Moving Shops

[bigdguitars]

Any thoughts from you guys that have a lot of stuff laying around and now it needs to be moved.

You all know that I have the monster router, and now a smaller one. Plus a pallet of wood too.

-Derek

[jer7440]

Buy or rent a pallet jack (you can buy one from Harbor freight for about $200), and rent a truck with a lift gate or a ramp. We have moved bridgeport mills and other large equipment in our shop with the pallet jack. It just takes a couple of guys and a little finess to get the machine up on the jack, but once its up there it's smooth sailing.

[erikbojerik]

Definitely pallett-jack, you can steer the stuff anywhere once it's up.

Forget the ramp if the stuff is really heavy and can't be man-handled by two guys. Go lift-gate.

[marksound]

Definitely pallet jack and lift gate (or a forklift and a flatbed truck or trailer). And get an appliance dolly if you have to move stuff the size of a refrigerator or a file cabinet. The strap and extra leverage will save your back. I routinely have to move large heavy items and I couldn't do without either of them.

And don't forget to protect your back.

[Doc]

The best tool to protect your back is a checkbook.

Take a check out and write it to a temp service.

The last time I had to move my shop I got four guys the size of refridgerators and we loaded, moved and unloaded in five hours.

Considering the cast iron critters that you have I wouldn't want to think about moving all of that crap in one or two days using my back and friends. They just don't make beer and pizza that good.

[marksound]

Touche'

[unclej]

i hear that gorillas work for peanuts.

[jnewman]

I have a friend who moves a huge bridgeport mill around his shop with one friend and five or six pieces of three or four inch steel pipe...

Of course, that doesn't help you get it in the truck.

[grindliner]

Find out if any of your friends or customers are a Millwright, or a Rigger. They may not want to help you, but will tell you how, lol.

Pay movers. Guitars talk, B.S. walks (wink, wink)

Furniture Dollies are god, and hold alot more wieght than people think, Problem is getting something that weighs more than,200 lbs. onto it safely.

Pallet jacks are good. hilo is better.

[GodBlessTexas]

Having just moved a piano, I can say this:

There are two ways to move something heavy -

1) expensive and by yourself with pallet jacks, lift gate trucks, and your friends' muscles.

2) expensive and paying someone else to do it.

I would take #2 any day, because renting the stuff you'll need isn't cheap, especially a lift gate truck from one of the big rental places, and talking your friends into it is sometimes a losing proposition.

Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...

[marksound]

Oh dear mercy of heaven, I have 5 pianos to move next week. Not all on the ground floor, mind you. One has to come up from the basement (half a flight of stairs), 2 from half a flight up, and a damned grand piano that I have to take the legs off of and tilt freaking sideways onto a dolly to take back to my warehouse where it will sit until some lucky bastard wins it on ebay and I don't have to look at it any more! AAAHAHAHAHA!! Ahahaha. Somebody get me a beer.

[GodBlessTexas]

I lucked out and bought a Spinet and located a piano dolly for rent @ $18 for 6 hours. I looked into renting a lift gate truck, but it was going to be $89 minimum plus an insane mileage fee and I needed to reserve it 48 hours before I needed it (I bought the piano on Thursday and moved it Saturday), so I built a ramp from 2x6"s tied together with 2x4"s and wood screws spaced every 12" ($60) to get the thing into the mini van. It worked with the help of two of my friends, but I don't EVER want to do it again. And I couldn't imagine moving a Grand or Baby Grand.

Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...

[ryanb]

My shop is in my basement, and I have moved way too much stuff in and out of there over the years -- tools, projects, etc. I have used appliance trucks, dollies, ramps, hoists, cable winches, way too many favors from (former) friends, etc. -- whatever works and pretty much anything you could think of. Fortunately most of the really big heavy tools were going down. I don't want to move those again. When they have to come out, I am paying some refridgerator-sized movers to do that stuff. Life is just too short to do it any other way. A forklift sure would be useful around here, though.

[M_A_T_T]

Take them apart if possible. This is how I moved a floor model drillpress, large edgesander, 14" bandsaw and 16" thickness sander up a flight of stairs by myself. Getting them down to 100lb 'chunks' made it managable for myself.