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shipping a Hardinge HC across the country

LarryJ

Plastic
Joined
Oct 24, 2013
Location
Pacific Northwest, USA
I am finally close to having a long-awaited Hardinge HC. Paul Babin found one for me and has gone through it. Now I have to figure out the safest, least expensive way to get it from him in Brockton, MA to Seattle, WA. I've got 2 inquiries out but haven't heard back in 3 days so it's not looking good. Paul can load on his end and I can off-load on my end. Does anyone have good experience with a trucking company ?
 
I've used Fastenal 3PL plenty of times! Love it! I live in Central Illinois, I've sent machines to Florida,Louisiana, and California. Ive also had one shipped from Georgia. Very reliable and ALOT cheaper than anywhere else.
 
I'm not sure if safest and cheapest should be used in the same sentence when shipping machinery.
Call Greg Enright at Satellite Specialized Transportation in Oregon.
541-494-1268.
Air ride dedicated flatbed usually using SA Trucking out of Spokane.
 
I thought Hardinge HC's were a dime a dozen and not worth much anymore. Why did you have to go all the way across the USA to find one? For the record I own one and have used it almost daily for over 20 years.
 
Dualkit, Well, I'm glad to hear someone besides me sees the value in an HC !! I'll probably not use this every day but often though. I looked around on EBay, machine sites, and contacted all of my machine shop contacts in the pacific northwest for a year ..... with no results. I noticed the same clapped out machines coming up on EBay for crazy prices. I finally decided to ask Paul Babin, given he's been working with Hardinge products all his life and there seem to be more of them in the eastern U.S. Sure enough, he knew of a late model one near him and I bought it. I had it sent to him so he could do a once-over just to make sure everything was good. It wasn't - evidently someone previous had likely run water-based flood coolant and then it sat. So the dovetail needed grinding, and the carriage needed grinding and new turcite. It ended up costing more than I had hoped, and I have to say my experience with Paul Babin has been a very good one. Anyway, that's the short story. Many, many years ago I ran an HC in a prototype / low volume machine shop and learned to truly appreciate the machine. It is my lathe of choice by far for anything not requiring a tailstock - which is 99% of anything I do.

To the other posters, thank you tons for the leads on shippers and the input on air-ride. I'm on it !!
 
My HC was made in the late 50's, it was the first machine I bought when I started out on my own, just doing side jobs over 25 years ago. For the first couple years I ran production on it, sometimes it was often used over 40 hours a week, mostly custom alternator pulleys. When I got CNCs it still got daily use for doing one offs, second ops, spinning a part to deburr with a pad, file or scotch-brite. I made some custom tool holders to make many "Don't try this at home" parts on it. For the record when I got that machine it was 35 years old, and in the 25 years I have had it, it hasn't even blow a fuse. The only thing I did to it maintenance wise was add a home made belt tensioner when the belt started squealing about 10 years ago. She won't win any beauty contests and probably isn't worth more than $750 these days, but I would say she is my best machine purchase ever.
 








 
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