Tips for lightening a powermatic 180

[george newbury]

HELP PLEASE

I've got to get one and move it several times.

How difficult is it to remove the motor and save a bunch of weight?

Any other pointers?

I had thought it weighed about 700 lbs, but I found a spec that stated 1300lbs

/edit - I got it at a school auction and am thinking a ramp for my F350, HD moving dollies, a come along and four people.

[Carroll Courtney]

Go to UHaul and rent a truck w/lift gate that will handle the weight.Worth every penny,but the stress is worthless---Carroll
Opps-moving several times,dang

[David Kumm]

Rent a drop deck JLG trailer. Even a few inch incline is tough to handle. Dave

[Stephen Cherry]

/edit - I got it at a school auction and am thinking a ramp for my F350, HD moving dollies, a come along and four people.

Sounds like you have the right idea. One thing that I always recomend is to get the machine up on a super heavy duty pallet, then strap and/or bolt the machine down. It gives the machine a much wider base to keep it upright.

[Dave Cav]

1300 pounds is about right. I have one and had it delivered via lift gate truck and pallet jack. The motor is about the only thing that will come off easily, and it's not going to save you a significant amount of weight. If it's on a pallet, then a pallet jack and ramps onto a trailer might be the best bet. I STRONGLY suggest not trying to manhandle it up into a full size truck bed. Someone will get hurt. A truck with a liftgate is the best way; a forklift at each end of moving would be even better. You're stuck with moving a big, heavy chunk of arn, and it's a lot different than moving a Unisaw.

[Jim Andrew]

Personally, I'd use my trailer to move the planer, if they have a forklift to load it, that would be great. The pallet idea is very good too. A tiltbed trailer would probably work, using come -alongs to pull it onto the trailer, and it would probably slide off easier than onto the trailer. Might need a bar to get the planer over the edge, but if you pull down low, it should slide onto the trailer.

[Rick Lizek]

Removing the motor isn't worth the time and effort to reduce the weight. When a friend and I were selling machinery on the side we figured out a simple way to move machines. A trailer is much lower and an engine hoist to lift it up. Lifting straps are better than chains. I could move that planer myself. There are limitations such as loading docks and such, but I could easily move it from pretty much any accessible ground location. Acouple of sheets of plywood and we could work off a pebble stone drive way. Typically we would move machines from our garages to another ground level location. Your method sounds too dangerous...

[george newbury]

Well I've given up on "putting" it in the back of my F350 at first. I'm going to try to rent a lift gate trailer (thanks for that tip). Then when I can get it to my house I've a Kubota M4700 that's supposed to be able to lift 1,0001 Kg with the FEL. Now I have to figure out what to do with the rest of the stuff I got.

And I see the need to buy some 3/4" PT plywood.(good tip).

I had planned on using my truck bed hoist, but that's only good for 1,000 lbs.
8x6SAM_0841.jpg

[Rick Lizek]

No need for PT Plywod. Just get CDX.

[george newbury]

No need for PT Plywod. Just get CDX.

I've future uses for the PT

[george newbury]

HELP PLEASE

I've got to get one and move it several times.

How difficult is it to remove the motor and save a bunch of weight?

Any other pointers?

I had thought it weighed about 700 lbs, but I found a spec that stated 1300lbs

/edit - I got it at a school auction and am thinking a ramp for my F350, HD moving dollies, a come along and four people.

Well the 700 lbs may be right, it's a 160 instead of a 180.

But they tossed in an extra set of new knives and a jointer with an extra set of new knives and a table saw, so I'll probably be moving about 1500 lbs anyways

[Dave Cav]

According to the manual
http://vintagemachinery.org/pubs/655/1294.pdf
the 160 weighs 1100 pounds with motor. Still a big chunk of iron.

[Joe Jensen]

Here is another option. I've had several large pieces delivered by a local reseller of machinery. For machines in this size they have a tilt bed trailer. They use a pallet jack and the trailer bed tilts and the edge that sits on the ground has no lip so it's easy to load and unload. One guy each time has moved the machines off the trailer and into my shop by himself and he never wants help.

I've used engine hoist with engines and the ones I've used would be dicey with 1300 lbs on them I think. I would for sure want to know that the hoist is rated for that weight and I would likely not use a Chinese one unless I was very sure.

I was going to drive 500 miles to buy a large Felder system a couple of years ago and several rental shops in the Phoenix area had tilt bed trailers for rent, like $40 a day.

[Keith Hankins]

I bought a northfield 18" and similar situation and it needed to go in the basement. I had it skidded. 4x4's bolted on. I had a flatbed wrecker pick it up and tilted the bed up with the wench cable and strap attached. Used gravity to get it off and build to beams to slide it on to the basement. Don't know how the hell I'll ever get it out but if yours is like mine the motor, cast base and table represent the major chunks of weight. Here's a link to my thread over on OWW where I got mine down the steps. Some other folks posted similar stuff. Might give u some ideas.

http://www.owwm.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=88879&start=0

[george newbury]

Well time to wrap this thread up and move on.

In another thread::

One more update to this thread -
from public surplus -
Listing was "Tools" - Very descriptive!
Auction was only active for 4 days

Auction Started	Sep 10, 2013 2:11:50 PM EDT
Auction Ended	Sep 14, 2013 4:30:00 PM EDT

When you clicked on it the final description was:Rockwell/Delta Radial Arm Saw. 1 Powermatic 10" Table Saw. Powermatic Planer. Rockwell/Delta Belt/Disc Sander. Fair Condition. No Photos.

Real descriptive.

This is what I got:
Rockwell/Delta Radial Arm Saw
Model 33-732 (pic at bottom, I don't know why)

Powermatic 10" table saw w/Biesemeyer fence (fence and extra leaf not in pic) /edit model 66

Attachment 271245

Powermatic 160 Planer with the 60lb piece you mount the grinder on for sharpening, 5HP 3 phase motor.
Attachment 271249

Delta 31-710 Belt/Disc sander
Attachment 271250

And then a couple of extras NOT listed

Powermatic model 60 Jointer
Attachment 271252
Powermatic model 81 Band Saw
Attachment 271253

Craftsman 10" table saw

Attachment 271251

I was fairly well pleased.

now I need a RPC, about 8 or 10hp I figure.

/edit - I hadn't planned on getting a RAS, a sander, a bandsaw or two more table saws (brings me to 5 table saws), but it looks like since I started this thread I made out for less than $1K. The shop teacher also threw in two extra set of new blades 1 for the jointer, 1 for the planer. And it had ALL been operational and just "tuned" up before the school closed the section of shop it was in and put in a computer lab.

Now about moving the stuff - I bought a Harbor Freight pallet jack, which I needed anyways, and with that, a sheet of 3/4 plywood, a come-along, my two sons and a friend we managed to muscle it into a Uhaul dropgate trailer and my truck. Only big problem was the planer. My youngest (25) thought he could get it over the lip of the dropgate and slid the planer off the pallet forks. It took a bout 20 minutes too recover from that.

Then when we went to unload the tools my M4700 blew two hydraulic hoses so we did most by hand. I noticed it's a lot easier to get an 1100 pound planer DOWN then UP.

/edit - I didn't realize pics wouldn't come over.