Reminder - Do not ship a lathe LTL on a regular pallet

So you know those times when you know something is a dumb idea and then you go ahead and do it anyway. This is one of those time and result is pretty much as expected.

I bought this lathe from GovPlanet, which is a dicey decision to start with. Not a great deal even, but I need a small lathe. This one had clearly been tipped or sideswiped, so it was off to a good start. I asked them to center it on a longer pallet and crossed my fingers. LTL freight was cheap, PA to MA for $143, bought the extra insurance for $35.


This is what got dropped off this morning:

It appears to have taken a tumble at decent speed and been re-strapped in a novel vertical configuration. The crash must have occurred locally because it was still leaking a whole bunch of oil when left at our dock.

You can tell it was moving when it tipped because they kept driving long enough to wear the left corner of the gearbox cover down razor sharp. The cross feed screw and handle mount are dead and the compound nut seems broken. There are a LOT of smashed handles. I think most of this is fixable, but I need to do a more thorough inspection to figure out if anything really screwed or if fixing this makes sense. The ways seem to be in good shape and the spindle feels good spinning by hand.




Does anyone have any advice on submitting the insurance claim? I was going to list out all the replacement parts needed and estimates for the parts. Genuine parts might exceed the cost of the machine and are largely not available. Will they utilize this sort of info or are they just going to say the machine is 20% damaged?

Why in the world didn't you just drive over and pick it up?

Garwood said:

Why in the world didn't you just drive over and pick it up?

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It's almost 8 hours away and I don't have the time right now to step away that long right now. So the correct move is to just not buy things too far away to pick up or fork over the money for someone to pack or move it properly.

Are there any reasonably priced options for someone rational to load and deliver something like this? I've had stuff crated and shipped LTL. The crating isn't really needed if someone carefully loads and straps down something like this. I'm only familiar with that sort of service for large machine where you can justify $1000's for shipping.

This thing is only 600lbs at most, so I was thinking there was chance it makes it. It is still too much weight up high and too flexible of a pallet. I rolled the dice on this one and lost this time.

Sorry about the new toy. My small lathe came on a pallet that broke in half. Somehow the lathe was unscathed. When I went to the freight dock to pick it up ot was sitting to the side all by itself. I think it had just got dropped there and left. I drug it off onto my trailer and headed out.

I wonder if your insurance will pay market value or only what you just paid for it? And I guess the good news is now you get to fix as nice as you want.

I ship lathes that way on a regular base
I like to use Europallets for that Those you can lift with a pallettruck from both sides Then put some additional timber between pallet and machine
Then strap the machine to the pallet The last step is important Do not screw it to a pallet Strap it

Peter

I'll profess to having done some very stupid things.

Ship a lathe on a pallet, LTL, not in a million years.....

triumph406 said:

I'll profess to having done some very stupid things.

Ship a lathe on a pallet, LTL, not in a million years.....

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I live in Europe Drivers seem to be much more carefull
All transport is insured mandatory Eigter€5/kg for national transport or €10/kg for international transport according CMR conditions If transport compagnies get too much claims their mandatory insureance cost go up
Perhaps that is a reasson
Peter

Peter from Holland said:

I live in Europe Drivers seem to be much more carefull
All transport is insured mandatory Eigter€5/kg for national transport or €10/kg for international transport according CMR conditions If transport compagnies get too much claims their mandatory insureance cost go up
Perhaps that is a reasson
Peter

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It's a lathe, top heavy, even the most carefull driver isn't to prevent a poorly restrained lathe from falling over

You got a bonus, those vertical lathes bring big $$$$!. Sorry that happened, always sad to see a damaged machine. The problem starts with careless packing, then the short haul pickup/delivery guys won't brace it or strap it to the side of trailer, and any old monkey can be hired to drive forklifts at the docks.

Read the fine print on the insurance, my guess is they will just refund your purchase price and delivery fee.

you are going to try and fix that? Why?

Poor machine. Looks fixable from here but I’m far away. Turn up a few black acetyl knobs in homage to the originals, make or buy a handwheel (McMaster) and remove that crossfeed screw. Could probably straighten that screw if the machine gods are smiling upon you. O/A torch.

Headstock scrape looks about where I’d rest my hand when doing a facing cut, so clean it up with a flap wheel and drive on.

I’d be more concerned with the headstock being cracked. You said you need a lathe, doubtful you also need a project.

If you can get back what you paid for the machine and the shipping, do it. Set the broken bits aside, buy another (better) lathe, and decide what to do with this one. Frankly, it's scrap with the damage it has.

20+ years back, when I bought my Wells Index 847, I sent payment to the dealer who was somewhere in the GA or AL area. When it arrived, it was in the back of an 18 wheeler. It was standing upright, with no sort of cribbing or pallets under it, and no sort of straps or tie downs whatsoever. They just (somehow) loading it in the truck and set to drivin'. It had bumped it's way up against one of the sides of the trailer and one of the X axis handles was bent to the point of breaking. But otherwise.....it made it in one piece.

The real key to these problems is paying for and using a certified rigger to handle your machines. I had a big Monarch shipped across the country and paid the money to have a well known rigger do the work. Picked it up from the auction, stored it until trucking was arranged (during covid) loaded it and ensured it was properly secure and protected. It arrived in perfect condition, correctly done and tarped. As they old saying goes you can pay now or pay later. I have always paid up front what the experts required to do a proper job, never failed. Sorry to see this happen, really sucks. A learning moment for sure.

