It all started out on the M25, normal service. lol
Arrived at Coventry a bit late and met with sellers, nice folks. Hadn't brought the pallet truck with cos wed had arranged the forks was told it should be able to get to the machine. Looked kinda tight to me and there some pessimism from the seller an forks guys as to how to move it. I pretended to know what I was I about and made some suggestions. Had brought a pile of slings with me so that wasn't a problem.
As I was looking over the machine it looked to be in pretty good shape abeit covered in crud n chips. the seller ran it up for me, spindle sounded good, feeds worked in all axis. As I wound back and locked down the head the forks came through the door, that must of been when I forgot to tighten sliding top arm
. was only cracked loose so should be ok, hopefully, please
The driver was a cool dude who seemed to have a good idea of what was needed. I explained how I wanted it lifted using a round sling, basket style round the over arm. He went off to get a lifting boom, no pics but kinda like this.
Lifting the machine just off the floor we moved it to the middle of the floor and set it up on some blocks. The mast was too high so he wanted to go underneath it just to get out the door. "steel on steel no deal!" came to mind (this forum lol). I mentioned it to him and he understood, but we literally only had to drag it on the floor a couple metres. All went well despite mild reservation, will bring some cardboard or something next time.
Once outside we slung it to the 2ton hyser (no pics unfortunately, was too busy) and reversed out to the side so I could back the lorry in. With the machine just off the ground he moved it as close the lorry as poss, then up and on to bed. Id brought some OSB for the machine to sit on, thought it might help in the slip stakes. Then got to strapping it down with my spanky new straps. I used some round slings wrapped around the overarm and hooked through them, next time might use shackles there but it all tightened down ok. The forks guy was happy as was I.
Feel free to critic
And that was it really. The hardest part about the whole gig was trying to get andy (the forks guy) to take some dough.
"how much I owe ya?"
"nah youre alright mate"
"give us a tenner then"
"they pay you a 20 don't they?"
"yeah but I don't need that"
"take 40 mate!"
"NAHHHH that's too much (protest protest)"
"you got kids?"
"yeah"
"buy em somthin!(stuffs money in his hand)"
Seriously, he just didn't realise hes was worth his weight in gold to me at the time, £40 was cheap.
The drive home was easy, the mill didn't move an inch. The truck needed a bit more brake pedal pressure but all in all drove like a champ. Did notice the engine getting a little louder but it was just the tea towel needed adjusting
. Plenty of attention from Po-po but no pull. Got a couple of toots from other guys in older lorries and had a fascinating chat with an older Irish gentleman in one o the services.
Havent got it off the truck yet but am in no rush. Gonna make some space and put up the gantry. I don't like that the gantry has no braces in the corners were the beam meets the uprights. I might wrap a sling around the beam to mount the chainfall and strap from the sling to the A part of the uprights. Will only support in tension but I reckon itll be ok.
That is all so, so far
