moving mills

A few weeks ago I was able to finally get my Bridgeport mills off the skids and onto the floor in my studio. This always gives me great stress as I usually am doing this by myself and I always fear that I'm going to damage something. Jill was kind enough to buy me a new engine hoist that happened to be on sale at Harbor Freight. I got the hoist assembled and then decided to try lifting the green mill to make sure the hoist would handle the weight. I went ahead and went for the move with no trouble. A few days later, I moved the black mill. Upon the advice of the Hammerwhisperer, I lowered the table and flipped the head to get the weight low. I think this actually helped a lot and I felt better (maybe I just had some practice under my belt though). I also moved the mills around on the rods as I usually do. I don't have any shots of their final resting place but I placed them side by side but facing opposite directions. It ends up taking the least amount of space by doing this. This opened up way more space in my studio once I got the mills located. I have done a ton of work to the studio and things are slowly taking shape. I'll try to post some pics of the whole studio soon. It's amazing how long all of this takes to get things set up again, but I'm making strides.