Lathe moving

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Ryanjax

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I got the lathe all loaded in the shipping container. Now I need to get it all securely for a cross country trip from FL to IN. My plan is two straps forward, two aft and one over the top.... I'm also going to put 2x6s around the bases screwed to the floor.

Anything wrong with with this plan.

Lathe is a summit 19x60. Weigh 6600 lbs.
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I have absolutely zero experience moving a lathe. But I have loaded a container with machines before and learned a bunch of lessons.
Definitely lag screw it to the floor.
I would also make a couple of wooden braces that goes across the bed and touch each wall. One at the headstock end and one at the tailstock end.
Make them with 2x6 or so. Glue and screw 2x6 blocks to the underside of the 2x6 ,snug on each side of the bed so it cannot move side to side..
 
Braces are great, more are greater. plan for the container being tilted 30 to 45 degs in all directions.

Also get a bag of the shop towels, or rags, and place them between any metal, and the straps. Also a good idea to take anything that can loosen, and fall off, such as the tool post, and tail stock, off, and secure separately.

Better to plan for the worst, and be happy that it does not test you, then to find out afterwards that you did not secure something enough. I believe in overkill, stand back, and picture every strap, what would happen if it failed.

Whats keeping the tool chest from tilting sideways? If it is loaded with tools, a sharp turn, tilting, hard breaking, could cause the top to cave in, and then the strap is loose, and it just gets worse from there.
 
Move the lathe as close to the center of the container as possible. +1 on the bracing - the more the better and don't scrimp on them - plan on a side to side brace every 2 feet. Use thru bolts on your braces, not screws. Don't forget braces going forward, either. Do everything you can to lower the center of gravity on the lathe, like removing the chuck and the tail stock and pack separately. If you can easily remove the lathe from the bed and set it on the floor of the container, even better.

6600 pounds can have a lot of inertia to contain.
 
It looks pretty top heavy to me. Removing the head stock and tail stock to lower the center of gravity would lessen the danger.
 
Here is how I would do it.

Strap top and bottom both front and rear. That gives 4 places, with 3 directions each, 12 total.

Assume strap will loosen, so right after 5 or 10 minutes ride, retighten them up.

Towels at sharp points. Always cut down degrees of freedom, meaning each long strap shared between points needs tied up good at the shared point.

The one pulling back to the rear needs to handle multiple of the machine weight. Use multiple straps/loops as needed.


Lastly, make sure the anchors are strong, not sheet metal strong. Simulate very hard stop in your head and strap accordingly.
 
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Be careful with the straps and strap winches. I’ve seen a lot of stuff get bent because of straps pulled way too tight with the winch. Carpet remnants are much better protectors than towels.


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Good advice above. Couple years ago I loaded a PODS with my RF-30 clone mill and 12x24 lathe for shipment from Oregon to Arizona. Removed both tools from their bases, removed the motors, and lag screwed the tools down to doubled ¾" plywood sheets. Then I screwed the plywood down to the floor of the PODS using heavy duty high quality deck screws (the kind with Torx heads). I also lowered the mill head down onto blocks on the mill table. Not shown in the photos ... added lots of straps as I went along, securing each "layer" of stuff. All went well.

The plywood bases made nice skids, both for loading and unloading with pipe rollers. The legs of the engine hoist were not too far from the height of the PODS floor. The "material rack" in the second picture is the mill table, upended and temproarily repurposed.

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