Delivery woes and challenges

[dajt]

Hi,

I have recently taken delivery of a Tormach 1100. It came on a truck, on a pallet, with the create of wood the machine was bolted into on top of the pallet. Neither me nor the delivery guys had any way to lift the machine and get the pallet out from under it.

In every delivery video and photo sequence I've seen, no-one else has had a pallet under their machine - just the piece of wood that forms the bottom of the crate!

Tormach (and others) show how you cut down the wooden base to fit a parallel legged engine stand in there to lift the thing. I couldn't do this because I'd have to cut a shipping pallet and the wooden crate base.

It was a hell of a performance involving false raised floors, jacks, and all sorts of other nonsense to get the damned thing off this double height, too wide, platform.

Has anyone else been left with a pallet under the crate to contend with?

Even better, the first one was delivered broken which I didn't notice until a couple of days after it was on the stand when I had time to look at setting it up! So I had to get it off the stand to the floor, repeat the whole performance with the new one, then get the broken one back on the double height base... I was thoroughly sick of the sight of both of them it by the time I'd finished. And it's still taking up a quarter of my workshop waiting to be picked up.

It arrived with a bent table splash guard (which I noticed when uncrating) but also the table extension casting wasn't screwed down, the Y axis motor had been knocked out of its tie-down, and the electrical cabinet had taken a big hit that sheared off the top two bolts that tie it to the column. I only noticed that when I opened the cabinet looking for something and saw some sheared bolts on its floor. Then I saw it was leaning to the right, which wasn't obvious to me before. Then looking in the cable tray one of those screws was sheared off too.

So the delivery, unboxing, and setup were not the exciting time I'd hoped for. In fact I was suffering some buyer's remorse and had to force myself to check everything else and start putting it together.

I will say the quick response of the importer was impressive - he sent me another one straight away. I wrote to him on a Saturday night and the new one arrived on the next Tuesday afternoon. I thought I'd have to wait another 4-6 months for one to come from China but he had a spare for some reason. He also had a lot of good advice about the tweaks necessary to get it going in Australia. As far as the broken on is concerned he checked the crate wasn't damaged when it got off the boat but didn't open it - it came straight to me. The crate wasn't damaged when it got here either. So no complaints about the importer - I believe he did his best for me.

Interestingly the broken one which should have been newer than his spare was 6 months older - it was 15 months old by the time I got it. If these thing sell like they seem to, I can't see how I could get a 15 month old machine as 'new'.

David.

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[mountaindew]

Has anyone else been left with a pallet under the crate to contend with?

.

Yes, and used a 200$ pallet jack to move the pallets around in the shop. Then to remove the machine, I cut junk wood 2x material and slipped it under the machine to hold up pallet top slats. Nailed them in place to form a base narrow enough to roll engine hoist around. Then Cut the pallet sides off, rolled hoist over machine, rigged it. lifted it off pallet and moved into place over the base. Getting the engine hoist over the base was the big challenge for me. I took my time and raised base with cribbing to get engine hoist to roll under it. Set it bolted it and then removed cribbing and lowered the entire machine and base with floor jacks. Took my time and all was fine


In total it took 40+ hours of work to set my machine up with only basic options. No easy task for 1 person.

[dajt]

Great job doing it on your own! I don't think I could have. In both cases I had a friend to help me which was invaluable both physically and for moral support. And getting it off the crate was the hardest thing for us too. That's why I was a bit over it having to get two of them off their crates and one back on.

It's in its spot now, so that's good.

[Djstorm100]

pictures?

[dajt]

It's all in place now and the broken one finally gone. I wouldn't mind moving it 300mm to the right as I was a bit generous with the space I left to the wall but I think that can wait a year or two!

Keen, my new workshop is basically finished better than my house so no exposed beams to winch it up with. I could have built a frame like I saw pictured on here but we got there with the false floor and much nautical language.

[VAAR]

My 440 came like that. The container was at an angle, and some of the boards on the pallet were broken.

[dajt]

VAAR, yeah on my broken one the reinforcing strips under the crate floor were jammed between the pallet boards, and the pallet was in pretty bad shape. The 2nd pallet wasn't much good either but at least the crate wasn't jammed into it!

Was your 440 ok?

I guess it's a long way from China to the rest of us with much potential for nasty knocks.

[VAAR]

That's exactly how mine was! In fact, after dragging it into the shop with the pallet jack, I could no longer get the pallet jack under it due to the damage. I finally opened the container and used my engine hoist to lift the mill. since I couldn't get the hoist legs around or under the pallet, I had to slowly (well as slow as possible) swing the mill a good two feet towards the back of the hoist as I lifted it. That was kind of scary, as the only thing holding it back was my soft, pink body. Fortunately, the mill was okay and all is well now.

[VAAR]

You can't really see the pallet damage in this pic, but you can see how the container is angled on the pallet. I think the pallet may have been left over from the Japanese occupation.

[dajt]

Yeah, OK, your delivery looks trickier than mine

I think we did a bit of that dragging along the hoist legs to get it in line with the lifting point with the first one of mine too... I had different friends with different equipment both times so the process varied.

[VAAR]

David, didn’t intend to get into a pissing match to see whose delivery was trickier. I’m just glad to finally be cutting steel. lol

Lionel

[dajt]

How did you get the machine from your photo location onto solid ground to get an engine hoist near it? Or how did you get your hoist over the gravel?

[VAAR]

It took me two days to get it in the shop and on the concrete. We had tropical conditions too. Ended up dragging the pallet jack down the 1/8 mile driveway with the car. Not to be dramatic, but it was epic.

[smokediver576]

It took me two days to get it in the shop and on the concrete. We had tropical conditions too. Ended up dragging the pallet jack down the 1/8 mile driveway with the car. Not to be dramatic, but it was epic.

I think it's fair to say... you might have just won the award for the EPIC move from truck to garage! The only one who might have you beat is the guy on here who built a custom trolley with hoist an such to move his through the house and down a flight of stairs to the basement.

Looking forward to you posting up some of your work!