Will a pallet jack work for my uses?

I work in my shop alone and I am going to be rearranging and replacing the machines in the shop. Since the machines will be moved as the need arises and since they are not really big machines (max 6,000lb lathe) bringing in a rigging crew for every move is not practical. I can get muscle for the pulling and pushing but the planning and setup for each move will be done by me.

I am thinking that I can use a Jet 8,000 pallet jack to move some of the equipment directly (the medium sized bed mills, around 3,500 lbs) and to act as a steerable machine skate under the spindle end of the lathes (machine max. weight 6,000 lbs). The floor of my shop is dead smooth and level concrete. I would rather not use skates with inexpert help to look out for trouble.

The plan for the mills would be to raise them on the pallet jack and gently rotate them to the required direction of travel. Then the mills would be moved forward with the height of the pallet jack carefully adjusted so that I can position a 10foot 4x4 under the outer edges of the base with about 1/4inch clearance as the machine is moved. It would not work very well to fasten the 4x4s onto the base because of turning restrictions. I am in absolutely no hurry and the moves will only be about 30 feet.

The lathes basically need to be rotated in position before being pushed backwards a short distance into their new position. I am thinking of putting the pallet jack under the spindle end and then putting the tailstock end on a firm series of blocks to match the spindle end height. The tailstock end would rest on two greased metal plates to make a rotary bearing. Then I simply?? pull the pallet jack to rotate the lathes around the tailstock. Once again, no rush.

Do you think this will work or should I just take a long cold shower?

Thanks, Brian

How are you going to get them on the pallet jack? (3”?)


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Most of my machines set on 4x4 wood blocks just so that I can reconfigure cells at will with a pallet jack.
I see no problems with your task.
Bob

Get an 8000# electric pallet jack. Fabricate risers on all your machine's bases so that you can position the pallet jack underneath them and one person can do the move. You might need a platform in front of the machines to stand on as they will be taller.

Presently the mill is actually standing on 4x4's so that one is easy. The lathe is coming up to finishing a rebuild which is why I will be moving it into its final position so that machine is on 4 inch thick lumber also.

The new mill will be on a shipping base but it is being delivered by a rigging company so getting it onto the floor in the right place is their problem. It will be where the old mill is presently. Being on the short side I will probably leave out the 4x4 on the mill this time.

Thanks for the advice. I needed a confidence boost before starting the lifts.

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I would recommend making the front-to-back depth of your lathe riser and subsequently the area bearing on the pallet jack deeper while moving it. Lathes are so top heavy, you want to spread out the base a bit so it won’t tip if you hit a crack or piece of debris on the floor

I agree, if your going to pallet jack a lathe, keep 4x4s under it in case of tipping over. That way you can drop it immediately if anything happens.

The only real good thing about a pallet jack is the turning radius but that is what will tip machinery over as well. So be careful with the bigger stuff. I move my ironworker with a pallet jack and if I turn the handle more then 45* the ironworker will tip.

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Good points, especially about the turning radius.

Most pallet jacks are 27x48 and the 8,000 pound Jet is only available in that size. Based on the size of the bases of the machines I plan to move I was tempted to go down to the Jet 6,000 pound range because with those you can get 27x42 forks also. I thought the shorter fork may be stronger in bending load but it looks as though this may be a bad trade-off. Unfortunately, as far as you can tell from the spec. sheet the only difference between the 6,000 pound unit and the 8,000 pound unit is the size of the hydraulic ram. I would be surprised if the forks had not been strengthened also.

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If you have cutting gear and can weld, pallet jacks are really easy to make smaller, smaller is oh so good, that said, IMHO for anything over 2000lbs aka 1 ton you need to be motorized, manual just don't realy work well at all above this. its not just help to push its control and you just don't have it.

IMHO skates are a better bet for your weight range, you can just inch things along single handed with a crow bar and its not even hard, just nice slow and controlled. Less people the better.

I've moved machines with pallet jacks, including a lathe that size. I'll only do it now if I have very competent help while I do it, because the pallet jacks are flexible and make the job creepy. I'd rather recommend you beg borrow or rent skates, and put them under a 2X8 at each end of the lathe. I'll post a photo of that, it's way more stable and predictable. Barring that, get some (a dozen or so) 4' long pieces of 1/2 or 3/4 dia steel rod, put them under the machine and slide the machine along the rods like upside down sled runners with a pry bar. If the worst happens and the machine falls off a rod, 1/2" drop won't tip a machine, and they slide surprisingly well if you aren't going far, plus you'll be able to pivot the machine on them as you describe wanting to.

