Tips for moving a lathe around on skates

Hello; I've taken my first step toward having my own garage machine shop and gotten a Jet GH 1440 lathe. It's in the garage now, but I plan on getting more machines and will need to move this thing around.
Being in my garage, a forklift just isn't practical. Barely any room to turn the forklift, and no vertical clearance for the fork mast at all. Pallet Jacks would be very awkward to move it with, I think. Pipe rollers are problematic too, because this particular lathe contacts the ground with a couple relatively small footprint steel boxes- I'd have to play hopscotch with two sets of bars at the same time, and I'm worried I'm very likely to repeatedly slam it into the ground, not being experienced with this. Which is a real shame, because that otherwise seems like the safest method by far. Finally riggers aren't really an option either; everyone around here wants a huge paycheck I can't afford every time I need to move a machine a few feet.
So I turned to machine skates, which looked like a great solution when doing research. Got a Johnson bar and a toe jack so I could lift the machine onto the skates. I tried using 4 skates at first and learned quickly one skate will usually not do any work at all. So I repositioned two skates under the heavy end and just one in the middle on the light end. This seemed to work great for a few feet but I still had one skate trying to run away on me from under the heavy side at times and that led to a couple extremely scary moments where the lathe was really only sitting on two small skates. Even moving very slow and being careful the skate managed to work itself into terrible positions. Everything online says this shouldn't happen with a 3 skate configuration, but it certainly did. So I abandoned that and just shuffled the lathe extremely slowly using the Johnson bar alone over to the wall; but I'll likely need to move it again and spending hours moving one side of it a 16th of an inch at a time kinda sucks.
I tried finding info online about how to stabilize and secure the machine to skates but didn't come up with much, there's a video on YouTube of guys moving exactly my machine with 4 skates but it's not clear if or how it's secured to them at all. I'm hoping you guys might have some tips or ideas for me about how to more reliably and safely move this around, especially any method that securely bolts this thing down to something or otherwise makes it tipping over basically impossible.

I put some bolts into some of my skates, inserted from the bottom, so that they protrude thru the bolt holes in base of machine so the skate can't walk out, but they still want to turn and only get about 3' of travel before they need to be reset. I have considered using longer bolts and putting a nut on so that they are firmly attached and won't swivel, but have not tried that yet. My skates are homemade and very low profile (1.5"), so if I lose one the machine does not tip very far. The taller the skate, the more a machine will tip if a skate is lost. I find moving machines is easy, but stressful.

Lathes are top heavy and tip over really easy. If I were you I would attach 2 - 4 x 4 or 4 x 6" long (depending on the size and weight of the lathe) boards under the machine between the front and back. Then roll it on steel bars or pipes. If you have to turn a corner you have one in the middle and it spins easy. You may have to lift it with a engine hoist to get it on the wood. If you have a fork-lift lift it on outside the garage. Remove the leveling screws and bolt it to the wood with countersunk carriage bolts. A bit of a pain, but tipping a lathe over is scary and expensive.

Alternately you could bolt on some 3” channel which only raises the lathe about 1-5/8”. That Jet is not that heavy so this should work fine. From there it is then easy to roll it around on pipes if needed.
Another way would be to make a cradle for your skates. basically like a lowboy trailer, weld or bend up some 3/8” flat bar and attach it to your skates. This moves the skates further out and stabilizes the move while tying the skates together at each end. If your floor is decent then you will only need about 1/2” clearance. So jack up one end about an inch, slide in the skate cradle then do the other end and off you go.

Also, welcome to the forum and thanks for a well written first post!

Good luck,
Michael

Pushing a lathe longways on skates might be fine, Pushing it to or from the crossway direction and if a skate takes a bump that lathe can keel over.
as said.. move the skates further out might make it a lot safer.

Just moved a entire shop to a new addition we struggled with this too used three skates when we could, found that when we hit the new part with flat and polished concrete the skates behaved much better seemed like the smoother the floor the better.
I did run a leveling screw down to just fit in the middle of the pivot on the skates and at least they wouldn’t “walk out”.

I have a couple 3.5 ft pieces of 3 inch channel, with skates bolted on the ends and hardwood in the channel. The lathe sits on the wood and is strapped to the channel. Nothing can slip and the wide stance removes any tippiness. Straight is easy, for turning I have holes drilled in the body of the skates and use a piece of 1/2 rod to steer them. A johnson bar helps move things around, although I can push it by hand without any problems. Just moved a LeBlond Regal and a 10ee 80 miles using those and a drop deck trailer. No issues at all. And yes, I had it on 4x4s on the trailer so the wheels were off the deck.

BTW, each of those weighs around 3000 pounds plus or minus a couple hundred.

The 10ee is still on those so I can move it around for its restoration.

Pallet jacks work great as long as you have a smooth(ish) concrete floor, lazy helpers and a broom. Better with a lathe that has a little room under it already than a mill that sits essentially right in the floor.

