I am a bit late posting tonight, two reasons, had to take the wife out for our aniversary, went for a nice meal and a couple of bevvies. The other reason was as you might have guessed, something turned up today that made me feel that the self imposed exile is almost over.
A flatbed truck reverses up my drive, with what I hope is an undamaged, fully working version of the mill I ordered, with all the accessories and modifications done.
This joker here, turned up early this morning and gave the shop the once over, and kicked my a**e for suggesting I put the mill where I showed it was going in a previous post.
This is my best friend and mentor, Terry. If it can be drawn, he will most probably be able to make it. This is the man that has kept me from straying for about the last 20 years, and a phone call asking for assistance, will mean he will be there in about 10 mins, no matter what he was doing. The best mate a man could have. But a real task master when it comes to quality. He is the man who tests and inspects a lot of the turbine blades that go into R-R engines on commercial airliners.
Anyway, enough of his life history, he is here to work until he leaves to go to work himself.
Nearly down on my property.
Down onto the ground and stripped of it's protective covering, Tel has to go to work, so it is up to the expert to do his job.
This is Kevin from H&S Engineering, who said he should be able to get this machine into my shop without any stripping down, and also no need to take walls out or roofs off. At a price that was less than a third of the cost of quotes from other machine moving 'specialists'. This was a shot just before he dropped it over the edge of a step, using only a pallet truck with a pallet on it, a bit of dunnage and a few steel pipes, plus an engine hoist to take the weight. Only about 1" clearance either side of the machine.
Down, turned around, lifted up to get a length of ply underneath and pipes put in, ready for the assault on the doorway and it's six inch step up. One major problem was encountered during this installation. The paving slabs that covered my whole garden have a pattern on them that is called Riven pattern. This is like a corrugated effect, but instead of being regular is a random pattern all over, this was a major obstacle. The whole 800+KG could only be moved with a pry bar, one inch at a time.
After nearly two hours of inching along and getting it into position we finally got it thru the door, I forgot to take pics of the actual method, of swinging it in at an angle, moving the table fully one way, then swinging it straight as it was moved forwards. You end up with what is in this pick, just ready to go forwards into the shop.
This is the same position, but from a different angle. Just the back end to go in.
The whole machine is in the shop, sigh of relief. Just a matter of prying and rolling it into position.
This is it's final resting place. Hopefully, I will never have to see it moved again.
Total time, approximately 4 hours, including lunch a few fag and bad back rest breaks. In conclusion. Kevin did what he said could be done, I am a very happy bunny, and not one bit of damage to the machine or my property. In my opinion, a master mover.
Now to the machine itself. The only cleaning that it required was the oil protection on the table, which came off very easily. While Chester UK were doing all the mods, they totally cleaned the machine down and reset everything to a very useable standard, Well done Chester UK. It is now up to myself to fit the third and fourth axis DRO's and fit a power supply for two of the power feeds, Chester couldn't quite be pushed enough to supply that as a freebie.
I did a quickie hookup to check everything out, and all runs perfectly. In fact, the cooling fan in the supply box is noisier than the machine running at full wack.
A good day.
And to John, I hope all the above explains just how well Kevin did, and how happy I was with his service.
A very tired Bogs.
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