Rental trailer for moving a lathe?

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gi_984

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Hi everyone,
I found a very nice engine lathe for sale from a machinist shutting down his shop. Its a very nicely tooled 15X50 clausing colchester at just over 3,000 pounds. I've read about too many shipping disasters by the freight companies from the folks over at practical machinist web site. I'm seriously considering going to fly or drive out to the west coast to pick it up.
Problem is the only trailers I can find to rent one way is U-Haul. There biggest open trailer only lists a capacity of 2,000 odd pounds. I've rented trailers from them before and had no issues with smaller stuff, but I don't think they are capable enough to haul this lathe for a 2,000 mile drive.
Any suggestions?
 
What about paying someone to haul it for you that has the proper trailer? Like on the show shipping wars.
 
How are you planing on loading it? What are you going to pull the trailer with? How much gas will you buy going home? You may get the trailer rolling, but if you have to stop in an emergency with a light vehicle you will no doubt be in trouble. If you have never had any experience loading a machine, hire a machinery mover to load it onto a a professional truckers flat bed truck. For every horror story you read on P.M there are thousands of successful hauls you never read about. I would suggest contacting http://longhaultrucking.com/ or http://www.atsinc.com/index.jsp who I have used dozens of times and have never had an issue. Lathes are top heavy and I have seen guys who didn't know how to load them tip them over.
 
Thanks for all the replies and suggestions. Well I'm fairly experienced moving heavy things from my time in the military. I was trained and licensed to drive just about anything in the Army inventory that had rubber wheels. Lots of pallets of equipment, shipping containers, etc via cargo aircraft, truck & trailer, and railroad. I've moved a few milling machines and lathes locally plus a few safes that weighed a thousand pounds each.
I've got a truck with a heavy duty hitch that I've pulled large trailers with before thru the mountains. I also have four commercial racheting cargo straps and 3 ton cable winch (not a cheap box store brand.)
I was going to budget about $1,000 for rental costs and fuel. For what I can get the lathe for it is worth it. I've got a nice local rental store where I can rent a set of moving skates and lift jack. Used those on the previous machine moves and they worked like a charm. The big problem was finding a decent trailer. Much prefer the kind that has the bed that lowers to the ground. Nothing like that local to me. Moparfever, thanks for the link. Those are the type of tailers I was looking for. I'll check with them and see if they'll do a one way rental from the west coast back to a location close to me. Richard, I'll also check the freight companies you mentioned. I agree paying a rigger and getting it hauled on a flat bed traier is the way to do it. Especially if I was spending tens of thousands on a machine. More concerned with the problems associated with getting a realistic settlement on shipping damage if it ever occures.
 
If you can wait a while until one of the Truckers can sit it on the back of a full load trailer they might give you a deal. Make arrangements with someone to load it or get a cheap air ticket and fly out to load it. You sound like you are an expert. For the heck of it I went to Mapquest and put in Mad. WI and Chatsworth CA a norther suburb of LA. It was 1990 miles and then put 22 mpg hwy and it said $395.00 in gas one way. If you have to take of time from work 32 hours each way, it can be an expensive trip. Longhaul and Anderson are both MN based companies too.
Good luck figuring it out. OH one more thing...... GO VIKINGS!! lol :thumbsup:
 
You might try one of the rental places that rents machinery - skid loaders and such. They usually have some heavy duty trailers for rent.

Steve
 
Uhaul should have a 16 ft car/flat trailer for renting ,, any dual tandem trailer with 3500 to 5000 axles will work fine .
what you should do is make sure the lathe is on a 8 to 10 ft skid, my lathe was skidded for me when i picked it up
mine was only a 350 mile road trip but worth every mile to me , on the skid make sure it has 4X4X10 with 2X6 for the top
and mine was put together with 3/8X3 lag bolts and the lathe was bolted to the skid very solid with zero movement

1ofU



gi_984 said:
Hi everyone,
I found a very nice engine lathe for sale from a machinist shutting down his shop. Its a very nicely tooled 15X50 clausing colchester at just over 3,000 pounds. I've read about too many shipping disasters by the freight companies from the folks over at practical machinist web site. I'm seriously considering going to fly or drive out to the west coast to pick it up.
Problem is the only trailers I can find to rent one way is U-Haul. There biggest open trailer only lists a capacity of 2,000 odd pounds. I've rented trailers from them before and had no issues with smaller stuff, but I don't think they are capable enough to haul this lathe for a 2,000 mile drive.
Any suggestions?
Click to expand...
 
Make sure the UHaul trailer isn't a car trailer. The open center might be a problem. You might be able to slide the lathe into a regular UHaul or Penske truck if a forklift is avaible. That way you won't have to worry about rain. Of course, you have to worry about typical loading concerns a high center of gravity etc etc.
 
I bought a mill a few months and had to travel from Southern California to San Francisco. I rented a Triple-L[SUP]®[/SUP] Trailers which was a singe axel trailer rated at 5k lbs. My mill weighs 3700 lbs so I was good to go. I had 4 10k tie down straps to boot. I wanted to be safe and the guy I bought the mill from recommended the trailer. It cost $63 a day but had a hydraulic lift. Unfortunate for me I scrambled at the last minute so I had to get new tires and a hitch put on my sons truck, then drove 20 hours to get it.

https://www.google.com/search?q=tri...ILe3OigKD1oGgDA&ved=0CEEQsAQ&biw=1680&bih=866

Good Luck
 
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