Moving G&L Horizontal Boring Mill - Rigging

[Way Out]

Hi Everyone,

I have purchased a 340t Giddings & Lewis HBM recently that needs to travel across the country to my shop.

The machine is set to be moved by a rigging company local to the machine in about a week. Rigger says that the pendant needs to be removed to clear the current buildings overhead door. He believes the column can stay on and clear however. The machine does have outboard support rails. Rigging plan is to removed the table and pull rails out of recesses in concrete as well as remove pendant enough to clear current buildings door.

I measured the machine myself in person a few weeks ago during the inspection and it is 138" tall from concrete to top of sheet metal cap on column.

Are there other things I should be looking out for during this move, not only rigging to get outside current building but also its journey across the country to me? Should the headstock and spindle be blocked in a certain manner during transport, etc?

For those of you with experience in moving one of these machines please let me know what your thoughts are to have a successful transition to a new home.

Thanks

 

[gbent]

Where is it leaving and what is its destination? You are right at the height limit for a standard double drop trailer on the interstate, but what about from the origination to the interstate, and then from the interstate to your shop? What is the width? If overall height is close, the machine will have to set flat on the trailer and be loaded and unloaded with a crane.

You don't want to be featured on a website like this:

11 FOOT 8 - The Canopener Bridge

The Canopener Bridge

11foot8.com

 

[Way Out]

Thanks for the reply. Yes I have watched people hitting that bridge or similar in the past. Definitely do not want that to happen. Also, good note on the load sitting flat on trailer with no cribbing and will need crane to unload.

 

[johfoster]

I had this machine loaded in LA, and trucked to Tucson, AZ 450 miles away recently. Around 7k total for the riggers to load out of the building, and the truck to tucson. I'm guessing another 3500-4500 to put it in my building. My machine is 126" tall.

 

[kb0thn]

Make sure you have your exact specifications provided to truck company in writing. If the wrong truck shows up or they want to reconfigure your load to something other than what you specified, send them down the road.

We've been getting a rash of dedicated trucks where somebody decides they don't want the load as it was specified and wants us to reconfigure the load. A couple weeks ago they wanted us to take apart the load so it would be easier to tarp. Technically possible with a few hours of work, but not what we paid for. We have also had "dedicated" semi trucks show up with a 2' tall of pipe on the trailer and they want us to load our load of top of it. Not worth trying to accommodate them. Send them down the road and get your broker or carrier to send what you paid for. Another one we have been shocked by is the driver apparently moving the load after we load it. We had a sensitive piece of equipment show up at the destination in an entirely different location on the trailer than where it was when departed. Apparently to accommodate somebody elses load on our "dedicated" trailer, he tied our load to a tree and slid it back. So make sure your carriage contract prohibits trans-shipping. Have whomever loads it very obviously take photos of it loaded. Perhaps even with tape measures in photos so you can see exactly where it was. Nothing you can do once the driver decides to move your machine, but very obviously documenting things might prevent them from considering picking up that extra load.

 

[Doozer]

Immobilize the counterweight in the column.
You can move the weight until it lines up with a set of cross holes
and stick a rigging bar through it to support the weight.
I have in the past, used a tire inner tube. Stuff it in between the
weight and the column, and inflate it. I moved a planer that way
and it worked well. Once I moved a G&L boring mill only a short
distance without securing the counterweight, and it broke a piece
of cast iron out inside the column, and I found it in the oil tank.
So don't forget about the counterweight.

--Doozer

 

[johfoster]

Make sure you have your exact specifications provided to truck company in writing. If the wrong truck shows up or they want to reconfigure your load to something other than what you specified, send them down the road.....

If you set up the truck and it doesn't show up or wrong truck shows up, you probably just cost yourself many thousands in riggers sitting around or rescheduling. It is often best to have them set up freight all together to your door. Costs a little more, but can eliminate a lot of headache. Just a thought.

 

[Overland]

I had a Mazak VTC-20 moved from Detroit down to South Carolina. About 12,000 lbs.
I used ATS logistics, Minnesota contact. (Ox gave me the recoomendation).
This is a brokerage. I requested air-ride trailer and tarping.
Truck left midday and arrived here at 9:00 am.
Excellent service from broker - truck was exactly what I wanted, and was tarped and secured really well.
Bob

 

[kb0thn]

If you set up the truck and it doesn't show up or wrong truck shows up, you probably just cost yourself many thousands in riggers sitting around or rescheduling. It is often best to have them set up freight all together to your door. Costs a little more, but can eliminate a lot of headache. Just a thought.

Yeah, we rig our own equipment. But most of our freight is stuff we manufacture which is typically 20' or 40' containers with $500k of contents. But sometimes the customer gets cheap and wants us to break bulk load the stuff onto flatbeds. Local riggers have some nicer gear, but when it is a week to week sort of thing it just make sense to do it ourselves.

 

[kb0thn]

Yeah, we rig our own equipment. But most of our freight is stuff we manufacture which is typically 20' or 40' containers with $500k of contents. But sometimes the customer gets cheap and wants us to break bulk load the stuff onto flatbeds. Local riggers have some nicer gear, but when it is a week to week sort of thing it just make sense to do it ourselves.

