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Suggestions for moving a mill down a flight of stairs

bentwrench

Cast Iron
Joined
Oct 25, 2007
Location
North Dakota
So this question is not from my work, but for a personal shop machine and I apologize if this is not the correct place to ask. I have read a few threads on this on various sites and have an idea of what some people have done before, but I would welcome any who has hade experience with this.

I have a little Gorton 0-16a, I say little but that damn thing probably weighs just as much as a full-size Bridgeport, and I have been thinking it would be best to move into a my basement shop. I have a south bend lathe down there how, but I could carry each part of that by myself down there.

So if I take the mill completely apart I am guessing the base casting is still probably better than 800 pounds. Obviously the staircase needs to be shored up, some lumber added underneath temporarily to support the weight and a track made of 2x4 or 2x6 to slide the castings down the stairs on. Its a straight shot through the garage and have a nice wide stair well to the basement, I can figure out how to rig a winch or chain fall up and support it properly. These are my initial thoughts anyway.
 
Now would be a good time to dig outside the foundation, and install a nice Bilco door, have the block laid up so you can pull the stairs out of the way, and crane the thing straight down, dolly it inside.
 
I helped move a lathe (SB 10) down into a basement but I have never moved a mill. I think the most important thing to do is to keep it from getting away from you. I don't like doing that sort of thing with a coffin hoist. They just don't feed out as smoothly. A chain fall would be a good choice in my opinion. When we did it we got some cheap floor jacks from HF and put one under each stair tread. It worked fine. Gravity will get it down but like I said, you don't want it getting away from you. We stuck a four by four across an adjacent doorway to tie it off.
 
Now would be a good time to dig outside the foundation, and install a nice Bilco door, have the block laid up so you can pull the stairs out of the way, and crane the thing straight down, dolly it inside.

I have an egress window in the basement shop space, I was scratching my head looking at it wondering if the casting could fit through, the is a big tree about 15 feet across from the window well I could use to anchor to. That would only be an option if I waited until spring.
 
I have an egress window in the basement shop space, I was scratching my head looking at it wondering if the casting could fit through, the is a big tree about 15 feet across from the window well I could use to anchor to. That would only be an option if I waited until spring.

Your half way there.
Quicky saw that window opening to a double mandoor 72" opening,
lay up a "swale" of dry laid retaining block wall, ramp the ground up
gradually.
 
never thought about an egress well being halfway to a elevator shaft to your basement
but it sure as hell is
 
Taking it apart makes a lot of sense.

Bolt the base to a framework of at least 2x4s to keep it from tipping. Whatever type of winch or comealong you use to hold it back, make sure that it does not have open hooks. Safety hooks or at least wires to keep things from coming apart. There’s nothing like pulling on a machine to start it down the ramp only to find that the sling has slipped off the comealong holding it back. Make sure the fixed end of the comealong is attached to something solid.

Unless your stairs are old and weak, I’d say that they can likely hold the 800 pounds without reinforcement - especially as the load will be spread over a ramp. But then, I haven’t seen your stairs. And, if you and/or others are standing on them to help guide the parts down, who knows?
 
I have an egress window in the basement shop space, I was scratching my head looking at it wondering if the casting could fit through, the is a big tree about 15 feet across from the window well I could use to anchor to. That would only be an option if I waited until spring.

I dunno. Now might be a good time for it. The ground is nice and solid right now. Make some skids and you can just drag the mill across the lawn and to your window well.

I've been allured into getting bigger and bigger forklifts at my home / farm shop. But what I have discovered is that the bigger machines weigh a lot more and make a big mess of the grass and in the mud. So I wait for a nice day where the ground is solid and I don't destroy the lawn with 35k of forklift. Winter is better than summer in that regard!
 
I have done similar.

I put temporary ramps on my stairs (now perm as I leave them there)

I used a hand crank winch initially, that didn't work well, it was too difficult.
I picked up a harbor freight winch (120v) and that works well.
I picked up 5" heavy duty wheels. This turns out to be a problem as with the 5" height and the lumber 2 layers of 2x material. I would recommend 2 or 3 inch cast iron/steel wheels or trolley wheels with angle iron anchored into the 2x to keep the load straight. I may do that since the 5" wheels are a problem.

For smaller /lower items I winch from the dolly, for big items I use lifting straps and winch from the center of gravity.

I created a support system from the ramps, to the winch. There are timbers that lock the winch and prevent it from going down the ramp, also there is a wheel that allows the cable to follow the bend over the edge without abrading the cable.
If the weight is really heavy, I use a snatch block to lower the speed, and decrease the lifting torque.

In your case if you have concrete entering the entrance, you can easily mount the winch to the concrete with large tap in concrete bolts and remove them after.

Generally my wife does the winching while I do the guiding. I always am aware of the danger of being below, and of the winch cable. I use towels on the winch line to prevent me getting killed by a whipping line. When I'm lower than the weight, I am at total risk. I have some 2x material that can act as a stair lock , but all they would do is give me a few seconds to get out of the way. Then I would have to exit via a window and figure out how to resolve the issue.

I also would like to add that I added supports all up and down the stairs. I used 2x4s which support the stringers, I added blocking, and ply triangles (to prevent the 2xs from moving fore and aft). This was absolutely necessary, since stairs rely on what I consider a weak joint at the top to support themselves, and to prevent bending and snapping in the middle.


In these pics, those pieces standing up by the door are L shaped 2x4s with a bridal joint and prevent the platform from lifting and going down the stairs, most all the forces are straight, so that is all that is needed to prevent the winch from lifting.

for some reason my images are not attaching after 2 attempts, I choose file, upload
and they are not there.

