Here's a bit of a challenge for the collective LBs minds...
I've almost decided to keep my lathe having kind of sorted my overdraft 
If I do keep it I need to move it about the length of a standard garage plus turn it around 180 degs.
It weighs about 600kgs (so I read ) and I was thinking about using an air compressor and some kind of "hoverboard" device to move it.
What I'm thinking about is like an upside-down air hockey table 
Mythbusters seem to have lots of success with air driven devices...
Comments
Might be easier to jack it up and put a suitable frame under it with casters and then move it that way?
quote:
Originally posted by tegwin
Might be easier to jack it up and put a suitable frame under it with casters and then move it that way?
If I went with casters, would I be right in saying that one at each corner would only have to support a 1/4 of the whole weight? So about 150kgs
each?
If so then that'd be cheaper
Things like this just look a bit weedy despite being rated at 200kg max load...
They are only £3.42 each though.
Move it the way it's done usually. Lift with pry bar(s) and roll on lengths of bar or thickwalled tube pulling them out at the back and moving them to the front.
quote:
Originally posted by MikeCapon
Move it the way it's done usually. Lift with pry bar(s) and roll on lengths of bar or thickwalled tube pulling them out at the back and moving them to the front.
You don't have a pry bar and some scaffold tube, but you do have access to a hover board?
ETA, often have to move my dad's lathe and mill, one decent crow bar (get for £20 ish from Toolstation) and some thick tube, we use truck door
locking rods.
[Edited on 27/4/11 by balidey]
lift, stick steel pipes under, roll, done
Ok, ok.
I'll stop daydreaming about hover boards and go get some bar/pipe 
We used to have these very things that you describe in the RAF for loading bombs. They were called Z loaders and helped you move bombs around the aircraft shelter. In theory they were alright but in practise they were rubbish. Any incline in the ground and they'd slide away and any imperfection and the air wanted to blow out of the skirt. We sold them to the Israeli air force if I remember correctly.
quote:
Originally posted by mistergrumpy
We used to have these very things that you describe in the RAF for loading bombs. They were called Z loaders and helped you move bombs around the aircraft shelter. In theory they were alright but in practise they were rubbish. Any incline in the ground and they'd slide away and any imperfection and the air wanted to blow out of the skirt. We sold them to the Israeli air force if I remember correctly.
One word of warning - if your lathe is like mine (Mk1 Colchester Student) it will be VERY top-heavy. I had mine teetering and wobbling on its rollers
a couple of times! 
I bought a proper crowbar a while before moving my lathe - it's a very useful tool (a 5ft length of steel bar with a point at one end and a
chisel shape at the other, very heavy). They're also quite cheap if you go to a proper builders' tool supplier. You'll need 3 or 4
lengths of scaffolding pole and something to act as a fulcrum for when you're trying to lift one side of the lathe.
I was also able to turn my lathe 90 degrees using the crowbar and fulcrum to lift an end and swivel the lathe base an inch or so. Do that a few
times in succession and the lathe soon gets moved.
quote:
Originally posted by David Jenkins
One word of warning - if your lathe is like mine (Mk1 Colchester Student) it will be VERY top-heavy. I had mine teetering and wobbling on its rollers a couple of times!
I bought a proper crowbar a while before moving my lathe - it's a very useful tool (a 5ft length of steel bar with a point at one end and a chisel shape at the other, very heavy). They're also quite cheap if you go to a proper builders' tool supplier. You'll need 3 or 4 lengths of scaffolding pole and something to act as a fulcrum for when you're trying to lift one side of the lathe.
I was also able to turn my lathe 90 degrees using the crowbar and fulcrum to lift an end and swivel the lathe base an inch or so. Do that a few times in succession and the lathe soon gets moved.
chipmaster hey, lovely. Does it still have the original vary speed or have you upgraded?
I always have used a few short scaffold tubes and pry bars with much success.
quote:
Originally posted by liam.mccaffrey
chipmaster hey, lovely. Does it still have the original vary speed or have you upgraded?
I always have used a few short scaffold tubes and pry bars with much success.
Warning if you drop it it WILL be F*c*ed a mate of mine dropped one and it broke in too
"Hoveboards" do work well but you would need to get the Lathe onto them in the first place.
They can be very very effective as you only need a tiny amount of lift before the lathe becomes mobile. Also, as they require so little clearance they
do actually provide a stable platform for movement.
As said above, in a flat garage/workshop they work well. Outside with any sort of incline they are not as good. They are so effective that in the USA
when mass building towns one method is to build houses indoors on hover pads inside a huge hangar. Then they can push the house (push by hand, I am
not kidding) from section to section within the hangar and finally onto the truck before it is driven into place.
The other advantage is, once you have got the lathe onto a hover pad it then becomes easy to reposition as and when you require. If this won't be
needed in the future then stick to the ideas above i reckon.
The next time I want to move my lathe any distance I will probably do it the way it suggests in the manual - there's a big threaded hole in the
middle of the lathe bed, where an eye-bolt is screwed in. If the tailstock is moved as far as it will go to the right, and the carriage moved against
it, then the whole 625 kg will balance from the eye-bolt!
It's too heavy for my 1/2 tonne engine hoist, but I'm sure I could make some kind of frame out of steel tube and some industrial casters - 2
wheels on the front, 2 at the back, and my chain hoist in the middle.
Mind you, when it was originally delivered by a professional machine mover he used webbing straps through the headstock and under the bed and lifted
the whole lot with a small Hiab crane on his lorry. Lowered the whole lathe down onto some large steel "roller skates" and three of us
pushed it into the garage. Hot work on a very hot day!
I used 25mm dia solid bar and a cheap nail bar from the pound shop to move my Harrison.
OK. It was from the £3.99 shop. ( I lied )
Easy peasy.
The hardest bit was getting the carpet back under it.
Cheers
Paul G
edit to add pic.
I placed carpet tiles between the floor and the lathe base to take up any irregularities in the concrete.
It also cuts down vibration and quietens the lathe.
Carpet under lathe base
[Edited on 28/4/11 by 907]
Just make small movements and take your time.
You dont want to topple it onto you or someone else.
You dont want to break it either.
Even if it takes a whole day to move, it will be better to do it slowly and surely rather than screw up the lathe, or break someones leg or worse.
You know it makes sense.
