Now that the band saw is on it’s stand and working with temporary power connections, it was time to move the milling machine from the driveway into the shop.

First, clean a space to move this large, heavy machine.

Next I removed anything that was easy to remove from the milling machine such as the motors. This made it lighter and shorter. Here’s some of the items I removed.

Here’s the milling machine with the parts removed and ready to be lifted onto the base.

With all parts I removed, it STILL weights 297 kg!

How to get this machine from the driveway into the shop. As always, carefully plan out how you’re going to do it. Things will never go exactly according to plan, but it’s much better to have a plan to start with.

Using a pallet and assorted wood including some nice smooth panels recovered from discarded furniture, I built a platform on the porch that was slightly higher than the door sill and tilted down towards the floor inside. It will turn out I got it a little too close to the floor and it made getting the wheels under the machine difficult.

Now it’s a “simple” matter to lift the machine up and set it gently on the base.

Bolts installed, ready for next step. There should be a drip tray like a giant cooking sheet that sits between the top and the base, but that was lost in shipping along with several other parts. Those are on their way, but that means I’ll have to lift the top part off the base again to install the tray. I will build a portable hoist for use inside the shop to do this.

The next pictures show carefully, slowly pulling this into the shop. The red strap is a tow strap for an automobile.

It started to go off to the side so I used a long piece of steel as a lever to push it back.

The little wheels under this are “Extra Heavy Duty” furniture moving wheels. They just barely held the load and were somewhat damaged.

And here is where it will sit. It will have to be moved for when we finish the floor, but after that it will be bolted down so it can’t tip over. It’s very top heavy and you would NOT want that to fall on you.

I decided to stop there for the day. Tomorrow I’ll put all the pieces back on that I have and connect it to power. I will have to 3D print some hand wheels for it as it will be some time before the replacement ones get here. Also the motor that moves the table right and left was also lost, so for now it’s all done by turning the hand wheels.