I've been lurking around these parts for quite some years now never posting anything. I finally I feel like I have some content to contribute and I hope you enjoy.
After years of wanting to move out west, the opportunity presented itself. My wife and I pulled the trigger and bought a house at 8300 ft in the foothills west of Denver Colorado.
These first pictures are when my rental home machine shop was at its prime and setup primarily for building bicycle frames. I've included these following pictures because I think it's a good start to show what I started with and where I plan to go. The three years I spent here after graduating college were great, I loved the house and the community. However, it being a rental really held me back from upgrading the garage and making my dream of a bright clean shop come true.
Moving out of our rental house in Michigan was going to be quite the task. To make things easier I sold my mill and made plans to upgrade the mill once settled into the new shop.
Time finally came to move the mill to my dad's shop. The head was rotated down, and then the "full" capacity of a harbor freight engine hoist was used. This harbor freight hoists has a capacity of 500 lbs with the boom fully extended. I would guess my Index mill weighed north of 1500 lbs. So there is some safety factor designed into the hoist somewhere. This technique was only used to lift the mill just enough to hover above the floor while it was rolled out far enough to get the gantry crane to it.
Instead of hiring a rigging company, I built a gantry crane over a couple of nights after work to make the moving process easier. I have about $500 worth of material into it including the high quality locking casters. To me this was the cheapest and easiest way to move the mill. Plus once finished, my dad hung onto the gantry crane as it fit perfect in his barn with 12' ceilings. My calculations say the crane is at least good of 2 tons. Getting it setup and down takes 3 brave souls.
I'm a mechanical engineer by trade, so while I already had the design finished in CAD I figured out I might as well see how strong it was.
The trailer loaded down with the mill and gantry crane.
Moving day came, and the shop was emptied out. 1300 miles to go.
After years of wanting to move out west, the opportunity presented itself. My wife and I pulled the trigger and bought a house at 8300 ft in the foothills west of Denver Colorado.
These first pictures are when my rental home machine shop was at its prime and setup primarily for building bicycle frames. I've included these following pictures because I think it's a good start to show what I started with and where I plan to go. The three years I spent here after graduating college were great, I loved the house and the community. However, it being a rental really held me back from upgrading the garage and making my dream of a bright clean shop come true.
Moving out of our rental house in Michigan was going to be quite the task. To make things easier I sold my mill and made plans to upgrade the mill once settled into the new shop.
Time finally came to move the mill to my dad's shop. The head was rotated down, and then the "full" capacity of a harbor freight engine hoist was used. This harbor freight hoists has a capacity of 500 lbs with the boom fully extended. I would guess my Index mill weighed north of 1500 lbs. So there is some safety factor designed into the hoist somewhere. This technique was only used to lift the mill just enough to hover above the floor while it was rolled out far enough to get the gantry crane to it.
Instead of hiring a rigging company, I built a gantry crane over a couple of nights after work to make the moving process easier. I have about $500 worth of material into it including the high quality locking casters. To me this was the cheapest and easiest way to move the mill. Plus once finished, my dad hung onto the gantry crane as it fit perfect in his barn with 12' ceilings. My calculations say the crane is at least good of 2 tons. Getting it setup and down takes 3 brave souls.
I'm a mechanical engineer by trade, so while I already had the design finished in CAD I figured out I might as well see how strong it was.
The trailer loaded down with the mill and gantry crane.
Moving day came, and the shop was emptied out. 1300 miles to go.
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. The center island will also hold future planer and jointer. 
