I've updated two new photo essays regarding my Bridgeport machine at:

http://www.truetex.com/machinery.htm

Namely:

Moving and Hoisting a 2400-Pound Bridgeport Milling Machine.
http://www.truetex.com/movebpt.htm

Building a DC Drive for the Bridgeport Spindle
http://www.truetex.com/dcdrv.htm

You are damn lucky your mill got home OK. Two of your 3 tie-downs relied
solely on the position of the knee for tension. Bridgeport knees have been
known to work their way downwards while being moved, which apparently didn't
happen to you. One good way to go is to screw in a forged eyebolt with 5/8-11
shaft into the tapped hole on top of the ram, then to pass a tiedown through
that bolt and crank it down tight, then do fore and aft around the base.

Anyway, you got it home OK. I concur with your forklift method - it's what's
called out in the BP manual.

Grant Erwin

Richard J Kinch wrote:
I've updated two new photo essays regarding my Bridgeport machine at:

http://www.truetex.com/machinery.htm

Namely:

Moving and Hoisting a 2400-Pound Bridgeport Milling Machine.
http://www.truetex.com/movebpt.htm

Building a DC Drive for the Bridgeport Spindle
http://www.truetex.com/dcdrv.htm

Grant Erwin writes:

You are damn lucky your mill got home OK. Two of your 3 tie-downs
relied solely on the position of the knee for tension. Bridgeport
knees have been known to work their way downwards while being moved,
which apparently didn't happen to you.

I neglected to mention, the knee was locked. And only 1 of the 3 depended
on it. But you raise a valid point.

Richard J Kinch wrote:

Grant Erwin writes:

You are damn lucky your mill got home OK. Two of your 3 tie-downs
relied solely on the position of the knee for tension. Bridgeport
knees have been known to work their way downwards while being moved,
which apparently didn't happen to you.

I neglected to mention, the knee was locked. And only 1 of the 3 depended
on it. But you raise a valid point.

Next time you move a knee mill, place a block of wood on the base under the
knee. Then run the knee down onto the block, then lock the knee. Noticed the
boards on the trailer distorting under loading from binders. A couple 4x4s
lagged or thru-bolted to the base spreads the load out nicely, and enhances
stability.

mj

Hey Grant,

Well, I didn't want to criticize success either, but there were a
number of "I wouldn't have done it that ways" apparent. At a
minimum, the head should have been inverted to drop the CG, the ram
moved back as far as possible, and then the head blocked to the
locked lowered knee.

Also, the 5/8-11 eye bolt used was waaaayyyy to long. Proper use of
an eye bolt here would be to run it in until the "eye" touches the
casting, and cut it off, if necessary, to do so.

Take care.

Brian Lawson,
Bothwell, Ontario.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
On Sun, 29 Feb 2004 23:55:32 -0800, Grant Erwin
wrote:

You are damn lucky your mill got home OK. Two of your 3 tie-downs relied
solely on the position of the knee for tension. Bridgeport knees have been
known to work their way downwards while being moved, which apparently didn't
happen to you. One good way to go is to screw in a forged eyebolt with 5/8-11
shaft into the tapped hole on top of the ram, then to pass a tiedown through
that bolt and crank it down tight, then do fore and aft around the base.

Anyway, you got it home OK. I concur with your forklift method - it's what's
called out in the BP manual.

Grant Erwin

Richard J Kinch wrote:
I've updated two new photo essays regarding my Bridgeport machine at:

http://www.truetex.com/machinery.htm

Namely:

Moving and Hoisting a 2400-Pound Bridgeport Milling Machine.
http://www.truetex.com/movebpt.htm

Building a DC Drive for the Bridgeport Spindle
http://www.truetex.com/dcdrv.htm

Brian Lawson writes:

Well, I didn't want to criticize success either, but there were a
number of "I wouldn't have done it that ways" apparent. At a
minimum, the head should have been inverted to drop the CG, the ram
moved back as far as possible, and then the head blocked to the
locked lowered knee.

I knew about inverting the head, but with forklifts at each end of the
trip, the effect on the CG didn't seem to matter.

