The Sequel - Oh Blimey I bought a CNC Lathe (Beaver TC 20)

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awemawson:
I've bitten the bullet and ordered a 60 mm slice of 170 mm EN24T so no more food until the end of the month :clap:

Now I'm working on how the devil I'm going to be able to lift the 47.2 kg chuck off. On that side of the lathe there is only a 30" walk space. No strong points above the chuck, and the gap from floor to lathe base is too small for the wheels of an engine crane.

One possibility is a jury rigged gantry rigged across the lathe from that walk space to an even smaller one at the rear.

Another possibility is a home made 'cantilever crane' with it's jib counterbalanced by lumps of concrete and able to operate in the 30" walk space.

It would be nice to make something more 'universal' as lifting can only get worse as anno domini pass :scratch:

awemawson:
OK I may have an 'easier to engineer' solution:

By making a custom 'fork extension' for my Hyster 2.5 ton fork lift truck I may be able to come at the lathe from the headstock end (all the cupboards and things there are on wheels anyway) and project the extension over the lathe down the Z axis. Given a suitably strong net sling for the chuck the fork lift can do the raising and lowering, and if I slide a pole 'up the spout' of the lathe and through the chuck as a back stop hopefully accidents can be prevented.

It will need to be a 6 foot long extension at least - probably some scaffold tube with custom fixings to the existing forks. I'll do some tests but I don't suppose 6 foot of scaffold pole will object too much to 47 kg bouncing on it's far end !

Pete.:
If you have any 2" box section I'd weld a base plate on it and knock up a bi-fold davit arm hinged at the top. Bolt the post in front of the sliding doors and swing in the arm with a small cable winch on it.

awemawson:
Another avenue to explore Pete :thumbup:

It'll mean bolting a socket down to the concrete floor - I'll explore the geometry and see if it's possible to swing in round for lowering - as you know it's a tight space !

Pete.:
That's why I propose a bi-fold arm. So long as it's strong enough to carry the weight at full reach it'll swing the load anywhere from full extension to right up to the post.

Come to think of it, I might have a 6" box section post at work.

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