Saga of the arrival of the Mustard Monster!

[Alan Heffernan]

I ordered a 3520 A on Wednesday one week ago today and it showed up on Monday this week! Yep, pays to be close to Tennessee.:D

I was promised that it would be delivered on a freight truck with a lift gate. Nope, came to the house in a regular freight tractor trailer rig! The driver opened the back rollup and there she sat at shoulder height. All 680 pounds plus another 80 pounds of bed extension and other stuff I had ordered.

After some query with the driver on why they brought it in a rig without the tail gate that was part of the deal, I decided to get that beast off the truck anyway. By the way, the driver had a bad knee and some tendency to tremble which I surmised was related to a long hard weekend of working on a bottle or two of Jack Black for the pain in that knee. I should have offered him some Advil but I was in a hurry, it was about to rain.

I went down the hill and retrieved my truck, some 2x6 timber, 4 ft. pry bar, leather gloves, and a back brace. Up the hill with that truck and backed up to the back of that freight trailer, close coupled with my tail gate in the up position. To the amazement of the driver who was watching all this, I took that pry bar and rotated that crate until it was hanging off the back of that freight trailer over the timber skids I had propped on the tailgate of my truck. Using that pry bar, I tilted the monster over the back of the freight trailer and down she slid on those timbers into the bed of my truck. By the way, the pallet was getting pretty beat up in all this prying and pushing.

Back down the hill I drove, albeit slowly, with that 680 lb. crate tilted up on the tailgate on those timbers. It took some real prying and working to get those 2x6s out from under the tilted crate and get her down into the bottom of the truck. It was quite an achievement by my lonesome. My darling wife had left that morning to go stimulate the economy and I was there alone.

Of course the bigger problem came next, how to get that baby out of the truck by myself before it rained on it. Monday a.m. and all my potential help was at work or not available. Because it was about to rain again, I decided that baby was coming out of that truck. I backed it up to my garage and opened the crate in the back of the truck. I then disassembled the thing to the smallest pieces I could and out they came. I tilted and slid pieces and parts until I got that truck unloaded and there she now lying in the garage.

After the one and half hour battle, I had enough for one day (spelled worn out!) and decided I was waiting on some help. That new lathe is still laying there because of some work commitments but she will be moving on Friday night through the garage into my workshop, be assembled, and hopefully be running in short order. I wouldn’t do it this way again. My advice is make the freight company deliver it using a lift gate as ordered and have a way to move it once it is on the ground. This machine is way too heavy to be doing something like this alone unless your way bigger and meaner than the average Joe. I lucked out this time and got it done without injuring me or the machine. By the way, I have some help coming Friday night with the promise of dinner and a good bottle of wine, after we get it moved!

[David E Keller]

Congrats on your new lathe! Assembly should be easy after all the work you had to get it to the garage.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Alan.....Congrats and don't injure yourself!

I'll tell you how I assembled mine by myself. The owner of Woodcraft and his wife drove it 110 miles to deliver it. He, I and 2 others using his pallet jack, put it in my shop.

I have a Little Giant ladder. ( Actually....I bought one of the bigger ones so it is Big Giant) but I put a scrap piece of header material across the top rungs while the ladder was in the "A" frame mode.....put a chain around it and used a come-along to raise one end of the bed up. I bolted on one leg set....moved the ladder and come-along to the other end and raised the other end of the bed up to bolt the leg assembly on that end.

Be careful!

[Rick Markham]

Well ya bought a big enough lathe, you shouldn't have to do it all again! Congrats Alan, make it home safely from your business trip, get it all together, and get that thing DIRTY!!!

[Harry Robinette]

Alan
Congrats on the new one sounds like you had fun doing the truck tussle, glad you didn't get hurt.Now all you have to do is GETER DONE !!!
Harry

[Dan Forman]

At least you didn't have to get it down into your basement. I did have help for that.

Dan

[Scott Hubl]

Congrats on the GOLD! :cool:

[Brent Grooms]

congratulations!

One tip... use a couple of those plastic sawhorses from the borg, set the bed on them and you can now rotate the bed to make putting the legs on easier. (I hate putting screws in while upside down and backwards)

[Rick Markham]

Man, where were you when I had to flip mine over Brent? LOL, just goes to show, work smarter not harder! It wasn't horrible with another person, but with that idea it would have been a piece of cake.

[Steve Schlumpf]

Alan - Congrats on your new lathe! Sure looks like you had a few challenges figuring out how to get that thing off the truck! Glad you weren't hurt!

Just saw that you are in the Mobile area! My son and his family live in Irvington. I used to live in Heron Bay - back before it even had a name!

[bob svoboda]

Now that's motivation, Alan! Good job and congrat's on the new lathe. Welcome to club Mustard!

[philip labre]

Congratulations on the new lathe! On the Mustard Monster site there is a nice article about assembly with saw horses.

[George Clark]

I'd like to offer another option for moving heavy shop equipment without help. I use a cherry picker, also known as an engine hoist or a shop crane. Depending on the boom extension, most are rated for 500 to 2000 lbs or more. They have folding legs so the storage footprint is relatively small when not in use. I bought mine at Sam's several years ago for around $150. Harbor Freight has them currently for $170. They show up on Craig's list from time to time. I used mine to pick up my crated Robust and move it into the shop and suspend it while I removed the crating, completed the assembly and moved into position. I also used it to suspend my band saw while I removed the pallet and installed casters. When I uncrated my drill press I could just barely lift the head, no way could I set it on the post alone. Again, the cherry picker to the rescue. For those who like to do really large turnings, they offer a way to mount that huge chunk of wood by yourself safely.

