Millrite Moving Methods?

[Dave Bonzo]

Bear with me while I ramble this out.

My quest for a compact mill has begun to bear fruit in several possible directions; I've found a decent deal on a Grizzly-badged Clausing-Clone - Clone-sing? - that's only a few hours away, and a very tempting auction for an actual Clausing 8520 that can be delivered to my doorstep for a reasonable fee. Both will end up at about the same money in the end...so: decisions, decisions, decisions.

And then, a Millrite showed up.

And it's only a few hours away.

And it's a very good price.

And supposedly it's in very good condition, under power, and ready to run right now.

And there are absolutely zero pictures attached to the ad. Just a list of tools with prices.

Normally that last part would be a red flag, but I ended up having a very nice phone conversation with the seller, and I don't feel apprehensive about driving to look at it. The current owner is a retired gentleman that's downsizing his shop, and he's a machinist by trade and retirement hobby. He's going to email me a few photos in the next day or so - texts just aren't a thing for that generation - and he's going to include a few images of some other equipment that he's selling that I might be interested in...but the main question is this:

How on earth do I move a Millrite without any kind of adequate loading and transport options?

Okay, so transport isn't that difficult: I can rent a box truck or something of the sort...but I don't have any good way to actually pick the damned thing up and set it into something like a box. The seller has a cherry picker that he used in company with a low trailer to move it to his shop, and while that sounds like a very good idea, I don't have anything with a US-spec hitch: my Toyota will easily pull a trailer, but it only has the provision for a Japanese hitch...and the other vehicle in the household is a zippy little VW Golf. It has a surprising amount of storage, but I'm not sure it would be happy with a trailer even if we put a hitch on it (I don't know if they even make a hitch for that car). So, it looks like I'm either stuck with box truck rental - which doesn't work well with a cherry picker, gantry crane, or anything of the sort - or trying to figure out some other kind of solution. I'm not sure that the typical U-Haul boxes with loading ramps will even work, here, because these things weigh somewhere around 1400 pounds, if I recall correctly: that's not easy to push, pull, roll or drag up a ramp. Part of me wants to lag a come-along into the box floor and hope that I can roller-drag it up and down a box-truck ramp, but the other part of me knows that this is a bad plan.

So, I'm a bit stuck. I'm not finding an easy and/or safe solution. I'm perusing my library of Egyptian and Easter-Islander movement methods, but nothing seems like a gold-star plan. If it was a baby-Clausing-sized machine this would be simple...but it isn't. Any ideas?

tl;dr: Millrite big, transportation small and/or awkward, needs the intelligent suggestions.

 

[Aukai]

Is there not a hole with a plastic cover in the back step to put a ball hitch? A trailer rental company probably has a ball to use, or rent with the trailer.

 

[pontiac428]

DOT hitches are different from TUV and global standards. Same reason that JDM cars have steering wheels on the left. Not the same as here.

I don't have trucks and trailers anymore, either. As much as I hate the company, U-haul makes renting a pickup and a trailer easy. If you need more, equipment rental companies will deliver a forklift to your house for $300/day. It is money well spent. Also, Penske offers lift gate box trucks where a lift gate is enough (don't push it or your day will get bad). If you're moving serious iron, rental yards have drop trailers too.

In some localities, I can call in favors to people who do have trucks and trailers- that's by far the best deal when possible.

 

[Shotgun]

Home Depot will rent you a pick-up truck for $20/day.

 

[WesPete66]

Home Depot will rent you a pick-up truck for $20/day.

At least here, the $20 will get you 1 hours use. The daily rate is more like $140. Which isn't bad if the truck fits one's needs & gets a job done.

 

[Dave Bonzo]

Pontiac nailed it: the JDM stuff is hard to find a hitch for and not the same as US-spec. There's no hitch-ball hole; what I do have is a drop-out section that makes the JDM lunette ring functional. A hitch would have to mount underneath all of that, if you can even find one; and sure, you can make one, but that's... somewhat dicey.

