Taking the Plunge

[David King]

How cold does it get in the winter? Or wet? Iron machines will rust if condensation is common.

That's definitely a concern in western Oregon where the temp can climb 40º in a day and humidity runs between 65% and 85% all winter. I keep a 40 W lightbulb burning in the column cubby hole to try to keep the machine a little bit warmer than ambient air but no matter how much WD-40 I spray on the thing it rusts when the "pineapple express" comes to town. A local rigger wanted $800 just to get into the basement. A new garage door, insulation, heat and roof patching might easily be double that but the extra work space would be welcome. In the meanwhile I'll bundle up and empty the rain buckets in the dark.

[Joe Gwinn]

That's definitely a concern in western Oregon where the temp can climb 40º in a day and humidity runs between 65% and 85% all winter. I keep a 40 W lightbulb burning in the column cubby hole to try to keep the machine a little bit warmer than ambient air but no matter how much WD-40 I spray on the thing it rusts when the "pineapple express" comes to town.

WD-40 isn't very good at preventing corrosion. Use a way oil like Vactra-2 http://www1.mscdirect.com/CGI/NNSRIT...MT4NO=15901344. This same oil is used on and in the mill itself.

A local rigger wanted $800 just to get into the basement. A new garage door, insulation, heat and roof patching might easily be double that but the extra work space would be welcome. In the meanwhile I'll bundle up and empty the rain buckets in the dark.

Riggers are expensive. I had estimates ranging from $500 (sounded like stumblebums - too many red flags) to $1500 (sounded like the pros), and ended up doing the move myself, with the help of the seller. Paid a towtruck operator $150 to pick the machine up out of the bed of the 3/4 ton pickup truck and put it down on the driveway. Took the 250-pound head off the machine (undo four big bolts and lift off with the towtruck crane), and then used the towtruck to put the dangling machine base through the door opening, clearing the threshold, and set the base down on the concrete floor. Rolled base into place using the "Egyptian method" (a pinch bar or two, a set of 1/4" thich steel shims, and some 1" iron rollers), put the head back on the machine base with a rented ($40) engine foist from the local Taylor Rentals. The whole operation took 3 or 4 hours.

[David King]

Joe, that's definitely the direction I had in mind but it's going to require careful planning and a chain hoist to raise the column and smaller bits up a short flight of stairs (my garage is downhill from my basement). The engine hoists are a dime a dozen around here but they aren't particularly stable with loads in the 1 ton range. I've moved a lot of other equipment into place using a ramp and come-along but the mill is another level of commitment for a one-person moving operation. I have friends to help but liability becomes an issue and my friends need all their fingers at the end of the day.

I'll try way oil since I have a gallon of it, most of the rust seems to come from the Kurt vise, I didn't quite expect that since it's practically new but I suppose the old iron is pretty good stuff.

[Joe Gwinn]

Joe, that's definitely the direction I had in mind but it's going to require careful planning and a chain hoist to raise the column and smaller bits up a short flight of stairs (my garage is downhill from my basement).

Planning is a very good idea. It took me a month of planning before I arrived at the final plan, the one I used. But no plan ever fully works: I didn't intend to take the head off, but it turned out that the nylon slings stretched a bit too much, so the crane head was too high to get through the door opening.

The original plan did not require the engine hoist, but I rented it anyway, as insurance. Which paid off.

As for planning, I made up to-scale drawings of my basement and its doors and walls, and the machine to be moved, and played paper dolls to ensure that the machine really could be wiggled through the door opening and maneuvered into place.

Would a rented forklift truck be able to get the machine up over the flight of stairs? If the stairs were temporarily removed (using that same forklift)?

The engine hoists are a dime a dozen around here but they aren't particularly stable with loads in the 1 ton range.

Right, they are really for more like 1,000 pounds, with the load between their feet. The towtruck is rated for 10,000 pounds at the end of a ten-foot boom, so a 1200-pound machine was no problem at all.

I've moved a lot of other equipment into place using a ramp and come-along but the mill is another level of commitment for a one-person moving operation. I have friends to help but liability becomes an issue and my friends need all their fingers at the end of the day.

I like my fingers too, much more than I'd like the insurance money.

