Moving a CMM

We've acquired a nice little Mitutoyo B 231 manual CMM. I'll have to move this machine to our sister facility which is about 50 miles away and I have a question about how to support / protect the graphite air bearings during the move. There's three covers that can be removed on the gantry that give access to shipping bracket holes that align with threaded inserts in the table. I don't want to risk damaging the graphite bearings when anchoring the gantry for shipping and am wondering if they should be backed off and then supported with blocking? Does anyone have any experience moving a CMM with graphite air bearings? Should something be placed between the glass scales and the readers? This machine seems to be a jewel that has seen little use, we don't have the money to hire this out and want to take all precautions to prevent damage.

You do need to block properly and remove loading, keep things from moving. Contact the mfr. for their information on how to do it. If you have the factory-made stuff, use it.

Thanks specfab, I did contact Mitutoyo and they sent me a uncrating and unpacking brochure which does show shipping brackets and spacers installed to presumably removed the loading from the air bearings. Unfortunately the factory brackets are long gone but I should be able to fab something up. What this document didn't specify though was should the jacking screws for the air bearings be backed off or not and if they are, how should they be adjusted back to re-align.

I would love to actually have "CMM riggers" come in and do this job however, this CMM was donated to us and just getting upper management to approve a software retrofit is going to be a chore, much less approving riggers, alignment, etc. If I can get it moved and verify that everything works and is accurate, I may have a little more success getting money for calibration, upgrades, etc.

I moved a Zeiss Eclipse machine from a leased building to our new (at the time) building that was only a half-mile away, back in the late 90's. Once it's safely packed and on the truck, it doesn't much matter how far you need to drive it. ...
In that situation, I had retained all the factory cribbing and blocking stuff, the major piece of which was the x-beam support structure. It basically supports the beam in a cushioned pocket, and gets bolted to the granite plate surface, unlike having built-in features to lock down the Y-axis as you show. I do NOT remember making any adjustments to the airbearing jackscrews for transport, but it may make sense to do so, depending on how the x-beam is supported. If you decide to back the bearing screws off, just do so uniformly all around, and make sure you remember how much you backed the screws off. Also, ask the Mitutoyo guys if this is required, or additionally, engage the local CMM calibration/service guys in the discussion. It will be absolutely necessary to have the machine re-calibrated after the move once it is set up again at the new location, and talking to whoever you will need to hire, ahead of time, may be a help in getting some of the questions answered that you have right now.

CMM moving

I agree with everything said, and cannot emphasize enough how critical it is to have everything SECURED before moving. At a previous employer, we had a small Brown & Sharpe manual CMM that we moved from a sister shop to our main facility (about 20 miles). Since the original shipping brackets had long disappeared, we had to get "creative" to get everything immobilized. In addition to cribbing, cushioning, and strapping, we used stretch wrap liberally to make sure NOTHING moved. Being in Florida, we also made sure to leave an opening in the top to make sure we didn't have any issues with humidity build-up inside the plastic.
This machine also had air bearings, and I don't think any "backing off" was done to them prior to the move.
Good luck!