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

dana gear said:

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.

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My experience with riggers has been that the quotes have been very high for local moves. I was quoted $1400 for 9 mile move for a 1600lb mill that can be picked up with a pallet jack. I did it on a rollback tow truck for $250.

I would be happy with "careful" LTL type service in the 2-4x normal LTL rate range. At 10x LTL and more, a lot of small machines no longer make sense to move.

dalmatiangirl61 said:

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.

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I have used U-ship a bunch for LTL. I have never tried the "Heavy Equipment" option as I thought is was oriented towards construction equipment. I submitted a quote to see what pricing would be like.

I would always pick up and transport myself ....I used to (40yr ago) have a guy who could load a whole semi with machines ,packed in like a jigsaw puzzle .........unfortunately all the young drivers are cowboys now...so called because of the bucking bronco operating skills they have...............anyhoo ,if the insurance pays out,all youve lost is a bit of time.

Hmm, looks like the headstock end is pretty heavy. Gravity is a bitch, but they kept it contained on the pallet, yay.

One has to wonder.....how did the forklift driver get the lathe on its (heavy ) end ,assuming its laying face down ,and crying piteously from multiple injuries.

newtonsapple said:

I have used U-ship a bunch for LTL. I have never tried the "Heavy Equipment" option as I thought is was oriented towards construction equipment. I submitted a quote to see what pricing would be like.

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The heavy equipment category is for big stuff and will most likely be commercial drivers with semi trucks, for something under 1000lbs, like a small lathe, list it in "vehicles and boats" or "other", these are where the independent haulers look. The independents can be anything from some dude in a pickup truck that is headed to where your item needs to go, to a retired couple that hauls motorcycles to fund their retirement travels, to a commercial driver in a semi that has 5' of space left. Like I said, they may not be insured, but uship also has a feedback rating so look at that before cutting a deal. So far I've not had a problem, obviously don't ship something super valuable that way.

dalmatiangirl61 said:

The heavy equipment category is for big stuff and will most likely be commercial drivers with semi trucks, for something under 1000lbs, like a small lathe, list it in "vehicles and boats" or "other", these are where the independent haulers look. The independents can be anything from some dude in a pickup truck that is headed to where your item needs to go, to a retired couple that hauls motorcycles to fund their retirement travels, to a commercial driver in a semi that has 5' of space left. Like I said, they may not be insured, but uship also has a feedback rating so look at that before cutting a deal. So far I've not had a problem, obviously don't ship something super valuable that way.

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You don't understand, we don't want to know. After seeing this, who would take a chance

dkmc said:

You don't understand, we don't want to know. After seeing this, who would take a chance

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If you want to pay a rigger to move a 600lb machine that is your choice, he asked what his options were other than commercial freight, I gave him one that I have had good luck with. I've used uship to ship expensive motorcycles, it was mom and pop and a 30ft box trailer, all they did was motorcycles. I've shipped sub 1000lb machines in the back of a dudes truck, yes, I did instruct on securing it. Heck I shipped my whole shop from Tx to Nv with uship, found a company from Vegas that was making regular flatbed deliveries to central Tx and deadheading back, they did it for half what everyone else was quoting. My last load was an auction purchase, Phoenix to northern Nv, instead of spending 2 hard days driving I paid what it would cost me in fuel and a motel room to 2 guys and 2 pitbulls in an SUV pulling a trailer traveling the country. Where the regular freight guys could care less about how your item is handled, these people provide personalized service, future customers can read previous customers reviews, and they don't get paid till they deliver. Everything I've shipped this way arrived on time and intact. Pro Tip: Don't ship gold bullion, diamonds, or your 100K+ cnc machine this way.

Go back and look at his pics, that is the work of "Licensed and Insured" professional freight haulers.

Its very likely the truck was tailgating ,and had to do a violent brake..........every trucking company has schedules that mean drivers must drive agressively or lose money on late penalties.

