Thread: $250 well spent - moving my mill

G'day All
As some of you are aware, I've recently moved and due to all the rain we have had here my mill was marooned in the shed at the other house because the ground was too soft to get a truck in. Luckily by last Fri it had dried enough to have a go at getting my mill out, and I was also very lucky to be able to get the truck on Sat morning. I was doing a few anti rain dances on Frid night I can tell you.
Sat morning dawned without a cloud in sight. Took me about 20 minutes to roll mill out of the shed onto a bit of yellow tongue flooring so the crane could pick it up.
Only took about 10 minutes to load it.
I was a bit concerned about the delivery site as the driveway is exposed agg on the property and plain concrete on the foot path , which is 9 metres wide. Also a slight downhill slope to the garage. I didn't know how far he would be able to reach with the crane so had prepared myself to have to chain it to the car with my chain block and winch it down on rollers.
As it turned out he was able to reach over 7 metres with 1000kg on the hook. He was able to place it right at the door. Took me about 20 minutes to get it into the garage.
I'm a happy chappie now.
$250 which I was quite happy to part with. I thought about stripping the machine down and moving it myself but at the end of the day it was just too much effort.

Big thanks to Daniel Hollingshed from Hollinshed Hoist and Haulage at Rutherford. 0428 996849

regards
bollie7

OOH!!
1000kg lift at 7 meters!!!
That would be a very handy piece of equipment to have at times. Bit hard to justify to the wife though

Just remembered.
When I was an apprentice we were doing a 3 storey office block at Hurstville. We were up to a stage where the lift car crowd came to deliver all their bits and pieces to install the lift car. There was a public car park next door. The truck parked parallel to the office block in the car park and "poked" all the paraphernalia through a window with a thing called a Hiab (I had never seen one before that). It made the delivery soo easy. I have always had a secret urge to own one since. but can't really justify it. But i can still dream

sometimes it just pays to pay someone to do it

a lot of time and gut busting saved

I had the same problem over Xmas. I was taking delivery of mill and a lathe. In the past, it took me a very long day to load, drive and unload a mill. I decided on a truck with a crane. It was $300 and he was able to unload both of them straight into my workshop.

No stress and no issues!
Eskimo is right. Sometimes it's just better to let someone give you a hand!

Admittedly, one of my "If I won Lotto" dreams is to purchase a tilt tray truck with a HIAB (or similar) crane on it. Though looking at your photos, it's mildly thrown that dream into confusion, to continue dreaming about a tilt tray, or to change the dream to two trucks, one a tilt, the other with the crane mounted at the rear (greater range of reach). Don't confuse my dreams like that!

chambezio, I'm pretty certain the HIAB thing is like calling a photocopier a Xerox, or sparkling wine Champagne. People associate a thing with a brand, and run with it from that.

Great to hear you have it out of their and in it's new home. Now you can get into setting it up and making some projects.

I hear people calling the cranes HIAB's all the time, but like said above it's only one brand. HIAB are a huge company but Palfinger has pretty well taken over the market here.
The usual name for these cranes is truck crane, or technically speaking a knuckle boom crane going off what the manager at Palfinger has told me. You can easily spot them as they fold up similar to a number 4.
I have a small one on the design board to replace the other home made crane on my Ute. The smallest they make in a knuckle boom style is a 3 ton one for the small council trucks etc, so I am making a 1-1.5 ton one. I am more interested in making it, but they do come in handy. The 3 ton one would do up my load rating with out putting anything on it, but I usually load anything into a trailer that I pick up to save the tray.
The heaviest thing I have ever lifted with the one I have now, was a Dodge truck V8 engine complete with all accessories at 3/4 reach.



Dave

Very handy machines those crane trucks aren't they, whilst I mainly use mine to move sawn timber or logs, I do get the occasional job to move machinery, so if anyone in the Melbourne area needs stuff moved, I can help out, even have some Load skate rollers to move gear out of the workshop or close to the door.

Originally Posted by Acco

Very handy machines those crane trucks aren't they, whilst I mainly use mine to move sawn timber or logs, I do get the occasional job to move machinery, so if anyone in the Melbourne area needs stuff moved, I can help out, even have some Load skate rollers to move gear out of the workshop or close to the door.

What sort of rates do you charge for that kind of thing? You're not too far from me, I better keep you in mind!

Originally Posted by Jekyll and Hyde

What sort of rates do you charge for that kind of thing? You're not too far from me, I better keep you in mind!

PM sent

I can see the smile on your face from up here.
$250-300 for a pro with all the gear = cheap.
Ruptured disc in your back or a crushed hand/foot = priceless.

Moving machines is always stressful, good that it all worked out and thanks for putting a number to what it cost.

Incidentally, that's an interesting position you have the head in! I've seen it suggested to spin the head around and upside down to place the motor on the table with packing to protect everything and help take some weight. I guess the idea is to help keep the centre of mass in as compact as possible (maybe not such a factor when lifting, but certainly is when moving), also takes load off the ways as everything is being jolted when transporting.

I just wish these machines weren't so "tippy" when being moved, it sure would help my blood pressure!

Pete

Originally Posted by Robson Valley

I can see the smile on your face from up here.
$250-300 for a pro with all the gear = cheap.
Ruptured disc in your back or a crushed hand/foot = priceless.

I managed to get my old Richardson drill press (big old heavy Australian made bench drill) to fall over on me a few weeks ago. Its on a stand made from pipe with shelves etc in it but its pretty top heavy. I had hired a pantech truck with a tailgate lifter to move most of my shed stuff. The drill press was the last thing to come out of the truck. It was getting late, I was in a hurry to get the truck back in time. I was really tired and obviously my brain was in neutral. I just did everything wrong. The driveway slopes down a bit to the garage doorway and as my fiance lowered the lifter on the truck the drill press started to topple over when the lifter reached the ground. I reached up thinking I'd steady it but couldn't. Not a real nice feeling when I realised that I couldn't hold it. I managed to get mostly out of the way of the heavy bit but it knocked me over and the stand still pinned me to the floor by my leg and my $26 Aldi safety boot. Also sprained my other ankle. A real wake up call for me as I'm usually very careful and safe when I move things. This was the worst thing thats happened to me in the 35 years that I've been working around machinery. Entirely my own fault.
And I busted 2 of the handles of the quill feed. GRRRR

bollie7

Originally Posted by Pete F

Moving machines is always stressful, good that it all worked out and thanks for putting a number to what it cost.

Incidentally, that's an interesting position you have the head in! I've seen it suggested to spin the head around and upside down to place the motor on the table with packing to protect everything and help take some weight. I guess the idea is to help keep the centre of mass in as compact as possible (maybe not such a factor when lifting, but certainly is when moving), also takes load off the ways as everything is being jolted when transporting.

I just wish these machines weren't so "tippy" when being moved, it sure would help my blood pressure!

Pete

The distance between the two locations is only about 8 Klm but the clock for the crane truck starts ticking as soon as the driver gets in the cab. Which is fair enough.
re the mill head.
Last time I moved it I had the head towards the front and found that the machine was very front heavy even with the ram back as far as it would go, the knee right down and as close to the column as it would go. So this time I turned it around and found it was easy to move on the rollers and also was better balanced when the crane lifted it. The odd angle of the head was just to reduce the height to get it through the door.

bollie7

Originally Posted by bollie7

Richardson drill press (big old heavy Australian made bench drill)

I'd be interested in seeing pics of that sometime.