walking a machine, not bad even if moving considerable distance, versus jacking up and down for rollers. Even 24" shapers, 40 taper vertical mills, No 2 cutter grinders . . .

 

[MilsurpMonkey]

Thanks for all the info so far! The trailer is a low tilt deck car trailer I’ll be using. It does sound like I will be able to separate the lathe from the stand and chip tray. This should be an interesting adventure. The lathe is coming with all sorts of extras like a taper attachment, milling attachment, steady rest, tailstock, large box of tooling, and some other things I’m sure I’m forgetting. I’m sure I’ll have lots more questions in the future. The main purpose of this acquisition is for barrel work for rifle builds.


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[Toolmaker51]

Rifle builds huh? Sometime, ask me what I think about gunsmiths. PM not required.

Now secondarily, tailstocks, steady rests and tooling aren't extras. Y'all aint got a lathe without out them.
Personally, would be VERY rare to consider one without taper attachment. Though a toolroom sized machine with milling is a terrific convenience, like milling tapered octagons with integral sling and front sight bands.
Whoops, might have told you.

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[MilsurpMonkey]

Well, I don’t know about being a gunsmith, but I do enjoy my projects. I guess I never considered the essentials before, in all honesty I never even considered a lathe. I was buying a couple cases of Swiss 1.5f powder from a friend when he mentioned getting a lathe ready to sell. One thing led to another and now I have a lathe. From what I’m told he purchased the lathe from John Taylor when he made his move to Idaho. Thought he really needed a second lathe, and well... never actually used it. Went through and replaced some bearings that were bad, cleaned it up a bit and then never needed it. It’s been repowered with a 1 1/2 hp Dayton single phase. I’m hoping to mess around with some Mauser, Martini, and other single shot projects.


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[C-Bag]

And 'peeler cores' still make the best machinery skates; considering smaller equipment.

Have to add that to my memory banks. I most often see 5-6’ peelers that are being tossed because they were used in fence and rotted off at ground level. But the rest of the post is sound.

When I was a millwright all our sizers had 2” channel welded to the support feet for transport. Those same sizers had long 1/4“ stainless rods that had flaps on them for letting the fruit down gently to conveyors. They were always getting bent from bad maintenance so we’d cut them up into 4” long pieces and keep a stack of them in our field boxes. We would roll 10,000lb+ sizer sections with those little rods under the channels pushing and herding with 6’ bars with just 2 guys. Of course the first thing we did was sweep the floor and get rid of the dirt and debris.

The #1 safety issue just like has been said is don’t get in a hurry and don’t let anybody else get you in a time pinch. I never set off to do something late because then the job will go schwangle. Don’t rely on somebody who is always late. Don’t let the owner say you’ve got 15min to get it out of here etc.

 

[B2]

My 14" Precision Matthews PM1440GT was moved by PM with straps under the bed near the head stock for balance. 2x4 blocks were between the straps and the actual bed to extend the straps outward a bit to avoid bendable parts like the drive screw etc. Long forklift tyne extensions were used to pick it up from the tail stock end, lift it over about 4 steps and sit it into my walkout basement.

 

[Toolmaker51]

Well, I don’t know about being a gunsmith, but I do enjoy my projects. <snipped>
I’m hoping to mess around with some Mauser, Martini, and other single shot projects.


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To date my favorite still, a 91 Argentine. Fajen (?) Mannlicher in walnut (unknown bought at gun show), thin recoil pad, peep sight, gold bead front, and rechambered 7 x 57. Hand polished, Scotch bright grained, remainder bead blasted here and there. Made a trigger for it, not good enough then to build a set-trigger, might have ~ quadrupled the value. But then, may have not presented it to owner.
Hard to understand how they could make set triggers so well back then, without jig bores, optical comparators and certain gauging tools.

Convinced they were the ultimate Toolmakers, look at a drilling for example. Dual triggers, selective eject - extract, sights pop up on engaging rifle barrels, stockwork, engraving, bluing, not to mention regulating 3 barrels. Last time I checked, shot and projectiles have different trajectories. . .

 

[MilsurpMonkey]

Double set triggers are an amazing addition to a classic Mauser sporting rifle. I’m anxious to try the milling attachment to convert a few magazine boxes over to the hinged Oberndorf lever open type as well. Eventually I’ll play with drilling and tapping for shotgun trigger guards as well. One of the projects I am really looking forward to is replicating a martini IC1 cavalry carbine barrel in .38-55. The knoxform is what will be the difficult part there. I’ve got a pile of actions that I figured would cost a fortune to barrel. I was right, reamers, blanks, and tooling will add up


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[Toolmaker51]

Knox form. You almost had me. Historically, that refers to barrel flat to suit wrench for assembly, and reference plane for milling seat of iron sights, as Nock's Form.
The origin is uncertain, but seems tied to family name Nock, utilizing it as such in 18th or 19th century London.
Britain, especially London, as seat of bespoke arms in use worldwide makes that logical. It does not appear in any US texts on gunsmithing I know of so named, other than barrel flat/s/. It also seems we refer, whether one or two, as singular. But there are barrel wrenches bored to size that clamp with a flat on that same chord.

Nock's Form

 

[MilsurpMonkey]

Well, here is what I’m dealing with, I want the original look, but in one of my favorite calibers. Previously this had been poorly converted to .45-70 forager. Replicating the Nocks Form will be a trick for someone with no machining experience.


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