As far as favors go: nobody in this half of the country owes me one. That's part of the downside of moving a few thousand miles; everyone that owed you one for that thing you did back in the day with that situation that we don't talk about...well, they're probably off the hook for it.

I love the HD rentals, but the $20 rental is for 75 minutes. After that, it'll be about $140/day plus fuel, at 12mpg for the flatbed. If it's an in-town move, then yeah; no-brainer. I have about 4.75 hours on the highway, across the Cascades.

Penske rental with a liftgate; I'll have to look into that. I'm not sure about availability, so hopefully that'll be an option. I can probably do that and...well, actually, I don't know how to pick this thing up. Honestly, an engine hoist doesn't seem like a practical method: it seems too short.

 

[pontiac428]

The Millrite is about 1300 lbs, right? I have near-death PTSD from an engine hoist failure, so I am not easily convinced to recommend it, but at that weight, you could do a lot with a hoist, especially if you can pull the head, ram, and table. A hoist won't get you very far off the ground, though.

Once it's on the ground, you can use skates, a pallet jack (my preference now), or Egyptian rollers. That mill is probably light enough to rock and jockey into position without the head and table.

You could also try movers, riggers, piano shops. Anyone with a lift gate could potentially deliver it to your door for a wad of twenties and a six-pack. You're dealing with big, heavy equipment, but you're on the small end of the envelope- the machine is light enough for people with minimal equipment and training to move. It's a different bag altogether when you add another ton of iron to the task, but you're still in familiar weight class territory for moving companies and the like.

 

[mmcmdl]

Had a guy come from Jersey with a come along and hoisted my green lathe right up onto his trailer . Lathe was probably over 5000 lbs . He brought down a brand new Shop Fox when we traded . Anyway , he called 5 hrs later and was threading hydraulic rams with the lathe . You can mount the come along on the front railing of a trailer and yank it up quite easily fwiw . I went with a 13000 lb winch on my trailer , kinda makes things easy .

 

[Janderso]

I have near-death PTSD from an engine hoist failure

Made me think of a dump truck we had in the shop. The mechanic had the front axle (2 wheel drive single forged axle) on jack stands. I was in the parts dept looking at the truck when all of a sudden one of the jacks failed.
There was a thud that shook the building.
Had he been under that axle, well you get the picture. Scared the heck out of me, I'll never forget it.
I threw out all the old ATD jack stands and replaced them with Hein-Warner. The jack stand was rated to handle the load. The moveable piece broke in two.
6 ton jacks>
Hein Warner, $203 pair of two.
Northern Tool, (strongway) $37 pair of two.
Hmmm.

 

[Ischgl99]

I have a Burke Millrite, you will be very happy with it if it is in good condition. I have no idea what a Japanese hitch is, so can’t help you with that, but would second or third the recommendation to rent something that would work. Depending on the mileage for a rental vehicle, it might be cheaper to have it shipped. I haven’t used one yet, but many here have recommended a trailer that lowers to the ground making it really easy to load machines on and will seek one out next time I need to move something.

I would recommend taking the top turret off to lighten it up for an engine hoist, you will need to extend the ram all the way out to lift it and that will exceed the rating of the engine hoist. A 2 ton hoist should go high enough to lift the ram off. Then you can use eye bolts in the main base to move it around fairly easily. That will take a lot of weight off the top when traveling and make it less likely to tip.

I moved one into my basement, pretty easy when you break it down into components. I took the table off to avoid damage when having it lowered down the stairs, only takes a few minutes to do, but make sure you take pictures so you put it together properly once you get home if you do that.

One thing to remember, if you loosen the bolts for the quill housing, hold on tight! There is nothing holding it once the bolts are loosened, and that motor is %#@$&# heavy, so it will rotate on you real quick if you are not careful. I made that mistake ONCE.

I can take pictures of mine showing what I am talking about if you need them.