Re: From losing everything to being cash-poor and shop-rich in "only" five years!
The panorama works great. This has become my favorite thread here recently. No dull moments to be found!
Thanks! The un-dull moments continued yesterday as well, but I have to be honest that I hesitated to post about them after a talk with my wife and spending a lot of time today watching coronavirus reports. I have to admit that I haven't been taking social distancing too seriously, as I didn't truly understand the implications. As a result, I spent all day yesterday with Joey and a couple coworkers and, for the earlier part of the afternoon, with the seller of my new-to-me mill, loading it up and setting it down in the shop.
My logic has been that I'm an essential employee at a facility where I have to work in close contact with dozens of coworkers who have to work with dozens of coworkers, etc. I've had a fatalistic attitude toward the whole thing from the beginning: Either I quit my job or accept that I'm going to get the virus, so any quarantine for me that extends to those I have to work in close proximity to anyway is pointless. I've been careful about avoiding public places or anybody outside my work circle and have felt pretty good about that compromise, but I've since been put in my place. Shockingly, Mrs. GeddyT didn't seem to care one iota bout me buying a new tool while teetering on the brink of financial uncertainly, but booooooy did she care that I had to be within six feet of other people to do it!
So the pictures I'm about to post are strange for me because I'm CRAZY excited about it yet simultaneously embarrassed and feeling guilty about being out doing this in these times. What's done is done at this point, though, so...
Loading my new mill onto the trailer:
Early '70s Dufour Type 61 Universal Mill. 3500 lbs., NMTB 40 spindle, horizontal/vertical, gear-driven power feed in all three axes. How this machine even came on my radar is a bit of a windy road: I've been wanting to learn how to weld and start practicing, and a really good deal on a turn-key starter package was for sale at the same motorcycle dealership liquidation where I bought the second compressor. Pretty new looking Syncrowave 200 with full argon bottle, hood, lots of consumables, cart, etc. for what seemed like a reasonable price. I gave it serious thought, but before I went ahead with the purchase, I decided to look for a mill first: I know people who can weld stuff up for me, but I don't know anybody with a mill! If I could get a decent mill for similar money, I could hold off on learning to weld and have a more complete collection of capabilities in the meantime.
I kicked the tires on the welder long enough that this mill popped up on craigslist. I didn't think I'd want it, as I've never done horizontal milling before, and I didn't like that it lacks a quill for drilling (table feed only). I gave it a chance, though, and went and took a look. Started making arrangements to pick it up nearly on the spot. Spindle is nearly silent, power feeds are smooth and quiet in all axes, and the machine is built like a brick *********. There are a couple of missing parts and quirks, but nothing I can't fix.
I chose Monday for pickup, as it was my next business day off, I could arrange to borrow a trailer, and I would be able to get cash at the bank drive-through. Myself and two buddies from work pulled up with the trailer at 1:30, and we didn't leave with the mill until over two hours later. Had to clear more room to back the trailer in, hoist the mill up, and set it down. If I had permission, I'd have taken and posted more pics of the PO's shop, as it was chock full o' awesome tools and machines to support his hobby farm.
For unloading, I traded one of my coworkers for Joey, a come-along, and a one-ton chainfall. After going back and forth a half dozen times with figuring how to get the thing to the back of the trailer and off, the consensus ended up being slowly lowering it down ramps with the chainfall and letting gravity do the work. It was not without a few precarious moments, and my buddy Dillen may or may not have pooped his pants once when the mill, uh, "eased" down from the last roller and onto the ramps...
We were feeling pretty smug about our machine rigging prowess when the machine reached the bottom of the ramp... and we had no idea what to do next. The aft end of the base was digging into the lumber we set down to protect the floor, and the angle of the floor relative to that of the ramp meant the steel pipe rollers under the base were now useless. Probably should have thought of that... Here's how the "team" problem-solved this scenario:
Tom: "Alright, here's what we do: I pick up the back of the ramp with the 4000 pound engine hoist, one of you pulls the truck out of the way, then I gently lower it until the ramp is flat on the ground, nearly leveling out the machine."
Dillen: "Great idea!"
Joey: "Uh... wouldn't the ramp just come down on top of the base of the hoist?..."
Tom and Dillen: "Oh. Yeah..."
Tom: "Well, maybe I can just bring the hoist around back and 'grab the machine by the scruff of its neck,' picking the back up enough to where we can get the rollers back under it."
Dillen: "Nah, the first plan will work. Just get it as low as we can, and we'll figure out what to do next once we get there."
Tom: "Sounds good to me."
So that's what we did, moving the truck and trailer clear, and--veeeeery slowly--lowering the back end of the ramp toward the floor.
Want to know how loud it is when over 3000 pounds of cast iron and steel crashes down a few inches onto a concrete slab when the 2x4s that the base of the machine is resting on slide forward on the slick floor and very suddenly bring the machine level and then right off the ramp?
Loud enough that all of the Rockwool insulation in the walls wasn't enough to prevent Mrs. GeddyT from hearing the crash all the way in the house and thinking my life insurance policy was finally going to pay off!
The machine seemed fine, but I was awfully worried about my slab. Good news: Not a single crack! The polyurea sealant definitely has some miles on it now, though...
But it was on the ground at least, so all that was left was to jack it up enough to get the rollers back under it and push it into place, which would require about a 270 degree right turn and a 90 degree left turn. Did we drop it off the rollers once or twice? I'm going to plead the fifth. Eventually, though, we got it into place, put the leveling feet on, and used those to remove the roller pipes.
And while my son Archer couldn't get enough of playing with the giant awesome machine...
...Joey carried in the vertical head:
While setting it down, he made a pretty good observation: "You might not want to mount this up until you clean it out."
He was absolutely right, and I quickly pulled all of this...
...out of here:
I think it's definitely a good idea to do a little disassembly and cleaning of this machine before I put it to use, which means yet another project that I have no time for. Which is too bad, because Archer's itching to try it:
Finishing up at well past 7:00 in the evening, I had learned yet another lesson: Just rent a forklift.
Thread starting soon.
