Cast iron follies

[B A R R Y]

I thought some of you guys would enjoy this. It all happened in the last two hours.

My PM 719 mortiser arrived today.

8 inches of snow arrived yesterday (shut up, Houston and Daytona residents! ), making the walk-out feature of my basement not so useful.

The pallet had two boxes, a 55 pounder, and a 271 pounder.

The 55'er went right down the stairs in my arms. I unpacked the 271 pounder in the garage to find... AN ASSEMBLED MACHINE! Normally good, not so much right now. So, I think it through while I eat some pizza and study the manual.

I unpack the machine and convince myself that I can get it down the stairs on my hand truck if I securely strap it to the truck. After all, my hand truck has pneumatic tires and stair skids, I'm 6' / 245 pounds and exercise almost every day, and tool manufacturers almost always overstate weight these days! I'll just go one step at a time.

Using Yoga style leverage gyrations to get the machine out of the packaging, I web strap it to the truck. It's nice and secure. "No problem, I can do this", I tell myself.

I wheel it over to the stairs and drop it to the first step. The hand truck handle, with it's 4 1/2' mechanical leverage, almost throws me down the stairs as the machine wants to tumble forward!

As fast as I possibly can, I drop to the floor, but the handle is pulling me down the stairs! I catch a knee on the door jamb and, WHEW! The motion stops. Even though the thing is trying it's darndest to pull me down, I get the ball of one foot on each door jamb. As I sit on the hall floor, spread legged across the doorway, it's taking quite a bit of strength just to keep it here... No way I can even remove one hand!

Did I mention I'm home alone?

Somehow, I manage to toss all my weight backward, against the hall wall, while at the same time pushing the handle down, enabling the stair skid to slide back into the hall.

I did get the thing downstairs by disassembling to three parts, and then strapping up the hand truck. I think I'll just enjoy some nice Harpoon IPA and wait to assemble it until tomorrow.

Damage is limited to 1/2" groves in the oak floor lip at the top of the stairs, but it can't be seen with the door shut. I also might need to steel wool the floor a tad, and wipe a little more Gymseal on. I put the floor in and finished it, so I can fix it!

My chestnuts and muscles have mostly returned to their rightful places.

Most importantly, the tool is unscathed!

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[Joe]

That's only really funny because you and the machine both turned out fine.

But it *is* damn funny.

Joe

[skeez]

ROFLMAO!!!! at least ya made it in one piece! enjoy the new tool.

skeez

[Greg G]

Aside from being a not so thinly veiled drive by, (you suck, BTW), that was a funny situation (in retrospect) I've found myself in a time or two before.

Try unloading a Unisaw from the back of a pickup by yourself; discovering just a bit too late to prevent oneself from being semi-trapped under both it and a hand truck, just how top-heavy the sucker was packaged.

Or moving an early 80's oak cabinet Zenith big-screen down a winding staircase at a local politicians house, and finding out halfway down that the length of the set exceeds the available (decreasing) radius.

Once your gonads have returned to their respective, proper locations, enjoy the new tool.

Greg G.

[J. Clarke]

My favorite was being chased down three flights of stairs by a line printer. For you young guys, a "line printer" is not one of those little things that you strap onto the back of your motorcycle and take home from CrapUSA, it is a rather large piece of machinery that is ideally moved with a fork lift. I'm very happy that I didn't have to move the Xerox photocopiers out--one of them wouldn't fit in a pickup truck.

And for future reference, when moving something large and heavy down stairs, skid it down on a line. (lay planks on the stairs so that it slides freely) If you've got a solidly mounted piece of 2" or larger pipe (mounted so it can't turn that is) three turns of rope around it will control surprisingly large loads. If that's not an option a Figure 8 Descender tied to a piece of 2x4 can be quite handy.

I generally just tie a tow strap around it and hook it to the tow hook on the Jeep, with just enough slack to get the load started down. Then I back the Jeep up slowly. That only works if there's a straight shot to the stairs from outside though.

All kinds of ways to move a load down stairs--the important thing to remember is to find a way to let gravity and friction do the work and be positioned so that if it lets go you aren't what stops it.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

I'm having a difficult time visualizing this. How about you re-enact this and make a video so we can see what actually took place? Glad your gonads still work.

[nailshooter41]

and make a video so we can see what actually took place?

No kiddin'. I laughed like hell just reading it.... but a video.... now you really got something!

Great story there, Barry.

Robert

(still snickering)

[Puckdropper]

"J. Clarke" wrote in news: [e-mail]:

*snip*

*snip*

We moved a pool table by sliding it on 2x4s. This wasn't downhill, but on flat surfaces. When we got to the stairs, the table just naturally slid easily. So, when moving heavy things don't be afraid to get the

2x4s out!

Find something bigger for a ramp, though... You'll get 90% of the way up and the wheels will come off! DAMHIKT, but it did make the story that little bit funnier. ;-)

Puckdropper

[Bonehenge (B A R R Y)]

Sure!

I'll film and direct, you can have the lead role.

We can hire Lee Gordon to professionally narrate the action and create a music bed.

[Mike Marlow]

I have only one thing to say to this... Hammer Flight Time Adjustments.

[ROYNEU]

Son, didn't anybody tell you. . . "You got to be smarter then the machine"

Great Story! Glad you survived. Sounds like my Piano story.

Roy

[Hoosierpopi]

OK, I've read this response a couple of times now:

"If you've got a solidly mounted piece of 2" or larger pipe (mounted so it can't turn that is) three turns of rope around it will control surprisingly large loads. If that's not an option a Figure 8 Descender tied to a piece of 2x4 can be quite handy."