Given the expense of riggers, I wasn't shy about buying real industrial rigging equipment (like chain, hooks, slings, shackles, and rings) that I will use only rarely. Not that the equipment is all that expensive, but it did have to be bought from MSC, as local sources had only the really big stuff, stuff that's quite awkward to use on something that small, or hardware-store junk that would be a danger to use.

I'll try way oil since I have a gallon of it, most of the rust seems to come from the Kurt vise, I didn't quite expect that since it's practically new but I suppose the old iron is pretty good stuff.

The Kurt is made of some kind of high-carbon alloy steel, and as a rule of thumb, the stronger the steel the easier it rusts. There are exceptions to this rule, but such alloys are expensive, and so are uncommon in machine tools and tooling.

Hardware stores. The rule is that if the manufacturer does not guarantee a specific safe working load in pounds or kilograms, then the item is strictly for decoration.

Maybe the 40-watt bulb needs to become 75 watts, so the vice always gets warm enough.

[Zhangliqun]

This is all so bewildering for a guy in a 2nd floor apartment with just a mini-table saw and a mini-drill press. All you guys he-manning this stuff into your basements keep us posted. I can't speak for others but with all these parts problems, you'd definitely have a steady customer in me if you ever decided you wanted to sell your parts.

[David Schwab]

This is all so bewildering for a guy in a 2nd floor apartment with just a mini-table saw and a mini-drill press. All you guys he-manning this stuff into your basements keep us posted. I can't speak for others but with all these parts problems, you'd definitely have a steady customer in me if you ever decided you wanted to sell your parts.

I'm currently in the same position as you (second floor apartment). But when I was in a house I had the dubious pleasure of moving a Delta 14" Band Saw and a Jet 6" Jointer myself. The jointer was the hard one. I remember trying to lift it out of the box, and then trying to find a place to set it on! I had to use an intermediary platform (a milk crate) to set it on before I lifted it on the base! I was a younger man then... Then a year later it all got moved again... this time to a third floor factory building.. at least they had a freight elevator!

[Spence]

Well i bought that book entitled New Encyclopedia of Machine Shop Practice on Ebay. Waiting for it to arrive.

I have to say it astonished me to see how many of you are moving industrial equiptment into your baesments. It does sound like overkill to be honest. But, if you can turn out parts for pickups it will all be worth it.

[ken]

There are other good old school machinist books out there. I want to make my own parts so I don't have to deal with price or quality hassles, but I don't want to have to 'reinvent the wheel'. I admit SC pickup makers have an easier job making their own parts, but IMHO making your own parts is the best way to go.
Besides, I like telling people I made my own parts.

I am working on making my own HB baseplates myself. The bobbins would be much harder to make, that is if you want them to be any other color than black.

Ken

[Spence]

I am working on making my own HB baseplates myself. The bobbins would be much harder to make, that is if you want them to be any other color than black.

Ken[/QUOTE]

Well how much does the plastic shrink by when cooled? Once you know that Ken you could mill an enlarged bobbin from which to make a mould and choose any color you want.

[ken]

Mold making isn't all that hard, it's finding the right plastic. I don't know exactly how much a cooling bobbin would shrink, but considering the small size of the parts we use it couldn't be too much relative size at all.

Black is black, if you find the right kind of black plastic you can carefully remelt it and make bobbins.

However, a good looking cream colored plastic is a different story. Light colored plastic resins are not cheap, because those colors are relatively 'fresh' (virgin) and plastics are dyed darker colored as they are recycled more and more times. Once plastics have been recycled say three or four times, these pellets are dyed black because it's too difficult to get all the old dye out of recycled plastic. Besides, plastics houses that custom color plastic won't make custom colors for less than a cube tote or so of plastic pellets. A 'cube' of plastic is roughly half a ton of plastic pellets.

I have a friend who works at a computer recycling plant, and I was actually thinking once about melting down old computer cases to get cheap cream colored thermoplastic. Unfortunately, not too many cases were even close to the correct color when new. Not to mention the people who smoke and surf... ever try to get a smoky brownish computer case clean? Never again.

I thought it would be cool to have pickups at shows with clear plastic bobbins, so people can see the magnet and other parts.

The industrial equipment isn't all that necessary, many make good pickups without it. However, if you're into specialty stuff like five and six string bass
pickup parts or pickup covers made of fine woods for example, a good mini mill is always useful.

Ken