Moving a small horizontal mill

How do I get a small horizontal mill from the street into my shop?

I purchased a small mill---like a Barker or Burke---on weebay. It will be on a truck next week. I'm estimating 650 lb and it's on a pallet. I need to figure out how to get it from the liftgate to my shop. The driveway is fairly level but it's gravel and the street-driveway transition is a bit rough. The shop is 1 step up from grade, which I'm not too worried about.

Would really like to hear any ideas.

Some things I've considered are

1. 2-wheel dolly (LOL)
2. an appliance dolly
3. remove base from stand and transport parts on a wagon with air-filled tires and 350-lb capacity (need to buy engine hoist)
4. hope for a friendly driver and a pallet jack and use OSB sheets to "pave" the way

whos putting it on the truck? Have it picked up by a monorail instead

Here's some good advice

Help with Horizontal Mill ID and moving question

durableoreo said:

How do I get a small horizontal mill from the street into my shop?

I purchased a small mill---like a Barker or Burke---on weebay. It will be on a truck next week. I'm estimating 650 lb and it's on a pallet. I need to figure out how to get it from the liftgate to my shop. The driveway is fairly level but it's gravel and the street-driveway transition is a bit rough. The shop is 1 step up from grade, which I'm not too worried about.

Would really like to hear any ideas.

Some things I've considered are

1. 2-wheel dolly (LOL)
2. an appliance dolly
3. remove base from stand and transport parts on a wagon with air-filled tires and 350-lb capacity (need to buy engine hoist)
4. hope for a friendly driver and a pallet jack and use OSB sheets to "pave" the way

Click to expand...

Low-end 2-Wheeled dolly moved my Burke B-100-4 /#4.

Mere minutes to separate into:

- Base / pillar casting

- Coolant catchment tray casting

- Knee, complete

- Motor swing plate with motor

- "main" casting, over-arm included

Total was only around a 400 lb load in the Caravan perched in some recycled tires for the trip. It no longer had one of the heavy Master/Lima/Century integral geared-head motors, only a recycled Rockwell power-tool single-phase.

It wasn't even the larger of my three 2-wheeled hand-trucks.

Since re-assembled it lives on an ignorant furniture dolly

A Barker?

One man lift. Or strap it to a hand truck, intact.

The Quartet combo mill? 5205 Avoir. The Alzmetall drillpress? 4,400 Avoir.

Those I had to break down into two at load-out, rig-in and re-assemble. Rented forklift and my herd of skates and stuff.

Still only a one-man tasking.

The Burke was less trouble than an ignorant queen or king sized mattress.

Get some friends and a moving ramp/appliance dolly. I moved a 650 lb machine with a friend of mine in a box truck that way before I had any moving equipment

OK. I will plan to disassemble. Can call in a few favors, too, if it comes to that. If nothing else, it'll entertain the neighbors!


BTW, it's marked V. A. Carroll, cast into the stand and the mill itself. Can't find anything about it. Apparently Carroll had a few companies that made lathes but there's no record of any mills.

Thanks for the advice, guys.

durableoreo said:

OK. I will plan to disassemble. Can call in a few favors, too, if it comes to that. If nothing else, it'll entertain the neighbors!


BTW, it's marked V. A. Carroll, cast into the stand and the mill itself. Can't find anything about it. Apparently Carroll had a few companies that made lathes but there's no record of any mills.

Thanks for the advice, guys.

Click to expand...

You mean "A V' Carrol". Vintagemachinery.org has history. An eBay "sold" listing shows it pehaps a tad heavier than a Burke #4 @ approx 300 to 400 lbs, depending on geared motor - or not.

It could have been "bought in" to fill out a product line. Lot of that going on, early days to present day. LeBlond himself began as a component supplier to other machine-tool builders, built an empire, then ate too much rice and became Japanese. Go figure..

So did BirdPort, starting with lightwieght add-on milling heads that growed theyselves heavy asses, then adopted more optimistic ones yet as overly-defensive owners! Where did THEY end up being built? That damned addictive rice, again!