The problem with lowering the knee is that it lowers the angle of the
chains to the trailer. Instead I put the knee higher up, so you get a
stiff triangle on each side that supports against side-to-side tipping,
which is more of a concern (at least to me) with the base being so much
narrower in that direction.

Also, the 5/8-11 eye bolt used was waaaayyyy to long. Proper use of
an eye bolt here would be to run it in until the "eye" touches the
casting, and cut it off, if necessary, to do so.

I would have preferred a proper hoisting ring myself, but as it turned
out the eye bolt was never used for moving the machine anyway. I only
grabbed it off the seller's workbench and stuck it on the ram in case I
wanted to lift off the ram separately someday, using my ceiling hooks.

michael writes:

Noticed the
boards on the trailer distorting under loading from binders. A couple
4x4s lagged or thru-bolted to the base spreads the load out nicely,
and enhances stability.

The photos from above give the appearance of the boards bending, but
actually it was one of them being previously warped from weathering. If
you look from the side you see that they weren't bending much from the
load.

I would have bolted right through the floorboards, using some lengths of
SuperStrut underneath to spread the load across, if I had known the rental
people would have allowed drilling the floorboards, which I didn't. If you
mean to bolt the machine on top of 4x4 lumber, then that adds another
failure possibility if the wood splits from a bump with all that mass
concentrated on the thin bottom edge of the base, so you have a trade off.

Richard J Kinch wrote:

Brian Lawson writes:

Well, I didn't want to criticize success either, but there were a
number of "I wouldn't have done it that ways" apparent. At a
minimum, the head should have been inverted to drop the CG, the ram
moved back as far as possible, and then the head blocked to the
locked lowered knee.

I knew about inverting the head, but with forklifts at each end of the
trip, the effect on the CG didn't seem to matter.

The problem with lowering the knee is that it lowers the angle of the
chains to the trailer. Instead I put the knee higher up, so you get a
stiff triangle on each side that supports against side-to-side tipping,
which is more of a concern (at least to me) with the base being so much
narrower in that direction.

Riggers in your area must work differently. I've been a party to a fair
amount of equipment moves and when pro riggers were involved they *always*
wanted the knees down. Lowers the CG and why put all that tiedown strain on
a raised and locked knee?

michael




Also, the 5/8-11 eye bolt used was waaaayyyy to long. Proper use of
an eye bolt here would be to run it in until the "eye" touches the
casting, and cut it off, if necessary, to do so.

I would have preferred a proper hoisting ring myself, but as it turned
out the eye bolt was never used for moving the machine anyway. I only
grabbed it off the seller's workbench and stuck it on the ram in case I
wanted to lift off the ram separately someday, using my ceiling hooks.

Hey Richard,

Always exceptions to any rule, eh!?! Very happy all went well for
you. Did you get it running yet?

Take care.

Brian.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
On Mon, 01 Mar 2004 12:08:52 -0600, Richard J Kinch
wrote:

Brian Lawson writes:

Well, I didn't want to criticize success either, but there were a
number of "I wouldn't have done it that ways" apparent. At a
minimum, the head should have been inverted to drop the CG, the ram
moved back as far as possible, and then the head blocked to the
locked lowered knee.

I knew about inverting the head, but with forklifts at each end of the
trip, the effect on the CG didn't seem to matter.

The problem with lowering the knee is that it lowers the angle of the
chains to the trailer. Instead I put the knee higher up, so you get a
stiff triangle on each side that supports against side-to-side tipping,
which is more of a concern (at least to me) with the base being so much
narrower in that direction.

Also, the 5/8-11 eye bolt used was waaaayyyy to long. Proper use of
an eye bolt here would be to run it in until the "eye" touches the
casting, and cut it off, if necessary, to do so.

I would have preferred a proper hoisting ring myself, but as it turned
out the eye bolt was never used for moving the machine anyway. I only
grabbed it off the seller's workbench and stuck it on the ram in case I
wanted to lift off the ram separately someday, using my ceiling hooks.

Brian Lawson writes:

Did you get it running yet?

Yes, in OP I gave the link to the DC drive conversion to run off single-
phase power.