Machines Delivery - 20 Sept

At long last the woodworking machines were delivered and installed this weekend.

They have been waiting outside in the farmyard in Lanreath since August awaiting an empty truck returning to Bristol, slightly reducing the transport cost.

Although delivery was planned on Friday evening the driver ran over his hours and so they were stored in the transport depot overnight and arrived first thing Saturday.

I had reserved parking spaces outside the yard gates so the truck could park and offload with a HIAB directly into the yard.  Very quick offload in 3 lifts onto hardboard sheeting.

Spent all of Saturday cleaning machines of Cornwall rust and farmyard detritus mud, straw and nesting swift droppings, to reduce the rubbish being taken into the new workshop.

Decided that I no longer need the big (and heavy) deWalt cross-cut saw and stand, so will be eBaying this and replace with something more mobile that will take up less workshop space.  This will need to be stripped down and cleaned up bit so was put aside as a non-urgent project.

After measuring the door openings I reluctantly removed one of the planer beds to make manouvering a little easier.  These things are often easy to take off but may take ages to set up again - we will see. This bed is a massive piece of cast iron, difficult enough to hinge upwards when fixed on the machine, lifting and walking with it took a few deep breaths!!

I built a kind of runway in hardboard on the concrete yard and two sheets of plywood patched together at right angles and packed up to give a smooth run into the workshop lobby.

I knew the lobby would be tight and as a precaution I polished the powerfloated slab with wax polish in case I needed to skid the machine around.

The machine has two pairs of adjustable roller wheels on one face (front) and a single jacking jockey wheel on the opposite face (back).

The biggest risk was the machine (which weighs a Tonne) running down the slope out of controI and through the wall at the bottom of the yard and definitely not making the right hand corner into the workshop, not to mention pinning me (if I was lucky) against the wall.

I placed a couple of heavy fencing bases about a foot from the machine to stop it running away (handbrake) and tied a rope from the machine to both gate posts, (parachute).  I adjusted the rollers up until we had a bit of movement and then by gently lifting the jockey wheel end found that I could get some forward movement and at the same time steer the load across the slope (footbrake).  Because of the uneven concrete there was a tendancy for the back to want to swing around and overtake the front, but I had a couple of timber wedges and a lump hammer that could be used single handed and could arrest any unwanted movement and give me time for a breather.

Although the doors and lobby were tight the above technique gave me all the control I needed and skidding the front end around was not necessary.

LOADS of room!!

This is all quite a relief and the job was easier than I expected.  The jockey wheel did not crash through the deck as happened on the way out and the slope was my friend.  Getting the machine out and UP the slope is something I will leave to someone else!