Funny Ebay story (sort of)

[Craig Zettle]

I have had my eye on a Grizzly 20" planer on Ebay, the one they are selling for 2750. The thing is a beast, with a 5hp motor for the cutterhead and a 2hp motor for the feed rollers. A beast I tells ya. Anyway, tonight is the night it ends. I get on Grizzlys' web site to double check the specs and notice that the width is 34". With about 5 minutes to go in the auction, I run down to the basement and measure the cellar door opening, and sure enough, it is 30". I am looking at this thing wondering if I could dissasemble it enough to get it in, and the auction ends at 1228 and change. For the record I was going to go higher. I guess it was not meant to be. Honestly, I don't think I could have got it in. I don't know, it weighed over 1000 lbs., and I was dropping it about 5 -6 feet in to the basement. There would have been no room for play even if I would have stripped the sides down. Me and a friend almost died just getting my 16" planer in, and I had visions of compounding that bad experience with this one.
It just wasn't meant to be.

[Dennis McDonaugh]

I guess its never too late to measure.

[skip gleichman]

You might have been killed... look at it that way! :-)

[Rob Russell]

Craig,

Doing the rigging for a 1000 pound machine isn't that big a deal. I moved (2) 1500+ pound machines down our hatchway to the basement and noone was trying to lift or manhandle that weight.

Trying to fit 34" worth of machine through a 30" opening is a different story. You'd need to find some pieces to remove to get the dimension down to 30". Grizzly could help you with that.

Rob

[Dev Emch]

There is a nice 24 inch porter dino-bestie ending very soon on ebay as well. Of course, I have nothing to do with this auction. Was tempeted but I dont it need it and the old collection is a bit out of control for the current digs anyway. See my rational side combating my creative side. Dev, keep that hand away from the computer! You dont need yet another planer that weighs as much as the car!

[Chris Giles]

Mr brother and I spent a good portion of our day yesterday (60*and sunny, thank god) dismantling a Rockwell 18" planer in the back of my pick-up so we could manuever in down a hill and into my shop through the 34" opening. I removed the motors, covers, table and central wedge mechanism that raises and lowers the table. Took off probably 400-500 lbs, and the carcass still weighed about 700 lbs, I'm guessing. I didn't mind, because I wanted to spend some quality time with the guts to educate myself, and clean and lube them. Actually, it was a fun way to spend the day. Everything was in remarkably good shape, but the cutterhead bearings sound a bit gravelly, so we will replace them. This machine would have had to be completely dismantled to fit thru your 30" opening, but this could have been done on this machine. I think it is well worth the effort.

[Craig Zettle]

You know what, now I wish I would have thrown a bid out there, because I like to tear my stuff apart and stare at it anyway. I think I would have had to dismantle every shaft sticking out of the side to squeeze it in, but who knows, it might have been fun. Just taking the motors off would have saved a bunch of weight (but no help with the width ). Oh well.

[Randy Meijer]

It might be quicker to remove the entire frame of the door than dismantle the tool??