Moving A Rockwell 21-100

john.oliver35 said:
Thank all of you! I believe I am going to rent a trailer and get it tomorrow as I am afraid lift height will be a problem in the truck. Spend an extra $50 to avoid the risk of needing to mess around laying the thing down and breaking something or someone in the process.
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I heartily recommend a drop-bed trailer rather than tilt bed. I moved my German-made horizontal mill alone with one of those and it couldn't have been easier. Make sure you have plenty of pipe rollers, several come-alongs and a place to secure them :)
 
You might also check with your local towing folks. If you are not pressed for time when unloading, most with a boom type tow truck will lift and place pretty cheap. You might be surprised to hear how much equipment a towing company moves.
Dan Coleman
 
You got a lot of good advice there. The trailer is a very good idea. Just remember , even with the head down and the table lowered, a mill is still top heavy and will fall over very easily. Be prepared to get out of the way quickly. Do everything slowly and deliberately. Don't get in a hurry.
Randy
 
700 lbs
I have seen those moved with a furniture dolly and a stout operator
 
Well a friend and I went and got the mill last week. We used a u-haul 4x9' motorcycle trailer - it worked awesome. Turned the head down and loaded it with an engine hoist. Bolted 2x6's to the base to provide some additional stability and strapped it through the ram to the corners of the trailer with 2" 2000lb ratchet straps.20150503_150021[1].jpg

With the straps good and tight the mill traveled wonderfully. Even with this little mill it felt much more like the trailer was strapped to mill rather than the mill strapped to the trailer. When the mill bounced the trailer was along for the ride!
20150503_162131[1].jpg
Took the mill off of the trailer with a chain hoist in my garage, put in some new wiring and began to find its problems. Found some problems with the pulley bearings and pulley shaft - more on that in a different thread.

Thank all of you for your help!
 
I just bought a 21-100 that I'm picking up this weekend. How would the mill travel in the motor cycle trailer for a 400 mile trip? I'm leaning towards renting the U-haul 5'x9' trailer with ramp instead, due to the long trip. But I don't like paying the extra $50 to rent the larger, heavier trailer plus the extra gas required to pull it. (The trailer will be rented for several days due to me picking up the mill on one leg of a family road trip.)

Are there any special tools (besides basic mechanic tools) needed to rotate the motor 180 degrees? What size bolts fit the mounting pads on the base?
 
Your motorcycle trailer should work fine for a machine that small. I decked over my motorcycle trailer so I could haul small machines on it. 2x6 crossbracing with 3/4 inch plywood over that. That allows boxing the machine base in with 2x6's screwed to the plywood deck. I don't think I've had to make a 400 mile round trip but I don't see why that would be a problem. I think my trailer has a 3500 lb axle. I can have the decking off in a few minutes if I want to haul the bikes.

Here is the best picture I have of it. It shows how I decked it over.

IMG_0151.jpg
 
Sorry I didn't see this until the weekend!

To loosen the ram and turn the head requires a 3/8" allen wrench. You should bring some lubricant/WD-40 etc in case the ram is frozen. The ram slides in and out as well as turns - I had to push the ram forward about 3 inches to get the head far enough forward to allow it to turn 180 degrees.

My mill didn't have any mounting feet - I don't know what was stock. The holes are unthreaded, approx 7/16 dia.
 
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