George

http://www.harborfreight.com/1-ton-capacity-foldable-shop-crane-93840.html

[Paul Douglass]

Congrats on the lathe and George is correct. A "cherry picker" is a very good investment. You wouldn't believe the things I have moved, lifted, loaded and unloaded with my "Cherry Picker".

[Baxter Smith]

Congrats on the nice lathe! I probably would have done the same thing in that situation but sure wouldn't want to have to! I rented a cherry picker for 10$ to load into my van when I bought a used one this summer. Cheap insurance. Glad you made out ok!

[Bernie Weishapl]

Congrats on a nice lathe and boy what a time getting it unloaded.

[Michael James]

Very nice lathe, and all that work makes it just that much more special!:p

[Alan Heffernan]

I'd like to offer another option for moving heavy shop equipment without help. I use a cherry picker, also known as an engine hoist or a shop crane. Depending on the boom extension, most are rated for 500 to 2000 lbs or more. They have folding legs so the storage footprint is relatively small when not in use. I bought mine at Sam's several years ago for around $150. Harbor Freight has them currently for $170. They show up on Craig's list from time to time. I used mine to pick up my crated Robust and move it into the shop and suspend it while I removed the crating, completed the assembly and moved into position. I also used it to suspend my band saw while I removed the pallet and installed casters. When I uncrated my drill press I could just barely lift the head, no way could I set it on the post alone. Again, the cherry picker to the rescue. For those who like to do really large turnings, they offer a way to mount that huge chunk of wood by yourself safely.

George

http://www.harborfreight.com/1-ton-capacity-foldable-shop-crane-93840.html

there you go George, causing me to spend more money! :D Good idea, I will go get me one tomorrow. I recently built a mobile stand for my spindle sander and it would have been nice to have that in the shop. I like the fold up design on this one. I am always in need of something like this in the garage and shop but haven't bought one because of the space needed to store it. Thanks for the tip.

[Fred Perreault]

Alan.... you are a piece of work. That was an entertaining, as well as enlightening story. It is amazing what we can do when pushed to the limit (and the presence of mind to take pictures..?). I think that what you went through will cause you to appreciate the new tool that much more. It seems that there are times that we do things, that when looking back causes us to wonder how we did it. Some of us cannot survive without challenges..... :)
good luck..

[Mike Peace]

I know you will enjoy it.

My PM was delivered with a lift gate but no pallet jack so no way was the driver able to get it to the back of the truck and offloaded to the ground by himself. In hindsight I should have written on the manifest that I did not get the paid for lift gate service ($85) and got my money back. I sure wasn't going to send the truck back and get the delivery rescheduled! Oh well, live and learn.

[gary Zimmel]

Congrats on the new mustard monster Alan.

[Rich Aldrich]

Congrats on the lathe. Interesting story on the delivery. I bought a Jet 1642 last February and had it delivered to the paper mill where I work. I loaded it on the my trailer with a fork truck and hauled it home. I backed it up to the door of my shop and brought it in piece by piece just like you did. It actually works out quite well that way.

[Allen stagg]

Congratulations. When mine arrived, it came with a lift gate and the driver unloaded and using a pallet dolly, placed it exactly where I wanted it. I tipped him afterwards nicely for his great help and attitude.
I was so excited with adrenaline, I put it together myself and had it fully assembled by myself. I put it together upside down with the main piece and put the legs on while upside down on a blanket to protect my prize. After that, I needed to turn it over and with the wife gone, I had to do it. I turned it on its side easy and then using a 2X4 between the lathe main piece and lifted it up gently until it sat upright and then put the motor and tail piece on and I got my lathe extension free when I ordered my lathe a couple of years ago and put that on also. Sure would have been hard to move around however before it was put together in a box. That driver was fantastic.

[Thomas Canfield]

Congratulations and you have the pics for proof. There seems to be a lot of suggestions out there for assembly. I rigged up some supports for the bed about 1/2" taller than the legs and then put the legs under to bolt to the bed. I could then use the jack screws to clear out the supports and level the lathe bed. My lathe delivered with lift gate and pallet jack to my garage, and then had to be moved in pieces down a flagstone walk and 7 steps to my shop using a 2 wheel hand truck. The lathe was definitely worth the work.

[Joe Scarfo]

I bought mine used and so it was loaded into the back of my pu truck in individual pieces. I got home from the road trip to late for any friends to come over and help..

So I assembled it alone with the use of 2 saw horses. I drug the ways out of the truck across both saw horses. each saw horse has a 2 x 12 across the top which kept the new baby from getting scratched. I mounted the legs which was easy....

The head is another matter... it's to heavy for me to pick up and manuver alone.. so I said to my self... they lift house w/ cribbages (is that the right term?)... using 2 x 4's and paint sticks for the final adustment.. with the head stock sitting on my tailgate... I rocked the head high enough one piece of wood and a time and simply slid it onto the ways...

Rolled her into my shop and couldn't wait to make something... anything... it was funny.

Good luck with your assembly...... it'll be a piece of cake with help.

[Mike Wilkins]

Sounds like the day that I had when my Laguna LT18 was delivered. No lift gate; I just backed my truck to the rear of the trailer, slid it to my bed, and had the pleasure of unloading all 450lbs. in the 95 degree August heat. By myself. No help. No assistance. But the end result of using a fine machine was worth it.
By the way; congrats on a fine machine acquisition.