[slashmaster]

I'm looking for a lathe. Realistically can't get something very big. I have no van, pickup or cherry picker so am going to have to use my bare hands to move it. But I'm willing to strip everything off the bed to make it lighter so whatever lathe I get can be that much bigger. So what do you think is the biggest Lathe bed a person can move with bare hands? Maybe a south bend 9"?

[BrassBuilder]

I'll take a stab at this...and I am not getting smart with you but are you Justin Bieber or Arnold Swartzenegger? It is all going to come down to how strong you are and what you can use to haul it home. I can lift my 12x36 bed by myself...but just barely and I about blow out my arse doing that. My son (30 years old) on the other hand, probably wouldn't be able to hardly budge it. My 7x14 lathe bed...i can easily pick up with one hand.

That 12x36 bed would probably fit in the back seat of your normal puddle jumper, but it will probably rip up the seats sliding it across. If you have a two wheel cart to move it around to get it close to where you need it, that helps.

Put your mind to it and you can probably move anything.

Mike

[Fastest1]

You dont have a truck or van? Do you have any friends that do? Beer is a good motivator. A simple dolly, a few pieces of pipe and almost anything can be moved. That being said i was in the flooring industry a long time. Every day consisted of moving an entire house of furniture, ripping out the old flooring (vinyl, carpet, tile or wood) installing the new flooring and then moving everything back in place. Dont lift when you can slide or roll. A piece of carpet upside down on a floor can move very heavy weights as can pieces of plastic, rollers such as pieces of pipe or a piece of scrap plastic laminate known as Formica, Wilsonart (again upside down) will protect the floor underneath while allowing you to slide them. Rock and pivot, whatever it takes. I moved my Smithy 3n1 all by myself 1 night in a fit of stubborness. Everything went great with the move except when I stuck my hand into a piece of pipe I had used as a roller to pick it up. It had a huge burr and cut the sh!t out of my hand. I still get a weird feeling if I see a freshly cut pipes open end. I wont be sticking my hand in there.

[Dave.Kellogg]

Watch MrPete222's (aka TubalCain) YouTube video "MACHINE SHOP TIPS #113 Disassembling & Moving a Logan Lathe" (MACHINE SHOP TIPS #113 Disassmbling & Moving a Logan Lathe tubalcain - YouTube). He strips a 12" x 36" lathe down to the bare bed, and then mounts an 8' length of water pipe to it as a handle.

[ninefinger]

I had the use of a trailer and cherry picker but if your willing I'd strongly recommend you just rent a van for the day ($50) and a cherry picker ($20) to make life easy. Its only a bit of money versus getting the lathe that you really want! Having had a small lathe before I've come to appreciate what a larger lathe can do (really loving the D1-4 camlock spindle...)

I moved my Standard Modern 13x34 lathe into my basement with the help of my brother.
We loaded it into the trailer with the cherry picker as only the 2 parts - base and lathe(see below). That was hard and even dangerous (gravel driveway where I bought it)! Once home I took it to pieces in my garage on my own with the cherry picker.
The bed was actually one of the easier pieces because of how easy it was to get a hand grip and it weighed ~320lb according to my bathroom scale (weighed each end separately). So each of us was only lifting ~ 160lbs. The one piece cabinet base was the hardest - it weighed nearly as much or more than the bed and was hard to grip...the head was strapped to a 2 wheel dolly and used that to go down the stairs, all the rest was light in comparison. Here's a photo or 2 to give an idea of what I'm talking about.



Good luck,
Mike