Finally brought the Tree home!
3 days ago I felt that I'd gotten everything together to make the big move of the Tree tracer mill from the seller's storage building to my home. In the early afternoon of Friday, therefore, I towed a rented flat bed trailer to his place of business. He loaded the pallet containing the mill, hydraulic pump and tank on to the trailer without any problems. With the mill tied down securely, I had an uneventful 10 mile trip back to my home. I had surprisingly little trouble backing the trailer down my narrow driveway up to the door of my workshop, where my diminutive wife was waiting. This led me to believe that all was going very well. Little did I know that trouble was just around the corner.
I had to drive my forklift on to the trailer's bed in order to pick up the pallet. When I attempted to lift the pallet, however, I discovered that my 42" forks were too short to get under the load's center of gravity (they'd used 60" forks to get it on to the trailer). Because the mill tended to tip backwards whenever I tried to pick up the pallet, I felt it would be best to inch the pallet slowly off the trailer. The partially-inserted forks, however, only served to pull up one of the 2" x 12"s from the top of the pallet. I then decided to pull the pallet and mill off the trailer's bed with ropes attached to the forklift. This eventually worked but it was unsettling to me to see little pieces of wood being torn off the bottom of the pallet - as I pulled the pallet across the many protruding hex heads of the bolts attaching the trailer's wood floor to its steel frame.
By the time I finished disconnecting the hydraulic and electrical power lines between hydraulic pump and the Tree mill (making certain to identify them so that I could reconnect them properly), night had fallen. I nevertheless managed to place the forks under the ram without destroying any part of the mill and lifted the mill off the pallet. Aided by my wife, I began to attach my heavy-duty caster units to the mill's base. The rear unit fit like a glove but the front unit would not because an electrical junction box on the mill's underside partially obstructed the caster unit. Well, there was nothing else to do, I felt, but to fill up the 1-1/2" of space between the mill's bottom and the caster unit with washers. This seemed to require more than the 2 hands with which I was equipped - holding the bundle of washers together on the very long 1/2" bolt while adjusting the heavy caster unit so that I could screw the bolt into its threaded hole. Fortunately my wife held the flashlight to illuminate the work area, while I juggled everything in the confined area underneath the base of the mill, about 3" above the ground. :tired: Eventually I managed to secure this caster unit also to the mill's base. When I started up the forklift again to begin nudging the now-castered mill up a slightly inclined steel ramp on to the floor of my workshop, my forklift got bogged down in the graveled driveway. Nothing we did would get it moving forward or backward. Since the mill was blocking all access to the forklift (a fence was directly behind the forklift), we had to move the mill into my workshop by brute strength (difficult since neither or us are "brutes"). This we accomplished very slowly with two long steel bars and a great deal of grunting. We finally levered the mill over the edge of the ramp and on to my workshop's floor, where we were able to move it easily into position.
By that time it was 10 PM and we'd worked through supper - because rain was forecast for that night and I did not want to leave the mill out in the rain. Before closing up my shop for the night, I said to my wife, "Thanks, my little Sampson!" She replied by flexing one bicep and said "You know that a 76 yr. old woman (115 lbs.) shouldn't be doing this kind of thing, don't you?" :)
I had estimated that it would take us about 3 hours to unload the mill and place it in position. It wound up taking us double that amount of time to do the job. Working in the darkness of night by the light of flashlights and a portable lamp doesn't make for the wisest of decisions, I learned. The next morning, when I looked over the mill now resting in my shop, I realized that the obstructing junction box was attached to the bottom of the mill's knee! :eek: All that was required to move it out of the way was to raise the knee an inch and a half. In my haste, I had plunged ahead and probably prolonged the job by an additional 30 to 40 minutes. I sure am glad that I'm not a heavy equipment mover! John Q. Public also feels the same way! :)
Larry
