Moving 250kg lathe.

[Wood&StuffLtd]

Any advice please is welcome. I need to move my Axminster Trade lathe which weighs nearly quarter of a tonne. It is on cast iron legs and I require to move one end about 6”. I am on my own so no help available.

 

[Adam W.]

Trolley jack, you know the one for your car or an engine hoist if you have one.

Lift it up one end and shove it over. If you need to, put a spreader underneath it made from a quality bit of timber with no knots in it.

That's how I shuffle mine about. If I need to move it further I put it on castors and push it.

 

[RobinBHM]

That will move with levers - crowbar or similar

 

[Eric Roy]

Some baulks of timber under the leg cross pieces and then some judicious levering with a strong spade worked well for me. Mine is a Stratos weighing about 280Kg.

 

[nealgs]

I managed to move my (lightweight in comparison) 165kg Clarke lathe using my trolley jack and a piece of 6x3 wood underneath the legs of it's table whilst i moved it onto an new table.

Not easy and a bit of a balancing act - but it worked. See pics.

 

[dickm]

If the legs are cast iron. be very careful to ensure that those at the headstock end aren't in any way stuck down to the floor. Even moving the tailstock end 6 inches could crack the headstock legs if they can't move to compensate. Don't ask me how I know this.

 

[Adam W.]

If the legs are cast iron. be very careful to ensure that those at the headstock end aren't in any way stuck down to the floor. Even moving the tailstock end 6 inches could crack the headstock legs if they can't move to compensate. Don't ask me how I know this.

Go on, tell us.

 

[TFrench]

A decent crowbar and some wood packers so you don't damage the floor with it. My wadkin is a cast iron monster and it moves easy with the right levers and rollers.

 

[Inspector]

If the roof is beefy enough you can attach pulleys in the direction you want to move it and some rope. Lift the end a little, push it a bit and it will slide it into place. Come-along or a chain winch will work too.

Pete

 

[Nick.]

If it's just one end to move by 6 inches, then position headstock/banjo/tailstock to the other end and just push it, or use levers as suggested - shouldn't be too hard assuming you don't need to lift it over anything?
But as DickM said, make sure the other end is not fixed down.

 

[KingAether]

Depending where you are in Poole and how stuck you get with it i might be able to stop in and give a hand as im just down the road. If its just 6 inches, depending on which end your moving it might not be so difficult, you should be able to lift the tailstock end and swivel it easily as most of the weight is the other end.

 

[JobandKnock]

A couple of 36in pry bars and wooden blocks. I've moved cast iron pin routers that way in the past on concrete floors, an inch or two at a time - and they weighed 1200kg

 

[Jameshow]

I'd put a ratchet strap round it and pull it using a fixed eye bolt in the ground.

Some cheap plastic chopping boards will help if it's stubbon.

Cheers James

 

[Fergie 307]

Only thing I would add is if it has small feet then you need to be careful they don't dig grooves in the floor. If you have any local metal fabricators they will probably give you some small offcuts of 2mm plate you can put under them. Makes life much easier.

 

[TheTiddles]

Remember you don’t need to pick it up, just lever it, so maybe it’s just 100kg to lift (don’t know which end you are moving). A lever 10x longer than the working end is now just a push of 10kg (sorry not a force but you get the idea). Moving 6” is just a slight rotation of that lever