I kind of play the long game on this stuff. When I do use riggers, a few times a year, I don't beat up them up for firm fixed price quotes. They charge me what the job actually costs, once the job is done. Sometimes a job sucks and I end up paying a bunch for it. Or sometimes it's a screaming deal. Local riggers unloaded my 30k fiber laser with three guys and a crane and a few forklifts, at 5PM, and it was less than $1,000.

For day to day stuff we've got hard tired forklifts to 8k lbs, telehandlers to 10k lbs, and a big 'ol Hyster to 16k lbs @ 48in load center.

 

[johfoster]

Local riggers unloaded my 30k fiber laser with three guys and a crane and a few forklifts, at 5PM, and it was less than $1,000.

I think you forgot to also say that your brother owns the rigging company? haha
That's a crazy deal.

 

[kb0thn]

I think you forgot to also say that your brother owns the rigging company? haha
That's a crazy deal.

No, they made their hourly rates and didn't have to build any contingencies in. If it had taken 5 hours I would have paid a whole lot more.

On another job they got one of their forklifts stuck and it took a couple hours more than anyone would like. They sent the bill for the time it took. They made their hourly rate on that one.

My long game concept is that I want my vendors like this to be comfortable coming into my jobs that they'll do okay.

Of course this only works when all parties can trust each other. I attempted to use my Mazak dealer's preferred rigger once. I couldn't even get him to share his daily rate. With no relationship and no basis for trust, I definitely didn't end up going with them.

-
Story time:
We recently had a customer who wanted a 24 hour window on a weekend when we would be fully staffed to load their supplied trucks. I was looking at 3 guys in overtime for 24 hours. My guys would have all timed out, so I had a local contractor able to supply guys for part of it. Customer needed a firm fixed price and they would never under any circumstances pay a penny more than was quoted. So contract was written as such and that they would be kicked off site at 23:59:59 regardless of anything. They were quoted a small fortune. With firm fixed price and difficult customer I had to have forklift and backup forklift on call and mechanic on site. Their trucks were loaded within an hour and on their way. Everything went perfectly smoothly. Customer balked at our invoice for the quoted fixed price amount. They said it was done in and hour and said that we couldn't charge them the whole amount. The customer wanted their cake and to eat it too. Of course the price is high. Even with a high price I would have ended up going backwards if it really took 24 hours or if we had to bring in a replacement large forklift from offsite.

-

When people are shocked about getting a fixed price rigging quote I think they need to look at things from the riggers perspective about their risks.

I bet the people getting cheap rigging are doing it themselves or have good solid relationships with their riggers and aren't asking for the riggers to take all the risk with no possibility for reward.

 

[Way Out]

Thanks for all the feedback.

The rigger I have agreed to go with was recommended by the Machine shop owner. He has had them move many machines over the years and described them as honest, good people. Their quote was actually slightly lower than others I had received.

On top of this they have offered to take the machine back to their facility where it can be stored inside and they have overhead crane capacity for future loading. They state in their quote to me that they will load the machine anytime after that on a truck of my choosing. Due to the fact that they always have staff on hand at their shop the scheduling of the truck should not be as big of an issue and time to load, versus trying to rig out the door and load truck simultaneously.

With regard to the trucking company or broker itself thanks for all the heads up. I have not chose a broker to haul the load. I had a local company quote me exactly double what brokers on U-Ship have. In the past I have used independently owned and operated trucks which became a slight nightmare with scheduling and communication. I have also used online booking firms like U-Ship with good results.

Hopefully I can find the right broker / truck and get the details squared away like some of you have suggested.

 

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

As Doozer said - be sure to immobilise the counter balance weight inside the column. I’d also support the spindle frame with timbers. If by any chance the machine has a coolant facility ( not many Hor bores do ) be sure to pump out any coolant while there is still power to the machine.

Regards Tyrone.

 

[Gearclash]

On top of this they have offered to take the machine back to their facility where it can be stored inside and they have overhead crane capacity for future loading. They state in their quote to me that they will load the machine anytime after that on a truck of my choosing. Due to the fact that they always have staff on hand at their shop the scheduling of the truck should not be as big of an issue and time to load, versus trying to rig out the door and load truck simultaneously.

This here ^^ is worth quite a bit. With a machine that could have some complications for handling, it is best to be able to “float” when the truck is going to arrive. I went through this just this year with a machine move. I did the technical work of the move out of the shop it was in. Figured it would would be ready to load on day 3, but thought maybe better allow some wiggle room in that. Took an extra day to be ready to load, so it was a good thing the trucker was local to me, knew ahead of time the caveats, and had a flexible schedule.

Look into a detach trailer for your load, they might be a little lower yet than a double drop. Your machine is 11’ high and a detach deck should be under 2’ height. Should keep you comfortably under 13’. Somebody somewhere needs to be able to give the trucker some pointers on securing the machine, unless he has prior experience. The guy that I hired knew cargo securement well, but still needed a few pointers about what was going to be best for tying some of the items down as he had never hauled this sort of thing before.

 

[Ox]

A dbl drop should be (a little) lower than a detach.

I had a big HMC shipped in on a dbl drop - and I think the trailer must have been around 19".
It was 1" over height.

We moved it a cpl years ago on a detach, and we chose our route carefully.
I'm sure that we were taller yet.

???


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox