Industrial Machinery Movers

[Jeremy Rowland]

Its not very often that I get the chance to take many pictures at work, but as I had to organise the clearing of an old industrial unit in Wolverhampton which included the removal of three engineering machines it was an ideal opportunity.
The largest of these machines was a Kearns horizontal borer which tips the scales around the 25-26 ton mark. What made moving this machine interesting was the fact that even after the counterweight had been removed to enable the top rollers to be removed we were not sure how much clearance we would have height wise to get this thing out of the door.
I assisted two of our fitters to remove some of the overhead crane track so that the crane could be pushed off the end of the track and taken out of the way.
As it happens we literally had just under 1" of clearance between the door lintel and the floor, at this point the machine was not on skates as they would of made it far too high to get out
I will post these pictures in two lots, it will give you some indication of what is possible with a forktruck and some machine skates even though we encountered more than a few problems during the move.

Jeremy

[Jeremy Rowland]

And it was all going so swimmingly......... until the skate sank into the tarmac at the edge of the curb with the machine blocking half of a quite busy little road.

Jeremy

[Jeremy Rowland]

With some careful jacking and moving the skate and several irate drivers latter the machine was on the move again
Yep it looks like the machine just won't fit into that curtain sider but this ain't no ordinary trailer.................

Jeremy

[samk706]

cool pics

looks like quite a heavy piece of kit

sam

[BulldozerD11]

Nice sequence of shots there Jeremy

Plenty of so called intelligent people would tell you yo need a crane etc etc to move something like that. (and they get worried what if this or that happens !!!! )

[Jeremy Rowland]

Nice sequence of shots there Jeremy

Plenty of so called intelligent people would tell you yo need a crane etc etc to move something like that. (and they get worried what if this or that happens !!!! )

Yes Dave I got three quotes to move this lot and two of the companies that quoted would of used a crane, not surprising then that their quotes were higher although the one quote was rather exorbitant at just under £7k

Just a few more pics it was the final clearance day today and I was not sorry to get this job completed as my proper job at work has been mounting up during my absence.
There was just the overhead crane and rails to load plus the electric control cabinet and drive motor for the borer, two trips all done and dusted by lunch.

Jeremy

[Neversweat]

Great pics Jeremy

Was it the hot weather that caused the skate to sink The tarmac round here has had a sticky feel to it lately

Steve

[Jeremy Rowland]

Great pics Jeremy

Was it the hot weather that caused the skate to sink The tarmac round here has had a sticky feel to it lately

Steve

Yes Steve the hot weather did not help in this instance and you have not got much contact surface area on the skate wheels so the weight distribution was concentrated over a small area, hence the sinking feeling.

Jeremy

[Neversweat]

I bet you enjoyed that Jeremy - something different from the norm

Steve

[Jeremy Rowland]

I suppose these three pics are probably best posted under this topic; we have recently retired an old Russian made 3meter centre lathe and a Butler slotting machine, here we see the old lathe which is much larger than it looks on the photos being loaded onto the back of an articulated trailer in company with the said slotting machine.
The company has replaced the old lathe with a brand new XYZ CNC 780 lathe and a used XYZ CNC VMC1510 machining centre.

Jeremy