Advice wanted. Picking up Gray Planer tomorrow from the 1915 machine shop in Roanoke

Hi Folks, I bought the Gray planer a couple of weeks ago. When I said I was picking it up, that is all I want to do at this visit. Pick it up and set it on skates and roll it a couple of feet back and forth. I'd rather work out how to do this in a separate trip than figure it out with the rollback truck idling.

Advice wanted:

Weight. I'm thinking 16,000 lbs max. The Gray planer weight somebody posted in the 1915 machine shop thread was 12,000 lbs for a 6 foot by 30 inch. This one is 8 feet by 24 inch. I don't know, maybe 16,000 is an over estimate. What do y'all think?

Lift points. There is a 3x2 inch hole that goes through the two columns. I'm guessing I can put a steel bar through that and lift that end with two jacks. I think I will protect the casting with a chunk of HDPE plastic so it isn't steel on cast iron. Opinions?

The plan is to put it on skates. One under each column and a steerable skate at the front. Also, strap the skates to the machine with equipment straps and 4x4s and whatever so that they don't come off, especially when it gets winched up onto the rollback truck.

Lastly, I don't want to remove the drive mechanism. It's weighty, but relative to the rest of the machine, maybe not. Can I do it in one piece?

Any advice or criticism is welcome. I don't want to screw up this move.

I have two pics I want to upload, one with the holes in the columns and a general shot of the planer emphasizing the drive works. But I am not able to right now. I'll try later.


Many thanks.

John

lienjohn said:

Hi Folks, I bought the Gray planer a couple of weeks ago. When I said I was picking it up, that is all I want to do at this visit. Pick it up and set it on skates and roll it a couple of feet back and forth. I'd rather work out how to do this in a separate trip than figure it out with the rollback truck idling.

Advice wanted:

Weight. I'm thinking 16,000 lbs max. The Gray planer weight somebody posted in the 1915 machine shop thread was 12,000 lbs for a 6 foot by 30 inch. This one is 8 feet by 24 inch. I don't know, maybe 16,000 is an over estimate. What do y'all think?

Lift points. There is a 3x2 inch hole that goes through the two columns. I'm guessing I can put a steel bar through that and lift that end with two jacks. I think I will protect the casting with a chunk of HDPE plastic so it isn't steel on cast iron. Opinions?

The plan is to put it on skates. One under each column and a steerable skate at the front. Also, strap the skates to the machine with equipment straps and 4x4s and whatever so that they don't come off, especially when it gets winched up onto the rollback truck.

Lastly, I don't want to remove the drive mechanism. It's weighty, but relative to the rest of the machine, maybe not. Can I do it in one piece?

Any advice or criticism is welcome. I don't want to screw up this move.

I have two pics I want to upload, one with the holes in the columns and a general shot of the planer emphasizing the drive works. But I am not able to right now. I'll try later.


Many thanks.

John

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I've tooled and run exactly ONE planer, It moved ITSELF, every stroke, about 3 or 4 inches. Not because it had left the factory that way. Because someone had hot-rodded it for wartime production, WWII.

There was a wide "bull gear" under it in a pit. I was told 50 inches, but never saw but a small portion of it, so that's hearsay. The "hot rodding" had put hydraulic motors, not cylinders on it instead of a gentler-reversing flat-belt drive. The problem wasn't the traverse, it was the near-as-dammit "instant" reversing at stroke-end that caused the entire machine to slide between the vertical"fence" of railroad rails at each end set deep into the concrete to limit how far it could slide. Drama? Bigtime!

whiirrrrrrrr BANG whirrrrrrrrr BANG! And the building shook enough they didn't want it run day shift at all.

We - well "I" - no one else on 2d or 3d shift but the foreman was au fait with shapers or planer tooling - single pointed recutting of the chain guides for the Lee-Norse continuous mining machine. Those had been built-up with a hardface rod, then been found to eat the milling cutters of the era like snack food. This was a "Hail Mary save" of sorts, but it worked really well because we could set up two rows of four guides, run the length of two per pass, step-over four times, and we had a good set of numbers. Table was long enough for a third row, but Galis was plumb out of clamps. I was robbing the mills and jury-rigging with drops and hasty weldments already.

so.. barrel of salt. That was a much longer table, 12 feet IIRC, travel to match, mass to match, "pit" underfloor to match.