I've moved all my machines with pallet jacks. I found I can move up to about 4000# with ease. I have a HF 5000# 27x48 that works ok (price was right) and recently I purchased a new Crown 5000# 20x36 that's great.

I had to move a couple lathes earlier this year, I used a toe jack and car dollies. Worked pretty good for my 15" Colchester, but anything much heavier probably would have been pushing it...

I’m planning on moving a machine I’m prepping to buy (MiniMill 2) by pallet jack. Uline has a good selection of jacks, as well as a ton of other companies. There’s definitely varying grades.

If you’ve got smooth floors you can always raise the machine just enough to get it off the ground +1/4” and for the most part it is basically impossible to tip it at that point, as long as the risers it was parked on are still attached to it.

Polyurethane pallet jack wheels are going to roll with more resistance than machine skates. Pallets get tipsy when you turn the wheel maybe past 45-degrees as was said earlier, just like a triangle with a wheel on one end they wants to kick out. But I think if the machine is close to the ground and still above risers that can support it, it wouldn’t be a worry to move it with a pallet jack. Worst case scenario the jack becomes spaghetti and the machine drops 1/4”.

FWIW, my experience has been, it's best to leave longer lathes leveled and fixed in position. In my case along a wall. That way I can move my short lathes, mills, grinders, and radial drill around as needed. In my case easily done with a pallet jack and overhead beam.

L7

We move machines up to about 8k pounds with an 8k manual pallet jack regularly, including VMCs. More nimble than the forklift and easier than the skates. To be fair our skates are cheapies.

Having had no success buying a Jet 8,000 pound pallet jack in our local area I settled on a Stromberg CPJ10000 from a local branch of Materialflow which seems to be a small but nationwide company. As it names suggests this device is rated at 10,000 pounds. Initially I went to the store to simply look at the jack but since it looked pretty well made I decided to take one home.

Now, I suppose I am going to surprise you by saying that as soon as I arrived back at the shop I immediately unwrapped it and put it to work. (insert smiley here)

Within an hour I had moved my old 3500 pound milling machine across the room to get out of the way because my new mill arrives on Wednesday. No problems whatsoever doing it alone. I followed up with 4x4s with the jack set to provide about a 1/4 inch clearance above them but the ride on the forks was rock solid. I did make gentle turns as has been suggested. Now I can continue to work on the old mill until I have the new machine up to speed.

Thanks for the advice Guys.

Brian
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Comatose said:

We move machines up to about 8k pounds with an 8k manual pallet jack regularly, including VMCs. More nimble than the forklift and easier than the skates. To be fair our skates are cheapies.

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I've lifted about 9,000 lbs with a 10,000 lb manual pallet jack but found even with all metal wheels it is really difficult to get that much weight actually moving across the concrete shop floor.

Ironically electric pallet jacks, which are built much heavier duty, almost effortless to raise load and move it, plus safer than manual ones (side casters at the rear, brakes, etc... AC electrics with regen braking best of all) , usually max out at 8,000 lbs capacity and even those are hard to find in the used market...6,000 lb capacity way more common.

Having said that, electrics are handy for using as a "tug" to move machines on skates, and on longer items skates can be on one end and use the electric jack on the other end. Section of plywood handy to use between the electric jack legs and bottom of machine for turns....careful however, constant watch during turns to be sure one fork not about to come free of the load.

If one has the room, a used electric pallet jack with 8 foot forks is super handy for moving things like automatic bandsaws and smaller vmc's where you can't get a normal pallet jack under enough. The 8 footers are meant for transporting 2 pallets at once of course but they work amazingly well for certain machine tools.

is your floor flat or a sloped garage floor? There is a big difference when using a pallet jack up hill or cross slope on a garage floor.

I have moved some heavy awkward woodworking machinery with a pair of walkies.

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Mr.Green said:

I have moved some heavy awkward woodworking machinery with a pair of walkies.

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Define "heavy". (by myself) I once moved a 5 x 10 foot travel Northwood CNC router from semi trailer on to loading dock to inside shop... and then back again months later after selling it.....with machinery skates on one end and a 6000 lb capacity electric pallet jack at the other end.

Probably 16 feet long... like moving a battleship from a size standpoint but not really all that heavy compared to a Cincinnati no. 5 mill, which is way smaller physically. Relatively easy move considering the machine size, but only thanks to the electric pallet jack...would have been a major PITA otherwise.