Moving the heavy equipment

[Falcon67]

I'm starting to get all the big stuff out of rhe shop over to the new house. What a pain. I get to play my own rigger. Not going far, only about 3 miles across town, but the heavy stuff takes some work.

Lathe Bench

Covered the steel trailer ramps with some plywood - worked reasonably well.

The Mill was a ... problem. It's way top heavy on the stand. My call was to pull from the bottom, wife said from the middle - she was right, we nearly tipped it. It rode fine but the on/off was a workout. Once we got it loaded, it was about 2" too tall to clear the outer shed. So I let the air out of the tires and we rolled gently clear of the joists.

And for now, this is all the space I have to work with. Bummer. I still have to rig up some lighting.

Equipment used - one 3000 lb winch from HF, bought with a coupon about two years ago for $90 and one deep cycle battery from O'Reilly Auto for $80. That's the heavy stuff, the rest of the 20x24 get's packed in boxes to wait for a new shop

 

[crewchief888]

i feel your pain,
ive moved my stuff 4 or 5 times in the past 6 years.
we were living in an apt, with limited garage access and storage, most of my non work tools & boxes were stored in my moms garage. she decided to sell, i moved tools and boxes to where i work, and stored them there for a while.
the rest of my stored stuff, ended up at our apt. we bought our house about 8 months later, ended up moving everything to a friends garage for 3 weeks until our house passed inspection,
moved everything again to the house, after a couple years i partnered up with a couple friends on a larger shop space, moved everything again.
last december we decided to move out of the shop, so everything got moved again back to the garage.
took me nearly a month to get everything moved and halfass organized.
ended up consolidating tools from 4 sets of boxes into 2 sets, moving extra boxes into the basement for storage.

i still cant find everything

 

[OccupantRJ]

Chris, I spent the last 10 years after the flood waiting to get into another shop of my own. I finally did, and it was a wonderful feeling. Only thing is, that was 10 years of shop time lost. Hang in there, and keep all your small tools handy, or you will suffer when you need them. Be sure to keep things you pack up labeled so you can find what you need when you need it. Good luck to you.

 

[Falcon67]

All the needs are handy - the 40" roll away is in the laundry room! Good advice, I'm trying to store all the "where the hell did I put" stuff first, then the rest can - rest a while.

 

[larry_g]

I finally went through this last fall. I had some options you didn't but the best was the drop deck trailer I rented. It was well worth the $75 I spent for two days use. Pictures are in my build thread below.

lg
no neat sig line

 

[Crusty Nut]

I'm currently in the same boat and have been playing this ******** game for about 6 months. My plans are awaiting a permit and I hope to be breaking ground on a new shop in 2-3 months. I completely feel your pain!

 

[Jack Olsen]

All the needs are handy - the 40" roll away is in the laundry room! Good advice, I'm trying to store all the "where the hell did I put" stuff first, then the rest can - rest a while.

You call it a laundry room. But I recognize that tile -- same as in my garage. So in one sense, the washer and dryer are getting stored in one section of your (multi-room) garage.

Good work on the moving. That's very hard to do -- in part, because of all the worry about what could go wrong, and in part because the stuff is also really heavy.

 

[Falcon67]

You call it a laundry room. But I recognize that tile -- same as in my garage. So in one sense, the washer and dryer are getting stored in one section of your (multi-room) garage.

It IS really handy that we have two car hauler trailers. I also get a power "budget" - from a 60A feed for a whole shop to a single 20A power strip. I can only use one machine at a time anyway. The mill requires 220 to run the VFD, so I'll just let that sit for a while. I feel bad robbing lights out of the old shop - OK, no I don't. My lights, get yer own.
This 2 car is a bit bigger than some of the other houses we looked at. I'm fitting more stuff than I thought. I got all that and two race cars in there so far. I'll put two 8' shelving units on the other side to hold a bunch of go-to stuff. I should be able to fit the two portable benches in the front.

I have my own closet now - it's a guy closet for sure. Clothes of course, plus my 90 million gimme caps, I can hang all my nice race t-shirts. Behind the dress pants you'd find the heads from the old 351C, a couple of cams, a carb or two. When I do get a new shop, it'll be a giant Easter egg hunt to find all this stuff.

 

[WSMC633]

I understand what you're going through. I went from a 2000 sq ft shop, in a commercial complex, with 3phase power, etc. etc. Down to a detached 400 sq ft shop at home with a single 30a circuit. One machine at a time. But luckily it's only me in there woking! To run the Welders and plasma cutter, I have to run a short extension cable from my laundry room.

Honestly though, I enjoy working at home more these days, I can still make, build, fab, just about anything I want. There are certainly some workability sacrifices, but you just learn to work in a very creative, clean, organized way. We are leasing our house right now, so I don't want to do much to improve the space. Our next house we'll be buying, and my girl already knows a large shop area will be high on my list of requirements!

As for moving heavy machinery, I bought one of those HF foldable 2 ton shop cranes. I can't believe how much I use it. Getting the Mill, Lathe, sheet metal brake, out of the truck was a piece of cake. I rented a Greenlee Smart Bender last week, they said it was around 500lbs. Loaded and unloaded it without breaking a sweat. Worth every penny I paid for it.

 

[beltfeed]

You may want to check the pressure in your trailer tires. They look like they are squatting pretty hard with much load on the trailer.

 

[GreyOwl]

You may want to check the pressure in your trailer tires. They look like they are squatting pretty hard with much load on the trailer.

I guess you didn't read the section where he said he had to lower the pressure in the tires in order to clear the door frame on the way out.
Charles

 

[jhelrey]

You may want to check the pressure in your trailer tires. They look like they are squatting pretty hard with much load on the trailer.

FAIL!

 

[rsanter]

you had it easy, my lathe weighs 2.5 tons

bob

 

[19swinger70]

I used a moving truck with a liftgate to move my heavy stuff this summer. i have a 18 foot trailer, but decided a 24 foot truck with lift gate was worth the money. It worked great to get the heavy stuff loaded because of the lift - and the large box of the truck made for less trips back and fourth.

 

[Falcon67]

you had it easy, my lathe weighs 2.5 tons

bob

Oh yea, I know. I almost bought a new 13x40 lathe last year but the money had to go elsewhere. That would still not get near yours though! The mill is about 1K and the lathe bench should be around 750ish. It's loaded with tooling.