The column is unwieldy, but do not forget the serious mass of bed and table. You need a ROW of skates, IOW. And skates need to be ATTACHED, lest they go look for an easier job at better pay as you traverse floor waviness that they will FIND even if you did not notice.

Truth told, as many skates as I have and as often as I have used them, I'd want to move this to the rollback on a wooden "slipway" instead, shipbuilder style.

Three layers, wide timber, sheet galvanized steel between two of the layers and oiled or greased as the guarantor of sliding. Meant to slip one layer over the other, and wuddn' yah know it, they DO EXACTLY THAT, and more easily than you might think. The beauty of it is that nothing volunteers to run ahead, tip, nor otherwise get out of control. Slow process, but very stable. One man and a FL as motator, not lifter, is all it needs. Break for a piss or a cold one at any time - nothing is hanging fire.

If you can get good photos, there are bound to be folks here who have actually moved these small ones- maybe even the same make and era. Gray was a common one, perhaps even dominant in the market.

Easily a dozen firms in the USA had made planers four-feet and under. Only a smaller number made 6 feet to 8 feet. I'm not sure there were even four makers at ten feet and up.
Niles, Pond, Grey, and one more I can't recall were the ones that made the bulk of the big ones - 12 feet and more.

Plan this move well. Do not rush it.

Hard to hurt a planer. VERY easy for a planer to hurt YOU!

John,
You sound like somebody that has never moved anything that weighed more than a sofa.
You want to jack it down low under the base. Don’t try to pull it up on a rollback sitting on skates it won’t turn out well. If you lucky it will end up laying on its side. If your unlucky it will end up laying on its side with you under it.
You really need to find somebody to work with you that has moved heavy machinery. 16000 Lb’s isn’t a toy.

SIP6A said:

John,
You want to jack it down low under the base. Don’t try to pull it up on a rollback sitting on skates it won’t turn out well.

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That is interesting. I do plan on attaching the skates firmly. Not just letting the machine sit on them. I figured one could winch it up the rollback given that the angle isn't too steep. Are you saying I can't wheel up the planer on the skates then remove the skates once on the truck?

I have moved 10 machines into my shop myself. Heaviest is the 7000 lb Monarch and we tilted a rollback to set it into my shop. The trickiest was the 3000 lb radial drill. I have built a gantry and lifted a #2 Cincinnati off a trailer with it and set it down. So I have some experience, but not in this weight class.

lienjohn said:

That is interesting. I do plan on attaching the skates firmly. Not just letting the machine sit on them. I figured one could winch it up the rollback given that the angle isn't too steep. Are you saying I can't wheel up the planer on the skates then remove the skates once on the truck?

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No fuckn' way. OOps No FINE way.

Look at it like a long-wheelbase party limo high-centering out of a parking garage.

Skates are LOW. It "high centers" on the ENDS at such a low lift angle of tilt I had to build one of those wooden "slipway" rigs just to deal with the slight 3 1/2" taper, garage/shop floor downramp to driveway apron on a machine just EIGHT feet long (AB5/S laid on its side, 4" x 6" "cradle").Even so, the attach fasteners for the 7" steel angle toe plate cut into the 'crete from that tilt, and EVEN WITH a set of the taller 4400 lb polywheeled Northern's just back of the nose. I let the other end just rest on the slipway, ELSE hang off a chain over the forks of a 8K Doosan FL.

Simplest is stout timber skids, full-length. I'd still have that slipway under, two other layers. But.. that is partly for lack of a deadman for my winch, or ability to get a FL indoors under my low door. I have to pull with chain or push with timber from outside the door instead. All goes well the stout winch on the rollback does the do. UNLOADING.. will be harder, actually. Hold tension on the winch, hop about with pinch bar getting it to creep, pay out a bare smide of cable, repeat 'til it hits the pavement,.. and then it gets fun as it "bridges".

I have moved 10 machines into my shop myself. Heaviest is the 7000 lb Monarch and we tilted a rollback to set it into my shop. The trickiest was the 3000 lb radial drill. I have built a gantry and lifted a #2 Cincinnati off a trailer with it and set it down. So I have some experience, but not in this weight class.

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That Monarch is close to the same sort of challenge. Planer is heavier, not as skinny, short axis, but has more mass up higher.

It isn't the mass that's the hard part. 8 Ton is light enough, and planers have long bases, not pedestals. It is the length of the base vs not-so-wide, and the height of the column & bridge putting significant mass high-up. As already noted, it IS possible to side-topple it, though yah kinda have to work at forcing that, what with the width of the verticals out to the sides. I'd far rather move a planer or hor-bore than a big radial! Planer or bar at least also have a lot of mass down low, too. Just awkward, not mind-bending.