I can't imagine how he's mounting the two-inch pipe, ca't visualize the "surprisingly large loads" or the movement.

And, what is a "Figure 8 Descender?"

[Doug Miller]

Wrapping the rope several times around the pipe increases the friction of the rope with the pipe, allowing you to pay out rope slowly as the load slides down a ramp.

movable pulley on an inclined plane works wonders, too. I moved a 400-pound table saw into the basement by laying it down on a shop-built dolly with a pulley at one end, riding on a plywood ramp nailed to the stairs. The rope passing through the pulley was secured at one end by tying it off to a 4x4 braced across the opposite side of a doorway, with my son (age 14 at the time) holding the other end. I walked beside it down the ramp to guide it, as my son payed out the rope. The pitch of the stairs is about 3:5, so 60% of the weight of the saw was loaded on the stairs, and 40% on the rope -- half on the fixed end, and half on the free end. My son only had to hold back 80 pounds.

[Upscale]

I've got full length feature you can film. It's 1994 and I've just moved my

6' long, 5' high, 21" deep entertainment centre (approximately 5 sheets of heavy veneered plywood worth of material) into my apartment. It's on a set of 10 casters so I'd be able to move it around when necessary from my wheelchair. However, the unit isn't stained, I figured I'd do it in my apartment.

Anyway, I've gotten in behind the entertainment centre and managed to tip it backwards with it leaning on two saw horses, one on each end with me in the middle. This is the only way I can readily reach the top of the unit so I can stain and finish it. I'm busy rubbing stain into it and I push too hard. Both of the saw horses slip out and the unit starts tipping further backwards, pushing me in my wheelchair with it. I can see my live flashing before my eyes as I get crushed underneath the thing. I end up with the back of my wheelchair pinned against the apartment wall and the entertainment centre towering over me and leaning on the armrests of my wheelchair. The damned unit is too heavy for me to stand upright, so I'm stuck. No more flashes of being crushed to death, now I'm imagining dying of thirst instead, stuck in this position. I'm sitting there about 20 minutes wondering what I should do. My first idea was to start banging on the apartment wall hoping to attract someone's attention, but then I'm thinking I'd die of embarrassment when I had to be rescued from this position. I can still remember thinking, "Hell, I'd rather die of thirst instead" because I know my neighbours and friends would never let me hear the end of it.

I guess that was all the impetus I needed. Out of sheer desperation, I was able to summon the strength to stand the unit fully upright and escape my impromptu prison. I finished staining and finished the entertainment centre a week later with a friend on hand who sat there drinking beer and smirking all the time while I was doing it.

[Bonehenge (B A R R Y)]

Care to share?

[A Lurker]

B A R R Y wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Barry

I also availed myself of the Rocler/Jet free shipping and discounts, but for something less formidable; the Jet Air Filtration System. So yesterday as I'm walking out the door at noon I find out from the freight company that they are scheduling delivery. No problem, "Monday will be fine...."What do you mean it's already on the truck and will be there shortly!" Well I was set to take 91 yo MIL to medical specialist that we had waited a month for an appointment. So with no one home they could just leave it ... oh it's on a semi and at the street is not an answer, but by the garage is OK. Well while at MD's office I get a cell phone call from the driver, for directions to my house over roads he can take the semi and learn it is palletized at 120 lbs which he has to hump up a

100 foot winding icy driveway. Well, I get home last night and there blocking my garage is the Jet carton.

It stayed there last night on the ice and after reading your post this AM decided to move immediately to "Plan B" instead of trying to hump this thing in on the ice. Out came the tractor with frontend loader and it was delivered in the bucket to the front door and slid in on the tile floor. I unpacked it there and have convinced the wife that it should stay upstairs "purifying the air" for a while until I have help getting it downstairs to the shop. Unpacked it's only 85 pounds so it's no big deal getting it down other than the bulky size.

Jerry

PS When are you and Lee Gordon going to fly down?

[A Lurker]

"Bonehenge (B A R R Y)" wrote in news: [e-mail]:

AFS-1500 and it's downstairs chugging away on the bench already so it's safe to come, although I could always use help hanging it or with the 15" planer (another driveby :) ).

I'll be in touch after the holidays, I need some bicycling advice/assistance.

Have a Merry Christmas and hope we get a clear flyable weekend soon.

Jerry

[Bonehenge (B A R R Y)]

Now THAT'S a drive-by! Front-end loader?

I could have carried the mortiser right down to the back door. 8" of snow be damned!

I have lucked out in the sense that anything big I've ordered by mail has always been delivered in a lift-gate equipped straight truck.

After you get the box down the stairs.

Actually, the AFS-1000 isn't bad. It's easy to hold if you remove the filters. I was able to hang mine alone

We should do that soon. Lee and I were going to take a shot a Grizzly, too. I found out there's a $2 regional transit district bus that runs from Williamsport airport, actually stopping right at Grizz! The weekend weather (except today) has been pretty crappy (or screwily forecast), every time I could actually go. Even though I'm instrument rated, the plane isn't icing capable, so passing through a cloud deck is much less of an option in cold weather.

I'll have to watch close and call Lee if we see a chance. The plane goes in for annual the last week of January. It would be nice to hit NJ before that. Today actually would have been nice.

[Bonehenge (B A R R Y)]

You want to hang the planer from the ceiling?

We'll get there soon...

[Hank]

"Mike Marlow" wrote in news:260af$4763d5e0 $a2270005$ [e-mail]:

1403 Nancy1?