The US Army manual for the Burke ain't much, as-in "use any good grade of grease", but free for the download, and is at least informative as to small mills, in general.

Hardinge T series is another one very close in size. Mass, as well, most probably.

And then one has Whitney, Rockford, Diamond, Nichols, yadda, yadda. perhaps fifty makers, globally. Small mills so often handy they were built all over the place much as BBQ grilles and pulled-pork ovens and smokers are today.

I would assume the lift-gate delivery truck comes with a palette jack. If you prepare a nice surface for the driver, he/she will probably be quite happy to move the palette as far as the nice surface extends. Slopes are not nice, however, although you can and should offer to push if it's only a tiny slope.

sfriedberg said:

I would assume the lift-gate delivery truck comes with a palette jack. If you prepare a nice surface for the driver, he/she will probably be quite happy to move the palette as far as the nice surface extends. Slopes are not nice, however, although you can and should offer to push if it's only a tiny slope.

Click to expand...

Guy that delivered a 360 lb power hospital bed faced my uphill driveway, not my level one.

All I had to do was bet him twenty bucks he didn't have the muscle to push the pallet jack 35 feet UPHILL.

Payup and smile, say "I never wudda thot it!" when I lost the bet!

Oh, yes, A V Carroll is right. I think you're looking at the listing I bought. It's always a risk to buy from such distance but we settled on a price to account for that uncertainty. Even if the spindle bearings are shot, I think I'll make out OK. There were not many other options. Lots of choices in you want to pay 1200 $ plus another 400-600 in freight.

You said "bought in". Like Pontiac selling the Toyota Matrix but selling it as the Vibe, I suppose. Re-badging. Oh, the maker is marked on a cover, not the main casting.

Do you recognize it? It's not a Burke... the belt runs inside the casting and the motor is housed, not hanging off the side. Not a Barker, either. I hope there's some step pulleys in there.

durableoreo said:

Oh, yes, A V Carroll is right. I think you're looking at the listing I bought. It's always a risk to buy from such distance but we settled on a price to account for that uncertainty. Even if the spindle bearings are shot, I think I'll make out OK. There were not many other options. Lots of choices in you want to pay 1200 $ plus another 400-600 in freight.

You said "bought in". Like Pontiac selling the Toyota Matrix but selling it as the Vibe, I suppose. Re-badging. Oh, the maker is marked on a cover, not the main casting.

Do you recognize it? It's not a Burke... the belt runs inside the casting and the motor is housed, not hanging off the side. Not a Barker, either. I hope there's some step pulleys in there.

Click to expand...

Motor is housed like the Hardinge.

None of that much matters. Horizontal mills are so easy you could roll your own.

One of the Burke's Timkens cross refs to an obsolete jeep. The other one probably did as well, "back in the day", given the Burke #4 first saw light of day around 1903 with Iron bearings, then Bronze plain bearings, grew Timken tapered later, then spherical roller balls for high speed.

Dirt simple machines, actually. If you can't understand something? Simply alter it so you DO.

Can the truck back right up to the shop and lower lift gate to stop at shop floor level? Bet him $20 he cant do it

I seriously considered DIY. Got out the Lincoln books on weldment design, drew out the structure, calculated the moments of inertia, priced out the steel, etc. Even if I could get it right on my first try, it would cost 1200 minimum, not counting electricity for the welding machine. And that design would involve buying an import XY table so it wouldn't even very stout. Oh, and I've never done anything on that scale so it would be quite a leap of arrogance to believe I could make something that worked and was better than the used (or new) options.

lift-gate delivery truck comes with a palette jack.
Using a lift gate move the down lever as slow as you can, so to bleed the pressure at the start. Some seem to jump the first inch and that can dump a machine...stay well clear, you can’t catch 500 pounds but it can kill or break bones.
Closed truck side walls are not that strong and a machine can tip over , so flood block-in so it can’t slide forward, blocked or tied so it can top forward or sideways.