The problem with riggers is they are expensive. I don't mean they charge a fair price for a fair job, by gar - I mean expensive.

I've noticed, especially now that we are firmly in The Crisis, a lot of stuff I buy - the freight and shipping and sales tax people are pocketing as much money as the guy I bought the stuff from. It kinda pisses me when I buy a 1/2" drive ratchet for $20 and it costs $20 in tax and shipping before I put my hands on it.

I consider the average machine tool auction to be more appropriately titled "Rigger Profit Center".


All that said, $143 to ship an entire lathe is asking for trouble, too.

GregSY said:

I consider the average machine tool auction to be more appropriately titled "Rigger Profit Center".

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I spent 3 days this week rigging machines, $200 per machine, worked my ass off, especially after my helper walked off the job ($20 per hour). Sure I made a few bucks, but if someone asks again I might quote 300 per machine.

At the last auction, where I bought my lovely Oerlikon drill press, the riggers were bidding $400/hr to load stuff, and they had a 1 hour minimum. That means if they loaded a 200lbs pallet on your truck using a forklift, a process that took 5 minutes, it was $400.

There's nothing wrong with shipping sub 1000 pound machines via LTL. Small machines are shipped that way, from the factory/distributor, every day of the week. The problem is from strapping it to a normal pallet. Pallets are useless for machines. 1/2" thick wood strips are made for holding boxes with a distributed load, not a machine tool with point loads.

With it being placed lengthwise along the pallet, it's basically being teeter tottered on the center vertical 2x4. Once it leans a little, the geometry changes, and the strapping bands no longer are tight, and there she goes. Forget making the pallet wide enough to not tip over, just making the pallet rigid enough for the machine to stay attached to the pallet would probably have been adequate. I'd bet money the pallet stayed right side up, and the machine just didn't maintain the marriage through the honeymoon.

My gut feeling is one could have taken that exact same pallet, and used deck screws to attach two 2x4's laterally across it for the lathe to have something solid to sit on, and then held the machine down with two 1/2" steel bands would have gotten it to you in one piece. Certainly not how I would have packaged it, but probably would have done the job. But 1/2" oak planks? Not a chance.

No need for a real deal rigger and air ride flatbed for a little machine like that. Just need someone with a cordless drill and skilsaw, and about 1 1/2 brain cells to go get it ready for LTL.

If that is the same pallet as the first picture I do not see any bolt holes. Was it just stretch wrapped onto the pallet with no straps of any kind?
Bill D

The catch with all the shoulda s is you need to be there to do it.......and even then ,government places often wont allow you to do anything on the premises......gets back to pick it up yourself ,or pay for someone else experienced in machine moves.to do it ...........In my experience ,the plastic wrap is more secure than ties or bolts into pine wood--provided enough is used.

Fish On said:

There's nothing wrong with shipping sub 1000 pound machines via LTL. Small machines are shipped that way, from the factory/distributor, every day of the week. The problem is from strapping it to a normal pallet. Pallets are useless for machines. 1/2" thick wood strips are made for holding boxes with a distributed load, not a machine tool with point loads.

With it being placed lengthwise along the pallet, it's basically being teeter tottered on the center vertical 2x4. Once it leans a little, the geometry changes, and the strapping bands no longer are tight, and there she goes. Forget making the pallet wide enough to not tip over, just making the pallet rigid enough for the machine to stay attached to the pallet would probably have been adequate. I'd bet money the pallet stayed right side up, and the machine just didn't maintain the marriage through the honeymoon.

My gut feeling is one could have taken that exact same pallet, and used deck screws to attach two 2x4's laterally across it for the lathe to have something solid to sit on, and then held the machine down with two 1/2" steel bands would have gotten it to you in one piece. Certainly not how I would have packaged it, but probably would have done the job. But 1/2" oak planks? Not a chance.

