Well, since I started this post, only fitting that I show you some pics of how it turned out. Note this is not a PM-935 mill, it’s a highly similar model I purchased in Calgary (Canada). So just showing here for PM interest sake.
Once I saw the ‘jacking plates’ for lack of a better term that the movers use in conjunction with pallet jacks, I simplified my frame design & eliminated trying to integrate that feature. So it’s basically like a roman numeral II made from 3x2x0.25”wt tubing. The leveling feet are commercial 4” diameter rubber machinery mounts, 400-600 pound capacity each, M16 threaded studs. The frame is drilled for the casting hole pattern. I used ½” diameter hex bolts because they are sufficiently strong & I wanted some wiggle room in the ~ 5/8” (or metric?) holes just in case. They bolts are secured with slightly shortened 2” coupler nuts & lock washers inside the tubing. After trial fitting the stand I gave it a couple coats of Tremclad oil based paint with a foam roller. Then it was bolted to the mill & transported to my shop that way with feet removed.
The mill+base was removed from truck using their picker & placed on the jacking plates which rest on the pallet jack with some grippy rubber sheets between metal. Now the mill was rolled into position, some steel floor protection plates position & jacking bolts which were now torqued & extended sequentially to desired clearance height using a socket wrench. The pallet jack was slid out, feet inserted into their holes from underneath with nuts & washers, jacking plates lowered & removed. Mill was leveled & that was about it. Probably 45 minutes from curbside to final position going slow & steady.
I hadn’t really made plans to move the mill around the shop floor (easily) later down the road like some of the nice ideas I’ve seen with castor wheels, either permanent or removable. Part of this was I don’t have welding equipment & I was consciously trying to keep the base footprint kind of compact. This might be something I regret, but essentially moving it later would be the reverse of this process. Turns out pallet jack rental is quite accessible & reasonable 35 $/hr. Plus one less piece of equipment I would need to own & sit idle most of the time. These particular jacking plates are pretty heavy duty, they use them on much bigger machines. But I could get away with less & relatively inexpensive material cost.
Things I now know that I didn’t know that you should know:
If you can trust your casting pattern hole layout 100% (and apparently this is a big if with offshore machines), it might be better to just weld nuts to the top of the frame & engage the bolts into them. I opted for through holes & some allowance but it was kind of fiddly mating the base to the casting & getting nuts in from underside holding a perched lock washer.
Yes you could use threaded rod or longer bolts with nuts on the underside of frame. My thinking was potential PITA factor. You would always have to consider clearance so the machine was never resting on them. This would also complicate rolling the machine on pipes if you are doing Egyptian mover style. So I figured try & keep the base underside clean.
The rubber leveling pads seem to be well suited to this machine & reasonably priced. But getting them up under the frame requires the whole assembly to be up >6”. I don’t have good ideas around this but just mentioning if you have height constraints. Possibly you could mill lateral slots in the tubing from the end vs. drilled holes so they could be slid in from the side at lower elevation. But I’m not sure slots are conducive to jack properly when leveling? It would be better if the bolt threaded through the top of frame into a floor puck. Doable but a home brew & probably requires welding.
There is a possibility I could have widened the stance of the leveling feet & snuck the pallet jack forks in between. I was not aware they had the narrow fork model & I had the narrower distance between pucks on the brain, not forks between the studs & feet fully extended just while on pallet jack ride. That may have mitigated the the jacking plates altogether.
The reason I went with rectangular tubing in the first place was to gain mill table working height elevation which is something I heard was desirable on this particular mill. David Best has a beautifully simple no-weld base frame concept that uses 2 sticks of angle iron on the front & rear of mill casting & feet on the outboard ends. It sits lower or within the limits of his leveling feet. Maybe there is a hybrid solution using only 2 sticks of rectangular tubing & omitting my fore-aft members. This would be less expensive (material use), omits welding & gives some fit-up latitude. Because once it’s welded together the casting hole pattern is now also locked down & SOL if it doesn't fit. I suspect you could still use jacking plates with 2 members but they would contact the casting base recess cutout & longer stilts. I suppose my 4-member welded base has a bit more rigidity but I’ve also heard of people running the mill on just the casting feet if they are fine with stock table height.
Almost pooched myself #1. The 3” wide tubing with a hole centered at 1.5” has the casting foot front edge barely contacting full steel. I forgot to factor in the bullnose profile of the steel tubing on my drawing. I could have prevented this many ways like using 4” wide stock or just realizing it when you drill your holes.
Almost pooched myself #2. All along I was adding mill height to base height & comparing result to my garage ceiling height. Well somehow the presence of garage door track completely failed to enter my brain. That new constraint reduced my working height by a healthy 8”. Of course the whole idea of the ram movement is such that the motor can top has to clear this fore & aft without an embarrassing clunk shortly after the delivery truck drives away. Mine has ~1” clearance & looks like the motor will spend most of its life on the other side of track anyway. Whew! But something to pay attention to.
I was all focused on raising the average table height, but another factor enters the picture. I can just barely reach the drawbar top nut on my tippy toes. I may have to get a small stool, we’ll see. So that’s the downside of raising the mill too much depending on your height.
Think that’s about it. Hope this helps someone. Thanks for your suggestions & ask if there is something not clear.