24 X 6 foot (9 plus foot bed) 1920 Whitcomb Blaisdell was 6600

You mean this beasty? Lucky bastard I mean nice one mate


Im thinking if you use skates under that and lose one it could get messy.
If I was gonna have a go (biggest ive moved so far is a couple ton) id probably weld/bolt up a skid out of heavy angle or similar. Put it under the machine and block and strap it to the skid. Will make it a lot less tippy / be easy to use bars under it keeping it close to the floor and will be big help in dragging it out the shop / can winch directly off the skid rather that the legs of the machine. Might even have the materials needed already on site. Maybe use some flat between the skid and the bed to help it slip better and protect the bed.

Might be best to post in the rigging section, or shoot m16ty a pm. Nice bloke who does it for a living

Something like what swatkins did with his Axelson but go a little wider to make the footprint bigger.


As long as youve got enough winch I reckon you should be fine.

lienjohn said:

That is interesting. I do plan on attaching the skates firmly. Not just letting the machine sit on them. I figured one could winch it up the rollback given that the angle isn't too steep. Are you saying I can't wheel up the planer on the skates then remove the skates once on the truck?

I have moved 10 machines into my shop myself. Heaviest is the 7000 lb Monarch and we tilted a rollback to set it into my shop. The trickiest was the 3000 lb radial drill. I have built a gantry and lifted a #2 Cincinnati off a trailer with it and set it down. So I have some experience, but not in this weight class.

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If we're talking about the picture on this sight it's nowhere near 16,000 lbs. Johnoder posted weight of 6600 is no doubt from a catalog.

When you move a machine up an incline you don't want it friction free. If a heavy machine (or even a not so heavy machine) slips sideways on its trip up the ramps (and it will) and your on skates you're going to launch it sideways off the ramp or deck of the truck or trailer.

I don't know how far you have to move this from where its setting to where it's going to get winched up the rollback. But if you can just get a chain on the front of it and drag it across the shop and up the rollback.

If the shop doesn't want you to drag it across the floor then youse your skates, But don't jack up and set on the skates in one lift. Have a bunch of 2 x 6s in short lengths jack and block each end a couple of inches at a time until the machine is high enough to get a skate under it.

Thanks everyone so far. Yeah, lucky bastard is the correct term. Well, maybe skates to get it to the front of the shop. Yes, there is probably no way I can get the truck bed angle low enough not to drag the nose or the tail when trying to winch it on the rollback.
My neighbor has a sawmill so I could order up some thick, like 8x8, skids.

Thanks again. Keep them ideas coming!

John

SIP6A said:

When you move a machine up an incline you don't want it friction free. If a heavy machine (or even a not so heavy machine) slips sideways on its trip up the ramps (and it will) and your on skates you're going to launch it sideways off the ramp or deck of the truck or trailer.

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I can see that. No skates on the ramp. Got it.

Thanks

John

lienjohn said:

Thanks everyone so far. Yeah, lucky bastard is the correct term. Well, maybe skates to get it to the front of the shop. Yes, there is probably no way I can get the truck bed angle low enough not to drag the nose or the tail when trying to winch it on the rollback.
My neighbor has a sawmill so I could order up some thick, like 8x8, skids.

Thanks again. Keep them ideas coming!

John

Click to expand...

4 by 8 or 4 by 6 bolted ONTO the bed of the machine are plenty good enough, wide-side flat. The mass is well-distributed, not "point loaded" after all. Akin to a barge or "stone boat", not a hydrofoil or skinny-tired wheeled vehicle sunk in a mudhole.

ONE-by smooth pine - as for shelving - will make the sliding plates work. I use 2 by 6 ,8, 10, once in a while some 2 x 12, and that "polywood" fascia trim board for its slickeriness usually. Because I have it. For that reason. It lasts a long time. Also have a wood stove, so I avoid pressure-treat and can burn what is finally no longer usable for winter heating supplement.

Plywood, OTOH is NOT good for sliding. The reverse.

Use it to keep things FROM sliding. If faced with more of its tribe, the facing fibers want to get entangled because it bends, even when not heavily compressed. Keep plywood in mind if you have to make a run up or down a slope, though. "Them's the brakes".