No need for a real deal rigger and air ride flatbed for a little machine like that. Just need someone with a cordless drill and skilsaw, and about 1 1/2 brain cells to go get it ready for LTL.

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I think are right that a couple of 2x4 to eliminate flex of the pallet would have significantly improved the odds of success. It would also be pretty simple to detach this lathe from the base and put it on the pallet next to the stand.

All bolted together, the vertical orientation it ultimately arrived to me is likely the most stable approach on a standard pallet. If you move the carriage towards the headstock and put the tailstock in the cabinet, it is definitely a way lower cg that upright.

I had a chance to check things out in a bit more detail.

Three bent levers. Everything functions, although the left speed control is a bit stiff. The shaft might have a small bend and need more investigation. I need to use a pulley extractor to get the lever assembly off due to the set screw marring the shaft. The cover with the worn down corner is off, but you can see there is nothing structural under that front left side, so I don't think it went do super hard there. I think it was dragged on that corner, probably in the process of getting back on a pallet.


The scratch on chuck is reason for concern so I pulled the chuck and checked the spindle.


The spindle taper cleaned up nicely and has about .00015 runout on the ID and face. I haven't run it yet, so we'll see how it sounds.


The compound nut was sheared off. The rest of the compound seems okay incredibly


The cross feed screw is dead. Fortunately the feed gear seems fine if I can get it off. Grizzly has drop in replacements at reasonable prices for both the cross and compound nuts and screws. I message with someone here who has done this swap before. They also sell the screw mount, although it is backordered. If I can get those parts, both compound and cross feed are pretty easy to get going.


The handwheel wheel and two handle are easy fixes. Everything seems to function as expected. Tailstock wheel also need a new handle, but is otherwise good.


I cleaned a lot of crusty stuff off the ways and they look really good with the gunk off. I found there was some resistance to move the carriage near the headstock and after poking around a bit discovered the leadscrew and feed drive are bent. The feed drive shaft is available from Grizzly. This is metric machine though and I believe the Grizzly screw is an inch one as well as the two screw currently on Ebay. I need to pull the bent parts and confirm the carriage is definitely good. It may be possible to straighten the screw. A couple threads have a minor ding that I think would clean up.

Really amazing that there doesn't seem to be a single mark on the ways.


So the compound and cross feed seem fixable along with the bazillion new handles. The leadscrew is definitely and issue that needs to be solved.

Next step is to get it running. It did come with four bottles of genuine Emco headstock oil to replace what drained out. We will see if it purrs or growls as that will likely determine its fate.

The gearbox looks clean and feels good. The only oddity is that the shifter looks to have self clearanced at some point with the large gear. An extra shifter was the only repair part that came with this thing.

newtonsapple said:

My experience with riggers has been that the quotes have been very high for local moves. I was quoted $1400 for 9 mile move for a 1600lb mill that can be picked up with a pallet jack. I did it on a rollback tow truck for $250.

I would be happy with "careful" LTL type service in the 2-4x normal LTL rate range. At 10x LTL and more, a lot of small machines no longer make sense to move.

Click to expand...

I agree, rent a u-haul and go for it. really it all boils down to cost and safety to get it home in non damaged state, if you can make that happen on the cheap, then why not. Generally we trow a fork lift of correct size on the back one of our low beds and haul it our self if located close and time allows.
So far I have been real happy with the prices the riggers charge me. Generally I sleep better knowing a high dollar machine coming across the country is being handled by a reputable rigger. All of the new equipment we buy the seller pays the rigger ,although that is included in the sale price

Guys I know drive 1000miles to pick up an old motorbike they bought off the net.....I know one who drove from Adelaide to Ballina (2000mi....each way) to pick up a BSA bike...........the bike fell over ,dented the tank,back on ebay .The original seller bought it back for 1/2 what he'd just sold it for .....and drove the 2000miles to pick it up again.

I have a spare handle that might work for the carriage or tailstock if you want it for postage. Let me know and I'll take a pic and some measurements.