See images here: Ramp and Trolly - Album on Imgur
 
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I dont know about a Gorton, but a Bridgeport comes apart in a few hours using an engine lift.
The worst part is the main column, then the table knee, ram and head. Two people in good shape can get the pieces down a flight of stairs, but it may take four to get the column back up the stairs.
It takes a good day to put the mill back together, but, it needs a good cleaning anyway!
 
Once upon a time I moved a bunch of machinery down my basement. For purposes here I'll limit it to a KO Lee Cutter Grinder and a 6 X 18 Boyer Shultz surface grinder. Just like the OP I decided to take them all apart and bring them down in pieces. I don't remember all the details but I believe I used an appliance dolly for the bulk of it. When all done I thought... oh that was a lot of work but not that bad. Then years later I moved out. By the time I was done with getting it all back to ground level, I realized and swore I will NEVER EVER EVER do that again. (And I won't) A whole lot of do-a-lot for so little. And yes they were brought up in pieces just like when going down. I'd say four to five times harder going up then down, even with equipment.

I did much like woodchuckN mentioned. Mine was a home made super heavy duty 6 wheel cart with 5" heavy duty wheels. I ran them on a pair full length steel U-channels screwed to the edge of about every third step going down the basement. Used combined hand winches and straps tied to a support pole that held up the overhang on my garage. Luckily the whole thing was very roughly aligned with the basement steps. I'll warn the Op if he tries this, you have to work out the angles and clearances of the wheels and cart bottom when making the transition from the steps to the upper landing. Even where you attach the cable winch makes a big difference. Seems to me there might have even been some kind of idler pulley mounted either on the landing floor or cart underside that forced the dynamics of the load to remain level. That or tilt when we wanted it to tilt. Don't recall exactly. My point being is you have to have this all worked out before you find yourself at the top of the stairs and can't make the transition from slanted to flat. No one got killed luckily, but boy was it ever Miller time when that was over. I say the thing that may have improved the whole mess would be a power winch with a very long cable.

Just a story from a never-go-downstairs advocate who, from experience, will never do it again I know the OP is only at the going down stage, but... can't go down without eventually comming up. Think hard my fellow machine nut!
 
Heck, if you dig out the basement where that egress window is, put a nice deck over it, make a steel beam
part of the structure, put a trolley on it with chainfall.

No one will know.
 
Heck, if you dig out the basement where that egress window is, put a nice deck over it, make a steel beam
part of the structure, put a trolley on it with chainfall.

No one will know.

It can be MUCH simpler and cheaper.

Just place a few strategically located buried concrete pads in a line. Rest of the area can remain turf or "whatever".

A(ny) "moving day" cometh, lay timber or steel to the pads as "roadway" for machinery skates or a rented pallet jack or gantry. Even stout steel plates can be rented for road work & such.

Do the do. Aside the rigging gear. Rake. Done.

CAVEAT as to taking mills & DP apart. My 8-foot 2 inch ceiling didn't allow space for rigging for re-assembly if I had done that.

The 5205 lb Avoir "Quartet" combo mill and the 4400 lb Alzmetall AB5/S DP each had to be laid-over on one side, then re-erected once indoors, past a mere 6-foot-six 18-foot roll-up door, then under one of the two steel beams @ a tad over 7 feet.

And that was for otherwise walk-out access directly to a wide street-level driveway!

Laying each machine over meant first fabricating a fitted timber cradle built right ONTO each machine. Good sized steel Ell was the toe for the pivot. Four machinery skates were already through-bolted to the main rails so as not to go walkabout.

Think "hand truck". Writ large. Very!

Laid each one in turn over out on the drive with a rented forklift.

Re-erected the Roman or Egyptian way onct indoors. Read "slowly" 6-ton jackstands, timber cribbing, lots of it, chainfalls, jacks, and cherry-picker....

Re-purposed the "uber hand truck" for the next load.

One solitary OF, working alone, moving grillage and rigging gear far more than moving the two loads. But ... still only a few hours, portal to portal. And low risk, any step of the way.

I called it a good rig.

Didn't break the load, break the gear, break skin, break the bank, nor even break a sweat.

That's how yah score a rig. No problems. And no sweat, either.

Plan ahead. Use yer head.

Not yer muscles. Nor yer "luck".

Always been kinda short on both of those last two, anyway.

What is it they say?

"Who dares... get's f**ked?"

:)
 
It can be MUCH simpler and cheaper.

Just place a few strategically located buried concrete pads in a line. Rest of the area can remain turf or "whatever".

A(ny) "moving day" cometh, lay timber or steel to the pads as "roadway" for machinery skates or a rented pallet jack or gantry. Even stout steel plates can be rented for road work & such.

Do the do. Aside the rigging gear. Rake. Done.


:)
Making a "New Deck" helps with the "buy in".....:D
 
Making a "New Deck" helps with the "buy in".....:D

Needs County permits here. Plus inspection. "Non-trivial exercise".

Folks DIE in some deck failures, and failures there surely are, some of the bad ones in our area, so Counties - rightfully so - got a tad anal.

The building Codes have even gotten it badly wrong. As-in requiring HD Galvanized without regard for the change in pressure-treat chemistry that led to rapid eating-way of galvanized fasteners, couplings, reinforcements.

https://www.creia.org/assets/images...o_printing_only_post_ skipwalker_matteson.pdf

I'm using only stainless fasteners now. Pricey!

And then there are set-backs to property line you CANNOT get past.

PITA.
 








 
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