Disaster! PM 833T Fell on X-Axis

[INTJ]

It hasn't been a good week for my mill. I am moving as we speak, and I had to quickly get a long range benchrest rifle stock inletted to the point that I could finish with a dremel. As I was almost finished I heard a "bang" and the Z-Axis quit moving, both with power and with the handle. I was able to manually turn the Z-Axis screw and finish the job.

I then put high quality casters on the base I made so the movers could get it down the 15 degree sloped, 60' long driveway. We had just got the 1340 GT lathe down the driveway. I built a heavy duty 3' x 6' platform for the lathe and it made the trip into the truck just fine.

The mill also made it down the driveway. However, as they were moving it onto the lift gate the mill fell over on the X-Axis. Thankfully no one was hurt. However, the X-Axis handle shaft housing broke away from the table. A gear came out as well. The switch housing was also damaged.

I hope I can fix all this. I guess worse case I'll need a new table. More likely just a new X-Axis screw and other parts. I won't get a chance to do a full damage assessment for several months when I get a place to operate the mill again.

Here are pics of how they looked when I got them ready to move. After we got the mill back upright I pulled it off the stand and set it in a four caster dolly.

 

[Flyinfool]

OH BUMMER, I hope the fixes are not to bad.

With the casters under that mill cart there is only a couple of inches between the wheel/ground contact point and the center of gravity. This means that there is very little tilt needed to go over center and fall. Most shop machines are top heavy to begin with, the higher they are the worse it is. Yes it should have been taken off the cart to get it closer to the ground.

 

[DavidR8]

Oh man, that totally sucks.
I’m glad no one was injured!

 

[INTJ]

The mill stand I built is quite a bit wider than what is offered for sale. I had pushed it around my garage with no issues.

We got the lathe out of the garage by slowly driving down the driveway with the lathe being held back by the pickup and four guys keeping it steady. The mill came down the same way. There was one issue where the casters hung up on a driveway seam and started to tip, but I was able to back the truck up until it was outright again.

After it was down the hill and the four guys were moving it to the lift gate, I pulled the pickup over and parked. Then I heard the commotion. They pushed too hard getting it up the on the lift gate. I could have used the floor jack and got it over the bump like we did before.

Oh well. I hope it's all fixable.