PS: I am waaay overcommitted for my present physical condition, still-yet to make a trek to Roanoke, but I like to see planers "live long and prosper", so if your "Virginia" location permits of us meeting half way between Dulles airport area and "wherever" I could lend you a matched pair of toe-jacks plus a matched pair of Vestil 5K 72" steel pry dollies to make getting "stuff" UNDER that planer a lot easier and "nibbling" at the corners to align it. I'm too old to use those dollies much, but I do need the toe jacks back.

lienjohn said:

Thanks everyone so far. Yeah, lucky bastard is the correct term. Well, maybe skates to get it to the front of the shop. Yes, there is probably no way I can get the truck bed angle low enough not to drag the nose or the tail when trying to winch it on the rollback.
My neighbor has a sawmill so I could order up some thick, like 8x8, skids.

Thanks again. Keep them ideas coming!

John

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I think for something that big steel would be better than wood, stronger and slips a lot easier which is what you want when sliding across bars or up ramps.
Keep in mind skates can pop and it can all happen real quick. Would much rather drop a machine 1" than 6"
1, lb Monarch lathe move- I crashed it!!! - YouTube

And dont be this guy

Good luck with the move however you end doing it, try grab some pics if you remember

Demon73 said:

I think for something that big steel would be better than wood, stronger and slips a lot easier which is what you want when sliding across bars or up ramps.

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Steel the same dimension as wood can be stronger, yes. When but 1/4" or 3/8" thick? Steel, even in an I-beam has a great deal less advantage over wood than you might expect.

Goat Canyon Trestle Bridge Hike: Worlds Largest Wooden Trestle - California Through My Lens

Sixty feet of "class 60" to pass a main battle tank is the largest timber-trestle I have personally built in 8 hours, but I did have a 25-man team.

Now "back to our regular programming"

Wood, laid flat, in compression, not shear, tension, nor bending? Toothpaste, it ain't.
And.. one can GET it anywhere, fast, cheap, and with one store-made cut per-SKU "free" off a fair decent radial arm or panel saw.

Two custom pallets built Pensacola, Adam Booth's place for the Quartet combo mill? Wasn't hard to plan those so I didn't have to make even ONE cut. Store did them all, no charge.
THIS task/ Just select the appropriate standard lengths. No cuts.

Local steelyard by comparison has a 3 or 4 day minimum lead time.

And Oh, BTW HRS mill-scale surface makes it a tad less predictable than wood as far as when it slips. Or in which direction. Or how controllable it is once it gets started moving.

Wooden skids are more "comfortable" to work with, actually.

thermite said:

Steel the same dimension as wood can be stronger, yes. When but 1/4' or 3/8" thick? Steel, even in an I-beam has a great deal less advantage over wood than you might expect.

Wood, laid flat, in compression, not shear, tension, nor bending? Toothpaste, it ain't.
And.. one can GET it anywhere, fast, cheap, and with one store-made cut per-SKU "free" off a fair decent radial arm or panel saw.

Two custom pallets built Pensacola, Adam Booth's place for the Quartet combo mill? Wasn't hard to plan those so I didn't have to make even ONE cut. Store did them all, no charge.
THIS task/ Just select the appropriate standard lengths. No cuts.

Local steelyard by comparison has a 3 or 4 day minimum lead time.

And Oh, BTW HRS mill-scale surface makes it a tad less predictable than wood as far as when it slips. Or in which direction. Or how controllable it is once it gets started moving.

Wooden skids are more "comfortable" to work with, actually.

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I know what you mean Bill, but im guessing theres more than enough material on site to make a sensible skid and its quicker to fabricate. Pick and block the machine up an inch, slide 2x 6x6 angle cross members under the legs, weld the rails to the cross members and strap it up an youre done.
Ive done the timber skid thing and was fine but trying to bar the thing over or get it to roll or slide was a pita, let alone the fab work getting the thing together. But maybe someones got a better way, im certainly no wood whisperer

Demon73 said:

I know what you mean Bill, but im guessing theres more than enough material on site to make a sensible skid and its quicker to fabricate. Pick and block the machine up an inch, slide 2x 6x6 angle cross members under the legs, weld the rails to the cross members and strap it up an youre done.
Ive done the timber skid thing and was fine but trying to bar the thing over or get it to roll or slide was a pita, let alone the fab work getting the thing together. But maybe someones got a better way, in certainly no wood whisperer

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Problem with that is you have not ADDED anything the cast-iron did not already have except "feel better about this".

