What's new
What's new

Moving a Bridgeport in North Jersey

Grippn

Plastic
Joined
Aug 28, 2017
Hope this is the right place to post this. I'm looking to move my Bridgeport series 1 CNC from my one home in norther Jersery to another. The move distance is only 8 miles away and the mill is already on a pallet but the location I'm moving to has a garage door of 7 ft. I would either need to split the column or remove the head in order to get it in. Does anyone know of any good riggers or movers in the area that won't charge an arm and a leg for this type of move? Thanks in advance.
 
Turn the head 90 degrees and it will fit. Support the head once it gets past about 10 degrees both while lowering and raising.
 
Turn the head 90 degrees and it will fit. Support the head once it gets past about 10 degrees both while lowering and raising.

Unfortunately the mill is a Ridged Ram so I can't rotate the head. How hard would it be to re-tram the head on a Ridged Ram if I remove just the head during the move? Here's a photo: Shared album Google Photos
 
i would not consider moving a machine that heavy on the pallet that it is on. The only support through to the ground under the machine is the center stringer and the machine could well rock and break the thin deck boards. Ideally the machine should be on a much heavier skid . Short of this take some wood and fill in the pallet to support the edge of the machine after it is loaded and before driving any where with it
 
A special reinforced pallet was made for the mill when I first picked it up so I should be ok.
 
I've had to move my Bridgeport a couple times the past few years. What I did was bought 2) 6' 4"x 6"'s lag bolted them to the base of the machine parallel to the table. Then lag bolted an equal length piece of 4" x 4" 3/8" angle iron to wrap around the sides and bottom of the timbers, got some load rated casters welded them to the angle iron and presto. The 6' wide base adds a lot of stability. Roll it where ever you want to. I had access to an electric drop trailer, sweet thing to use. Deck lowers parallel to the ground. My HF 440 lbs. winch pulled it up on the trailer. Decide carefully on the casters as this can make or break the whole deal. In retrospect I wish I had gone with 4 swivel casters instead of two fixed and 2 swivels. It goes without saying to lower the center of gravity as best you can by lowering the knee as far as it can go.
 
Unfortunately the mill is a Ridged Ram so I can't rotate the head. How hard would it be to re-tram the head on a Ridged Ram if I remove just the head during the move? Here's a photo: Shared album Google Photos

Looks just like my machine, which I had to move through a 6' wide, 7' high double door. Now, it's been 25 years, but as I recall, we moved the machine up to the door opening and removed the side trim plates on the ram (the things that say BRIDGEPORT). That exposes a couple slots through the ram, where bars can be run through. We straddled the head with a lift truck forks, blocked under the bars so we were supporting the head and ram level, and gently lifted it clear of the base. We then rolled the base through the door (we had it on pipe rollers). There was no room past the door to maneuver the lift truck, so we lowered the head to get it through the door, than raised it again (with the head on the opposite side of the door opening from the lift truck) then rolled the base back under the ram and recombined them, and maneuvered the assembled machine into place on pipes. Worked a treat. Except for disconnecting and reconnecting all the wires, it didn't take much longer to do than it's taking me to type this.

IIRC, the rigid rams are pined to the base with tapered pins, so they go back to the same position. Anyway, there is nothing on the ram that moves, and the big flat base assures tram of the Z axis.

Good luck.

Dennis.
 
When I bought my 10x50 Lagun LTV-2, a heavy duty roll back brought it out.....tandem axle truck (yeah, 8 rear tires lol). The mill looked like a toy on the back of it. He had one of those motorized 'pushers' wired for 110 to move it into place. He said that they are used on ships for pushing big pallets etc around into place. It looked like a big industrial buffer without the buffer and just more of a big motor with a spade on the front with heavy duty small diameter wheels at the back of it. He tilted the bed up with the truck's winch tied onto it and once it was touching the ground, he moved the truck away from it. I would imagine that it would be opposite to load it. It looked precarious at first but he knew what he was doing and it went smooth and it took no time to move it into position. He was here for less than 30 minutes.....
 








 
Back
Top