Cheapest way to move heavy kit - crane required?

[astro_al]

Well, I didn't see the paperwork, but here's a pic of the health and safety inspector who signed it off for me:

 

[astro_al]

...Actually I need to find some really thick leather strap to bind the spring with. Its bound to go one day, and it gets uncomfortably close to my face.

I'm told heavy leather wrapping will catch it before my face does.

Al.

 

[madkayaker]

Risk assessment is simple. Keep body bits away from big hammer or loose them!

 

[Norm]

Hey Al, that is some piece of kit you don't mess about do you. Any man who makes candle holders from 4" square solid steel gets my full respect certainly puts the phrase "you need a bigger hammer" into perspective, hope you manage to get it delivered safely.
Regards Norm

 

[Welderpaul]

Got any pics of what you make Al? Bashing 100mm solid square bar sounds heavy going

 

[the snooper]

Well, I didn't see the paperwork, but here's a pic of the health and safety inspector who signed it off for me:

by the look on his face and the way has his hands out, he's just caught his finger ends in that machine

 

[Wedg1e]

I used to have as a client the Royal Ordnance factory at Nottingham, where they forged the 105 and 155mm tank gun barrels. In one piece. 24 feet long.

With fantastic (and typical) British thinking they closed the factory, leaving UK plc without the capability to make large gun barrels.
This was rectified by simply giving the forging dies to Forgemasters at Sheffield; they hammer the blanks into shape then they get taken to BAE Barrow and put on a lathe slightly larger than will fit in the average garage

Which is all well and good until Forgemasters go udders-skywards - I don't think there's another hammer in the country big enough to do the job.

The barrel is threaded externally at the breech end and then screwed-on to the breech block. Be a bit of a bu99er if you cross-threaded it...

Incidentally BAE had a new patrol boat out on sea trials a few weeks back; when they came to test-fire the foredeck popgun a round detonated in the breech, blowing the gun apart...

 

[rtbcomp]

I used to live about 5 miles as the crow flies from a big hammer in Sheffield, and could hear it at night in bed.

 

[astro_al]

Risk assessment is simple. Keep body bits away from big hammer or loose them!

Yes, it does have a certain binary self-regulating health and safety feature.

Hi Norm, you ALWAYS need a bigger hammer. I considered a 5 cwt instead of the 3, but in the end its building the foundations (£), fitting it and supplying power that get in the way. Maybe next time!

Paul - no pics of that sadly, although I know there are some somewhere. I made up two handle-frames about 2 or 3 foot long, one fits over each end of the 4x4 solid bar, and we had a guy at each end holding the bar between their two handles - bit of a struggle getting something that heavy out of the fire at the right moment too. Then I was stood in the middle holding the tooling over the bar (the easy job) and pushing the go pedal. There's quite a bit of heat coming of a billet that big glowing bright yellow. Damn good fun though. Hot, dirty, heavy, real.

The candle thing was on the dining table until my girlfriend enlisted the help of a guest and shifted it to the fireplace while I was out! Hmph. Still, it looks happy there and now we can eat at the table, so...

Al.

 

[Ragnarok]

Well, I prefer the dynamism of bigger scale forge work. Last candle holder I made was in 4" x 4" square mild steel bar, about 2' long. That was on a 1 cwt hammer and it struggled to generate enough wallop.

I acquired a smaller (0.5 cwt) Massey mechanical hammer a few months back for smaller work (see pic). So the big one (3 cwt) is intended for stuff that the 0.5 cwt can't handle, although the blow energy is a lot more than 6x I think.

Al.

Here's the tiddler:

that's a lovely looking hammer, didn't even know massey made one like that!

 

[Punx0r]

I can't help at all, just wanted to say "what a fantastic looking piece of kit"

 

[tigler]

Reminds me of a place where my mate had his race workshop, until he moved just over a year ago.
They had some big forge hammers, most single story high, but a few 2 and 3 story high !!!
They were once steam powered but now by compressed air !! The air feed pipe is 6" bore and when the hammer has been running for a while the pipe grows a 1/2" thick frost fur jacket !! There are a bank of screw compressors needed to provide the air and the air receivers are 20 ft high x 5 ft diamtre !!
One of the hammers was about 30-40 mtrs from where the workshop was, when it was operating you could feel the floor move !
Once upon a time this factory had 150 of these hammers and employed 2000 people, now they only have 6 working hammers and about 50 people.

 

[rtbcomp]

That may have been the one I heard in Sheffield!

 

[tigler]

Wouldn't surprise me ! I hated going to that shop, the repetative thump of those hammers was like torture, especially if you were trying to concentrate on a delicate job !

 

[penfold]

Incidentally BAE had a new patrol boat out on sea trials a few weeks back; when they came to test-fire the foredeck popgun a round detonated in the breech, blowing the gun apart...

Not really Big And Expensive's fault; that's a american gun, albeit on a british-made gunmount.

 

[mike os]

Not really Big And Expensive's fault; that's a american gun, albeit on a british-made gunmount.

of course it is... they should be making their own rather than buying everyone elses crap

 

[Wedg1e]

of course it is... they should be making their own rather than buying everyone elses crap

Oh, they make enough cockups of their own, don't you worry

Allegedly one of the Type 45s (Daring/Dauntless/Diamond) had to return to port to have a spot of work done, after they realised all the radars were calibrated 180 degrees out. I mean, you'd imagine the pointy bit and the blunt end were well understood by now

 

[astro_al]

Well, all sorted.

In the end I used a company recommend by Qualimach - Wheelers transport. They were great to deal with and did me a decent rate on a part-load arrangement (I didn't care when it arrived, basically), and I didn't need to pay a crane separately. In the event, it only took 3 working days anyway, so all in all, highly recommended if you want someone experienced to shift a machine for you, rather than just a lorry driver.

Some pics below if anyone's interested. All I have to do now is install it...

Cheers, Al.

 

[stuvy]

good luck with the install, i hope they put it in the right place first time al

it looks really small on that rather neat looking truck

 

[astro_al]

Sadly 'they' aren't installing it, 'I' am...

Will be a slow process though - as and when 'spare income' allows.

Yeah, the lorry was gorgeous. cost 250k apparently (with trailer and crane).

Relieved to see it finally in the workshop still in one piece. Cheers, Al.