How do you lift your heavy indexers/rotary tables? (2024)

Budget improovements to Engine Hoist

In case yer interested.
This was in a tiny mold shop.
Got tired of engine-hoist "Blues".
SO.
Bigger wheels / wider surround.
More stable.
Cheers
m1m

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Used the old forks for die-horses.

Shapeaholic's gantry crane rocks. Thanks for sharing that pic.

Regarding lifting these heavy things, what do you fasten to? I bought an Advance Rotary Slide table (253lb, an 11x11 inch x-y slide about 3 total inches thick on top of the rotab part). The guy I bought it from used a hydraulic stacker to put it into the trunk of my car. To the OP's original question, the stacker worked great. The seller stole the eyebolt out of a Baldor motor, and fasted it to the table with one t-bolt in the t-slot in the center of the table and Regarding my concern that one t-nut was insufficient, the seller said "More than enough!". I was skeptical, but it held (as an engineer, if I'm lifting something that could kill or injure if it's dropped, I want some degree of redundancy and fail-safe design). Then I got home and tried to figure out how to get it out of the trunk. Hmmm. First thing I did was to go to Sears and buy some eye bolts (not the forged kind - the cheap Searsy kind). With four eyebolts in four t-nuts, and a 3/4 inch CRS bar through all four eyebolts, I felt better. Initially, being lazy, I checked with the neighbors to see if they had an engine lift. One neighbor said "Hell, why don't we just lift it out? He's about 5'10" and 170, I'm 6'3" and 250, so I kinda was backed into a corner and had to give this a try. We lifted it out, no problem. The key was having longer bar which gave us enough of a handle.

So you can use a hydraulic (or electric) stacker, or human power, if you have enough people and a good enough handle. But is a single t-nut adequate?

The lift limit for me is 20lbs to bench height. I have a rolling cart with shelves that slide out, the chucks, face plate etc are on the shevles. For the Lathe I have a crane enough for chucks and work pieces. For the mill a hydraulic table from HF is just right, roll it up to the table and just slide it on and off. I also have a cherry picker for the heavy stuff, like in this case removing the tailstock of the lathe to turn a 6 foot shaft.

Crane

Lift Table

Rolling Cart

A long time ago, I learned this from an old stagehand-

Never lift anything you can drag.
Never drag anything you can roll.
Never roll anything you can leave where it is.

So I almost never lift mine.
I built a small shelf unit behind and to the left of the milling machine- just about a foot square. I raise or lower the milling machine table to match its height, and slide the rotab back onto it when not in use. When I am using the rotab, I slide the vise onto it.
No lifting, and everything is right there, a foot away from its use point.

Toms Wheels said:

The lift limit for me is 20lbs to bench height. I have a rolling cart with shelves that slide out, the chucks, face plate etc are on the shevles. For the Lathe I have a crane enough for chucks and work pieces. For the mill a hydraulic table from HF is just right, roll it up to the table and just slide it on and off. I also have a cherry picker for the heavy stuff, like in this case removing the tailstock of the lathe to turn a 6 foot shaft.

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Boy I love your place, the walls are cleaner, but the signs of an active mind
are everywhere, and like mine you have to look where yer going.

I think I got one of those H.F. lifts still in the box.
Never put it together, it was part of a friends project
that went obsolete before he finished it.

Cosy
m1m

I think all the other ideas are better than my next suggestion, but just in case you might like it, here goes:

Find yourself a suitably-sized cable reel and create a Ferris Wheel of shelves on it. Roll it over to the mill, block it in place, slide the item onto a shelf, and bolt it onto the shelf.

Roll the unit over to its storage area, until next time.

I have a funky forklift and a cherry picker, and a pallet jack.

Check CraigsList for die-stacker aka midget walk-behind forklift.

If you check craigslist, you will need to do about 5 searches:

Fork Lift
Forklift
Fork Truck
Lift Truck
Tow Motor

I use a Vestil lift like this that I got an auction for $80.

Vestil - Low Profile Lite Load Lifts | Vestil-Equipment.com

For storage it fits together with an ergonomic work station stand.

Chris P

-here my version of a swing arm hoist and a 3" diameter air cylinder lifting a 297# Ford engine block up onto my mill from an engine stand.

-the blue hoist frame will hold this 297# plus I can bounce my entire 200# body weight out on the end of that hoist frame at the same time.

-the air cylinder doesn't have enough travel to lift from the floor so I typically roll the heavy stuff over to the mill on a roll around table.

-This swing arm deal was originally built to move the heavy vises etc from my nearby tool cart back and forth to the mill table.

-the post for his blue swing arm hoist is bolted down to the top of the mill into the eye hook hole which is about a 7/8 NC thread---so that entire deal relies on that one fastener.
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-I use the same air cylinder to hoist crankshafts onto my lathe with an overhead trolley above the narrow walkway in front of my lathe.

I use a small crane that i've made. Good for my lathe chuck and my dividing head!

Martin

Masimec said:

I use a small crane that i've made. Good for my lathe chuck and my dividing head!

Martin

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I'm one of those eye-ball engineers and I'm worried about your I-beam, looks a little light for "1/2 Tonne" on an 8' cant, It would make me so nervous I'd be wearing a little hardhat.

Looks great Bill.

Bob

small

Ya , small is good for a lot of heavey stuff.

We use a small 4 wheel, (two of which are caster) cart. we call it a die cart, I guess it was made to move dies around. we use it for evey thing. pulling chucks etc. we would C-clamp a boom on it and run the boom into a Seiki and let the chuck sit on it while we took out the bolts.

I once took a turret off a Murada , with it by myself.

Its is about 2x2.5 ' and has a crank up table. Thats hand crank with a locking ratchet, a cable around the drum on the crank goes up and over a pully at the top of the mast and down to the table.

works great and you can get into tight places with it. Let me know if you interested and I will try and get pics.

ben80

we are using

hydraulic stacker.

we made the forks oppsite to the supporting wheels base. (in normal condition it will not go under our vmc )

just change the direction and put enough weight on the base to avoid the stacker falling down while loading.