New Machine - Unload

[andracke]

We are getting our new machine at a school next week. It is a 48x96 with spindle. Our school does not have a forklift - any ideas on unloading it from the truck. Does it all come boxed or crated?

Thanks!!

[myxpykalix]

It will come in a large crate disassembled. Make sure you tell the shipper you want it brought by a truck with a lift gate. If you have a couple of furniture dollies you can move it after it is on the ground or simply open the box and take the parts out and move them inside. That is what i had to do as my shop was at the back of my yard and i had no one to help me move it, so i unloaded it at the end of the driveway and moved parts individually. No one part is so heavy that you couldn't carry them.

[jerry_stanek]

Being a school are there any businesses that are near by that could unload it. Also if you have access to a pickup truck you could pick it up at the shippers dock. If you have a cherry picker you could also pull it to the end of the truck and lower one end down then pick up the end on the truck and have the driver pull up.

[zeykr]

How about a group of students. Either enough to lift box from truck, or with a group opening crate and hauling parts in individually would be pretty quick.

[Brady Watson]

...a group opening crate and hauling parts in individually would be pretty quick.

Bingo.

Have your screw gun charged up and ready with a jobber length #2 phillips. Unload the parts and put them aside. 2 guys on the truck and 2 on the ground should work, although 2 more on the ground would be better to shuffle steel back and forth.

-B

[coryatjohn]

The guy that delivered mine had a pallet jack and took it right into my garage.

Getting the box open takes a big flat blade screwdriver (or a small pry bar) and a hammer. That's what I used anyway. I suggest clearing the space where you're going to set it up first. Assembly took about twice the space of the machine footprint.

From there, I just unloaded it piece by piece. The YZ axis with the Z car was the heaviest piece. I used a furniture dolly for that.

If you have two moderately fit people doing the work it should take no time at all. Oh, like Brady said. Have a good screw gun ready.

[gerryv]

I've moved quite a lot of heavy machinery between shops. Some with standard dock heights, some with non-standard and some to ground level. Even some from dock into/onto low-bed trailers.

I have found the easiest way by far is to hire the local AAA tilt-and-load tow truck guy. $50 and 10 minutes later it's all done. It's quite amazing how well these trucks work with their combination of tilt, slide, winch and remote control and they're far less expensive and more creative than the equipment moving specialists. Also, they're usually insured in the unlikely event that they somehow drop it :-)

[curtiss]

For the new ShopBot models,

you just pull the plug out the side, hit F1... and they open the box put themselves together...

[catbourger]

Be very sure that besides the large wooden crate is a cardboard box maybe 10 inches by 4 inches by however long your rails are (e.g. 10 ft for the 48 x96 machine I received a few weeks ago). The cardboard box is strapped to the wooden box at Shopbot, but the freight line removed the straps and delivered the cardboard box the day after they delivered the wooden crate.

[jerry_stanek]

I had thought about using the students but if someone got hurt unloading there could be some law suits not like in our day when pretty much anything went.

[andracke]

From Shopbot - Could the crate really weigh 1100lbs for a 48"x96"?

1 crate 88”x40”x31” 1100 lbs.
1 box (steel banded to the crate) 124”x10”x6” 200 lbs.

Would a lift gate be able to handle that?

[BTP]

Would a lift gate be able to handle that?


yes

I had a lift gate on mine delivered