Moving a 9000 lb mill into place

[rabler]

I've gotten a few requests for pictures of moving machines, so here you go - pictures are thumbnails so you should be able to click them open for a full size picture.

I needed to move this mill four feet and turn it 90 degrees. Mill: 9000lb Kearney and Trecker 3K vertical. Tools at hand: 7000lb tractor with loader and forks, toe jack, three skates, and one helpful spouse taking time out from barn chores. Challenge is that this shop is too small to turn the tractor into position other than straight in through the door. The loader will lift about 3000 lbs, so no where near enough to actually lift the mill. So this was a matter of sliding the forks under and moving it forward a few inches to a foot, then pulling back on one corner to rotate, with frequent lifting with the toe jack and repositioning the skates. Repeated about 8-10 times. The strap I used is undersized for a reason, the tractor has an electronic clutch, no feel, so the strap stretches a bit to take the jerk out of the tractor clutch action. Total time was about 2 hours.

 

[matthewsx]

Is your wife scratching her head in that photo, I know mine would be....
Paint job on the machine looks great but it looks like you missed a spot

Congrats on such a fine machine, I doubt you'll ever want for capacity with that beast.

John

 

[nnam]

How about several round metal bars and using Egyptian style. The skates maybe too tall to nudge it in.

 

[rabler]

Is your wife scratching her head in that photo, I know mine would be....
Paint job on the machine looks great but it looks like you missed a spot

Congrats on such a fine machine, I doubt you'll ever want for capacity with that beast.

John

Well, she's not exactly smiling. I think the light was in her eyes from the door?

I'm still working on the paint, I like to clean an area, prime it, fill any chips with glazing putty, paint. I have a thread over in the K&T forum with more details.

 

[a_design]

Couple pipes under- Egyptian style. Angle them slightly will help with the turn. We used 4" well casing to do the same with a 16klb VMC, and a similarly sized tractor, but anything round will do.

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

 

[sdelivery]

I used 1 inch pipe and a bar....by myself

 

[NCjeeper]

Good looking mill.

 

[rabler]

I used 1 inch pipe and a bar....by myself

I tried the pry bar and skates on the big Monarch lathe. Realized it was stupid to kill myself when the tractor was available. Give you credit for doing it that way if you were working with anything near this size.

 

[Uglydog]

Kudos to your bride!!!
I've moved an estimated 5ton BoyeEmmes lathe up-onto and down-off of a car hauler trailer. But a mill? Different creature. Taller..... Top heavy with a smaller base. Preferable to keep the shiny side up.
While I've got some ideas, I'm curious how you might would have loaded the mill to a trailer.
I'm just learning here....
Good work. I appreciate your choice of a strap and the reason why.

Thank you,
Daryl
MN

 

[vocatexas]

I hauled my TF-17 home on my 40 foot tilt-bed container trailer. Unloading was a long, slow, careful process. It got a little exciting at the transition from the tilted trailer deck to the floor. When a 15,000 lb. machine spits a machinery skate out, the skate will travel with significant velocity and makes a loud sound when it hits the back wall 30 feet away. Yeah, I took a little break when that happened.