The problem with skates is that lathes are long and skinny. If you imagine a straight line between the single skate and either of the other two you can estimate the machine weight on each side of this balance line. Not a lot of difference, the other balance line is similar. So with pushing, pulling and turning the balance is changing continuously and it doesn't have to move much to lose a skate.

Skates will work. Put a timber, as Post 3 mentions, under the heavy end end of the lathe but long enough to stick out a foot or so to the front and back. Put a skate under each end of the timber, the third on the other end of the machine. The weight is inside the skate triangle instead of straddling both balance lines.

Hope that made a little sense.

Thank you,
Mr.Smith

Mr.Smith said:

Skates will work. Put a timber, as Post 3 mentions, under the heavy end end of the lathe but long enough to stick out a foot or so to the front and back. Put a skate under each end of the timber, the third on the other end of the machine. The weight is inside the skate triangle instead of straddling both balance lines.

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Timbers will raise the height, and if a skate is lost it will be more likely to tip. I cannot imagine many lathes more top heavy than my Standard Modern 26x30 with the angle iron base, I lost a skate moving it, but because it only dropped 1.5", it was not enough to cause it to tip over, if it had dropped 3", it would have crashed.

Michiganbuck
No problems pushing my lathes sideways on skates, and no choice but to do it.

I'm in the keep it low camp.

Wow, there's so many great ideas and advice here, thanks everybody. I didn't think to get the skates further away from the machine with some extra material. I look forward to posting here again as my new shop takes off!

Dang. From the post title, I was expecting another "woe is me, learned my lesson" saga about a lathe face plant.
As others have said, turn your lathe into a wide-track Pontiac.

specfab said:

Dang. From the post title, I was expecting another "woe is me, learned my lesson" saga about a lathe face plant.
As others have said, turn your lathe into a wide-track Pontiac.

Click to expand...

I'm glad I was able to disappoint in this case, it came close once or twice but the lathe is safe. Until I try to move it again. But the ideas to stick wide tracks under it in the form of wood or channels to help prevent tipping definitely sound like the way to go

If one Skate comes out when using 3 skates its because the weight isn't distributed evenly enough.

The simple solution is to place the skates so they all share the load.

Let's say you have two skates under the headstock and one under the tailstock end. You find the rear Skate under the headstock end doesn't want to stay straight and may even move or slide out. The solution is to jack up the tailstock end and move that Skate toward the front of the machine a few inches. This will shift the weight so the rear headstock skate will stay put.

Good luck.

I get the issue with the lathe base having two small feet but if I was moving it short distances I’d still use 1” round steel bars under the feet and bar it along. The nearer to the ground the better with centre lathes. Get a helper to feed the bars in as you bar it along.

Regards Tyrone.

Years ago I saw a machinery mover used a set of these and they were slick as heck. They slid in each end and they were racket strapped to each other. They had a built in hydraulic jack and you raised each end and had 2 swivel dollies under each one. If you google "Raise and Roll" machinery mover, you will see them and they are rated to different weights. They are expensive and not something a 1 time lathe move, but if you have to move several machines it might be worth it. I just thought I wonder if you can rent them from a local rental company??

Wesco Industrial Products 260087 Rais-N-Rol 23" x 19 3/4" x 43 5/8" Machinery Mover with 6" Steel Casters​

HTC mobile machine bases. Get some ideas and make a real beefy mobile base.
With these HTC ones there is a bolt that screws into the tire to keep it fixed.
What you should do is allow for screws pointing down to lift the wheels off the floor. Providing leveling at the same time.


There are pictures on this forum that use that low height approach where the axle of the wheels are higher than the machine base.

As I seem to recall Disco Music made things move well on skates
(possibly the genre's sole redeeming feature)

I'm quite keen on shifting the center of gravity down on anything top heavy
So I've added steel storage below or around such mobile hazards.

I hate using skates on smaller machine, seen both a lathe and mill topple (each in 3 skates). At home I move knee mills and grinders with a pallet jack. Most lathes I like using a pallet jack on one end and a skate on the other. I use pipe if the machine is too heavy for a pallet jack. With a pinch bar, some shims, pipe, and a sledge to turn the pipes, there is little you can’t move.

Can you weld?

https://nwnative.us/Grant/shop articles/mtd

Skates are OK, but you WILL find out just how flat the floor you thought was, isn't! The guys touting low, wide, and spread out from the base of the machine, all sound like guys to listen to. And the guys that say to fasten the damn skates to the rigging! BTDT, with a couple near misses, moving a 4K pounds+ mill across what 'seemed' like a flat floor...

Personally, I like my pallet jack. I can put together a suitable filler of wood blocks or boards, in very little time, and all I have to do is get the machine 'just' off the floor to move it, and any sign of doubt, I can drop it onto the floor pretty much without worry.