Machinery on Tracks -- Small Garage Project

[JohnerH]

So,

I'm in the process of converting my garage into a workshop,

For context it's 5m by 3.6m,

I have a whole bunch of kit which I plan to put in there with a plan to contruct another "temperary" outhouse next year where I'll put more kit.

One piece of said kit is a 24" Wadkin RM.

Now if I'm wanting to do milling on long lengh wood I'll be, for a lack of better words, snooked.

So I started thinking how I make this beautiful machine as flexible as possible, considering it weight around 1400kg to 1600kg.

Ie.:

• If I want to do small/medium milling I'd leave the RM inside the shop.
• If I want to do large/long milling I'd rail the machine outside, set it/fix it (somehow) then once finished rail it back in.

Thoughts?

Also, anyone have experience in putting machinery on rails?

 

[deema]

Pallet truck (usually rated at 2 tonnes +), and put your machine on legs so that the forks will slip underneath. It’s what all my machines are on including a machine that weighs well over 1 tonne. I have a few trucks, including a stacker trucks and I often use them with a pallet in the forks as benches, outfeed tables. I picked up recently a small secondhand stacker truck with adjustable width forks off eBay (£300 delivered) that will lift 1 tonne up to 85cm off the deck. I deal for loading / unloading a van or acting as an outfeed table

 

[Sideways]

Line the machine up between two doors so you can feed in and out. Or place it just inside a door so you have max depth inside the building to feed into. @deema 's advice is great but I wouldn't want to heave a 1.6T machine around on anything except a perfectly smooth, flat floor. Too much like hard work.

If you do need mobility like that rather than only moving it once every couple of years, you'll have to be realistic, compromise and settle for less massive machinery.

 

[JohnerH]

Pallet truck (usually rated at 2 tonnes +), and put your machine on legs so that the forks will slip underneath. It’s what all my machines are on including a machine that weighs well over 1 tonne. I have a few trucks, including a stacker trucks and I often use them with a pallet in the forks as benches, outfeed tables. I picked up recently a small secondhand stacker truck with adjustable width forks off eBay (£300 delivered) that will lift 1 tonne up to 85cm off the deck. I deal for loading / unloading a van or acting as an outfeed table

View attachment 187920

Good idea for sporadic movement, but in this case I reckon it would probably be a few times a quarter?

Line the machine up between two doors so you can feed in and out.

No door just one big garage door at the front with other kit on the back of it...

Or place it just inside a door so you have max depth inside the building to feed into. @deema 's advice is great but I wouldn't want to heave a 1.6T machine around on anything except a perfectly smooth, flat floor. Too much like hard work.

Neither would I hence the rail idea... rail it out, rail it in?

If you do need mobility like that rather than only moving it once every couple of years, you'll have to be realistic, compromise and settle for less massive machinery.

Kit's already bought, what started as a hunt for an RS Lathe for the Mrs, ended in me buying too much wadkin kit.

Problem solving continues.