Smouser
Member
- Messages
- 783
- Location
- Amesbury, Wiltshire, UK
While on the hunt for a donor machine to potentially get some parts for my Elliot Progress 3A drill I came across an Elliott Omnispeed lathe.
@RobCox was in the process of making replacement gears for my Warco lathe and sent him some pictures of the drill and a couple of photos of the lathe just for interest.
BIG mistake, he badly influenced me (as he is a bit of an Elliott fanboy) and explained that it is a MUCH better machine than the Warco 350 and somehow convinced me into buying it (not that I need much convincing buying old machines, but he should not have been so irresponsible)
A couple of photos I sent him, I think.
Long story short, we made a deal (which I think was a good one depending on if there is something majorly wrong with the machine) and I went to pick it up with a borrowed trailer.
Loading it onto a trailer was an easy affair as the seller had a lorry with a HIAB crane (which probably also helped to persuade me into getting it).
I arrived home after dark and after a couple of attempts, I managed to reverse the trailer onto the drive with minimal clearance between the gate posts (maybe I should have made one set of gates slightly larger than the other?).
The fun started the next day trying to get the machine off the trailer.
The plan was:
• Lift one end of the lathe with an engine hoist and place machine skates under it so that the end could roll on that end.
• Lift the other end with an engine hoist, drive forward with the trailer and build up a base out of wooden blocks.
• Lift the end of the lathe that is on skates with the engine hoist, drive forward again and place it on wooden blocks.
• Slowly lower the machine to the ground in stages.
With the help of my unsuspecting friend, the first step of the plan went flawlessly and we got the skates in (note that @RobCox was nowhere to be seen when I needed to offload )
Ready for stage 2 of the plan!
This is where things started going wrong. The lathe was way too heavy for the engine hoist and bolts/pins on the hoist started to bend.
We had two realistic options:
Drive and go get another engine hoist to attempt a tandem lift or
try to do some weight reduction to see if the hoist could lift the lathe.
In the interest of time (as my friend had other engagements) we tried the weight reduction method.
We removed a few panels and the 6HP motor to see if that will be enough for the hoist to be able to lift the lathe.
Very dodgy but it worked!!!
@RobCox was in the process of making replacement gears for my Warco lathe and sent him some pictures of the drill and a couple of photos of the lathe just for interest.
BIG mistake, he badly influenced me (as he is a bit of an Elliott fanboy) and explained that it is a MUCH better machine than the Warco 350 and somehow convinced me into buying it (not that I need much convincing buying old machines, but he should not have been so irresponsible)
A couple of photos I sent him, I think.
Long story short, we made a deal (which I think was a good one depending on if there is something majorly wrong with the machine) and I went to pick it up with a borrowed trailer.
Loading it onto a trailer was an easy affair as the seller had a lorry with a HIAB crane (which probably also helped to persuade me into getting it).
I arrived home after dark and after a couple of attempts, I managed to reverse the trailer onto the drive with minimal clearance between the gate posts (maybe I should have made one set of gates slightly larger than the other?).
The fun started the next day trying to get the machine off the trailer.
The plan was:
• Lift one end of the lathe with an engine hoist and place machine skates under it so that the end could roll on that end.
• Lift the other end with an engine hoist, drive forward with the trailer and build up a base out of wooden blocks.
• Lift the end of the lathe that is on skates with the engine hoist, drive forward again and place it on wooden blocks.
• Slowly lower the machine to the ground in stages.
With the help of my unsuspecting friend, the first step of the plan went flawlessly and we got the skates in (note that @RobCox was nowhere to be seen when I needed to offload )
Ready for stage 2 of the plan!
This is where things started going wrong. The lathe was way too heavy for the engine hoist and bolts/pins on the hoist started to bend.
We had two realistic options:
Drive and go get another engine hoist to attempt a tandem lift or
try to do some weight reduction to see if the hoist could lift the lathe.
In the interest of time (as my friend had other engagements) we tried the weight reduction method.
We removed a few panels and the 6HP motor to see if that will be enough for the hoist to be able to lift the lathe.
Very dodgy but it worked!!!