Vecair said:

The real key to these problems is paying for and using a certified rigger to handle your machines. I had a big Monarch shipped across the country and paid the money to have a well known rigger do the work. Picked it up from the auction, stored it until trucking was arranged (during covid) loaded it and ensured it was properly secure and protected. It arrived in perfect condition, correctly done and tarped. As they old saying goes you can pay now or pay later. I have always paid up front what the experts required to do a proper job, never failed. Sorry to see this happen, really sucks. A learning moment for sure.

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Yes,Yes and yes. If we dont haul it our self then we use a equipment rigger.
These guys haul only on air ride low bed trailers, equipment not just tarped once but twise, straped/ bolted to a pallet that takes the better part of a morning to uncrate.
The last shipped mill had enough lumber in the shipping pallet to build a small house.

RC Mech said:

Poor machine. Looks fixable from here but I’m far away. Turn up a few black acetyl knobs in homage to the originals, make or buy a handwheel (McMaster) and remove that crossfeed screw. Could probably straighten that screw if the machine gods are smiling upon you. O/A torch.

Headstock scrape looks about where I’d rest my hand when doing a facing cut, so clean it up with a flap wheel and drive on.

I’d be more concerned with the headstock being cracked. You said you need a lathe, doubtful you also need a project.

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I need to spend a bit of time poking around to fully to understand if there is are any major issues lurking out of sight. My hope is that the thing is not actually heavy enough to kill itself. The bent cross feed screw is the most concerning area. The mount for the screw that is cracked seems like a straight forward part to make. The base is a pretty easy fix as well as a bunch of the handles as long as none of the shafts they control are bent.

There is one Ebay seller with a bunch of parts and Grizzly sells a Taiwanese copy of this lathe as a "South Bend SB1007 - Heavy 10" so I will make some calls to see what is available.

I think all the wear on this is from sitting as all the paint on the front of the carriage is intact. Lathes that sit in the corner sometimes have had dumb things done to them, so I need to look for any of those.

Worst case is the thing gets parted out as parts do seem to bring some money given hobbyist appeal. I did know this was a potential result.

The lathe is ultimately going down my basement bulkhead. Given the light weight, this is pretty easy to get down there. I wanted something that can cut threads. Most my lathe needs are pretty basic anything production like is sent off to real machinists. I could fit something like an HLV-H but at 3 times the weight, moving is a fair bit more involved. Given my limited use, I am not sure I need so much money tied up in a lathe.

It will be interesting to see what the insurance has to say, I think submitting the claim is going to be it's own painful project.

Never trust GovPlanet to ship anything for you. I bought a CUCV (military Chevy pickup) and went to pick it up and was told they would load for me. When I got there they were loading others and their mode of loading was a big forklift and just get under the trucks and pick them up. Every truck they touched had a dent in the door from the mast and a bent driveshaft from the forks, and some were much worse than that. Well I went to plan B, I had a come-a-long with me. I was there in the July Alabama heat painstakingly winching my truck onto the trailer, and the forklift "operator" was begging me to let him help me, which wasn't happening.

I've shipped small lathes LTL before, but you have to build a good crate and secure it good. The people on the LTL docks are every bit as rough as the GovPlanet forklift operator, or worse. If you've ever seen the docks of a LTL outfit you'd understand and build accordingly. On something like a lathe with a high center of gravity, you need to make the pallet quite a bit wider than the machine for stability.

I'd be really surprised if you get anything from insurance. They will likely say it wasn't packaged properly. Might as well try though.

Vecair said:

The real key to these problems is paying for and using a certified rigger to handle your machines. I had a big Monarch shipped across the country and paid the money to have a well known rigger do the work. Picked it up from the auction, stored it until trucking was arranged (during covid) loaded it and ensured it was properly secure and protected. It arrived in perfect condition, correctly done and tarped. As they old saying goes you can pay now or pay later. I have always paid up front what the experts required to do a proper job, never failed. Sorry to see this happen, really sucks. A learning moment for sure.

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I

dana gear said:

Yes,Yes and yes. If we dont haul it our self then we use a equipment rigger.
These guys haul only on air ride low bed trailers, equipment not just tarped once but twise, straped/ bolted to a pallet that takes the better part of a morning to uncrate.
The last shipped mill had enough lumber in the shipping pallet to build a small house.

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Ummm, this is a 600lbs lathe. It is not going tarped on a low bed trailer unless there is a way to arrange partial loads for that type of move. I would love to know a better way to ship equipment in 100-1000lbs range.

I could have probably had someone pick this up and crate it or at least put it on a better pallet setup and ship it LTL. It has not been cheap when I have had that done.

newtonsapple said:

I

Ummm, this is a 600lbs lathe. It is not going tarped on a low bed trailer unless there is a way to arrange partial loads for that type of move. I would love to know a better way to ship equipment in 100-1000lbs range.

I could have probably had someone pick this up and crate it or at least put it on a better pallet setup and ship it LTL. It has not been cheap when I have had that done.

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Next time try U-ship, I've used it many times, usually got a small time hauler, they may not be insured, but they've all taken good care of my load and delivered on time.

newtonsapple said:

I

Ummm, this is a 600lbs lathe. It is not going tarped on a low bed trailer unless there is a way to arrange partial loads for that type of move. I would love to know a better way to ship equipment in 100-1000lbs range.

I could have probably had someone pick this up and crate it or at least put it on a better pallet setup and ship it LTL. It has not been cheap when I have had that done.

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I use two different riggers, One based in L.A. California the other in Texas , both ship partial loads throughout the U.S. I have shipped small loads and full trailer loads with them. When you take into account the damaged equipment through poor shipping practices may very well be less then the rigger cost.