The wood isn't about stiffening. It is a sacrificial "wear surface" that adds controllability as to "all of" stabilizing, aligning, attaching, sliding, AND braking.

Shipyard slipway example again. Mankind has centuries-if-not-also-millenia of experience.

It is a one-time, ONLY time solution, here. Wood JF works for those.

Go to move it OUT of his shop, ten years hence? Wood again, but from a fresh start, optimized for the route, its challenges, the mode of loadout, route transport, far-end unload, etc.

I've been in the shop with other Tuckahoe volunteers. Here are a couple of pictures of the planer (click on the pictures to open a larger version of the same). What I would be concerned about is indeed the right-angle drive causing a significant imbalance on one side.



Don't forget bringing ladder and equipment to get the countershaft from the ceiling. If you don't take it, you'll soon regret it.



Personally, I would take my time to disassemble the fairly fragile (look at that feed gear hanging so low!) right-angle drive (by the way: I was there after you bought it. But, as soon as I realized how bulky and somehow inconvenient that drive was, I lost any desire for that planer).


Although, for what I remember, the concrete floor is fairly flat and smooth, at the front is not so great and the footpath is fairly rough and inclined. Yet another reason why skates are a bad idea is that even a small stone or a large crack in the concrete could easily result in some undesired excitement.

I strongly suggest making hardwood skids, like somebody else suggested, anchored with cross members that widen the footprint and using pipes to move it till the flat bed truck and let the wood slide directly on the bed, without pipes (on any incline, you do want significant, constant friction).

Here is how we prepped a 10' x 18" (if I recall correctly) planer we rescued in Connecticut

Paolo



Paolo

Paolo_MD said:

I strongly suggest making hardwood skids, like somebody else suggested, anchored with cross members that widen the footprint and using pipes to move it till the flat bed truck and let the wood slide directly on the bed, without pipes (on any incline, you do want significant, constant friction).

Here is how we prepped a 10' x 18" (if I recall correctly) planer we rescued in Connecticut

Paolo



Paolo

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Pretty much on the same page, except that.. the lower member in that photo would - in my pref - be 2 layers of 2" X 10" or at least 2" x 8", the joints staggered. Deck screwed.

Any low spots would have blocking under to get the tops into a reasonable plane and same height, each "rail". I used scrap laminate flooring to adjust scrap 1" cuts mostly. It is thin.

Atop that I would have sheet galvanized under the skids, oil sprayed. ELSE another layer of Polywood sawdust and vinyl glue trim, slick enough as-is, but can also be oiled or greased.

NO rollers. No Skates.

Slides just fine. Stops when the pull or push stops. At once.

Can be aligned for angle adjustment or side to side with a pry bar if the pull or push starts to go off-line of the slipway "track". No risk of rollers being too easy to move, changing spacing or direction, trying to escape control.

No need of trying to keep the roller team replenished at the leading edge by recovering those left behind and carrying them to the "front".

With no rollers or skates, it doesn't DO anything fast enough to surprise you.

And not a lot of $$ spent, either.

2CW

There was a fork truck where I got my Hamilton 24 x 6 ft, so, I used chains under the base and through the holes.

I figured about 6000 pounds. Easily hauled it home 600 miles on a 10,000 pound (7500 loadable) tilt trailer.

After loading it, while strapping it down, I noticed that I could bounce the rear of the trailer by jumping up and down.
I pulled the belt and after the mass of that bed moved back about 8 inches, the bounce was gone and the trailer was rock steady.

At home, I mounted low wheels and used the A-frame on one end and unloaded it by using the chainfall to keep it level as the front rolled down the tilting trailer bed.

I was concerned that I believe the bed is merely sitting on the base, not gibbed, and so did not want it on much of an angle.

Over this past winter, my brother tore the motor apart (patented July 4th, 1916) and freed it up.
Hope to be making chips sometime this summer.

Mike

24 X 6 foot (9 plus foot bed) 1920 Whitcomb Blaisdell was 6600

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+600lbs per additional ft of length for custom lengths:


Thanks to John O for catalog loan.

For reference, the table on mine is just over 92" long, the bed just over 115" L (as per book "9'-7" ").

They are tippy, especially the old style up on legs.
This type machinery movers strapped onto the bed worked well for us, 5,000lbs each end. Unfortunately, probably not easy to attach to yours?





smt