Delivery of PM PJ882 - Recommendations welcome!

[Michael Koons]

I posted yesterday about selecting between a Jet and Grizzly 8" jointer. The responses were great and after much research, manual browsing and opinions, I'm breaking the bank and going with the PM PJ882. Mostly because this is the last jointer I ever want to buy and it will be the first tool of my future dream shop.

My question is on how I get this aircraft carrier into my basement. I'm fortunate that I have a walkout with flat terrain between the driveway and basement door. There's about 50' of grass between where the jointer can be dropped off and the door.

I don't think the delivery truck will be able to back right up to the basement door on the grass although I'd love to try. :) If I can't do that, does anyone know what options would be available? I don't think I can use a hand-truck to get it there as this crate just looks too big. If I can't find a way to do this, I may have to go with a unit shipped in two boxes that is smaller but I'd really like to try and go with the 882.

Any suggestions? Thanks in advance.

[Michael Koons]

I've been asking around like crazy and may have come up with an idea. I'm thinking about jacking up the crate, one corner at a time and mounting 6" cushioned casters right onto the shipping crate itself. Once I got all four on, I could just roll it across the yard. If four doesn't cut it, because of the weight, I could just mount 6 total. Think that would work?

[Chuck Wintle]

How much does the machine weigh? One problem is it may want to sink into the soil. Do you know anyone with a tractor and front end loader? You could use some slings around the box attached to the loader and lift it up.

[Paul McGaha]

Michael,

Congratulations on the PJ-882. I've had one for a few years and I highly recommend it. It is probably the best tool in my shop and in my humble opinion it is the best 8" Jointer on the market.

From what I remember mine came in well crated and on a pallet. Not too much assembly as I recall, I think just putting the fence on.

My shop is in a 2 car garage, The jointer was delivered via a lift gate truck and the driver let us use his pallet jack to move it from the street to the garage. Your situation is a little different in having to deal with a grassy area and also the stairs into the basement. For the stairs I would imagine you will have to make some kind of ramp. I have some aluminum ramp ends that attach to 2 x 10 x 8 ft boards that are very useful for that kind of thing. I bought them primarily to load or unload a tool from a pickup. Not sure what to recommend for the grassy area. The jointer weighs I think about 500 lbs.

PHM

[Robert Maloney]

Congrats on the new jointer. I love mine. When I received mine I had to roll it across about 25 ft of grassy area to get to the walkway into my basement. I jusy laid down some crappy 1/2" plywood sheets I had and just kept leap-frogging it as needed. I worked great. Like Paul said not much assembly. I slid mine right off the pallet and into the mobile base, put the fence on, cleaned it , checked and adjusted the settings as necessary, and started jointing. It's really a nice piece of equiptment

[Michael Koons]

Thanks Robert. Follow up question, what did you use to roll the crate on? Casters? The mobile base? Guess I'm trying to figure out how wheels were attached to this.

[Ruhi Arslan]

I jusy laid down some crappy 1/2" plywood sheets I had and just kept leap-frogging it as needed.
I would also use few 3/4" pipes in between the crate and the plywood to roll it easily. You should be able to do it just by yourself. If you place the next plywood just underneath the previous one, pipes would just roll over to the next one.

[Matt Kestenbaum]

Congrats on the purchase! Is your basement door walk-out or are there steps involved? I'm assuming no steps (or you would've mentioned it), so the plywood leapfrog will work...and even better is that the delivery truck should have a pallet jack on board! You man the plywood and let the delivery guy walk the jack up to the door.

[Robert Maloney]

I did exactly what Matt said. the delivery guy had a pallet jack and I just moved the plywood as needed. Worked like a charm. To get it over the door saddle was a different story. Had to set one end on a moving dolly and steered the other end with the pallet jack. It wasn't too bad though. That enabled me to uncrate it indoors and take my time.

[Bob Deroeck]

Hi Michael,

I moved a PJ882 last fall. It weighs a bit over 600 lbs without the packing. I second the idea of putting down sheets of plywood on the grass and then using 1/2" or 3/4" steel pipes as rollers. Note, if the crate has a flat bottom, the rollers will work fine. However, if the crate has pieces of wood that go cross-wise, they may prevent the rollers from working. In that situation I suggest you attach two pieces of 3/4" stock (or thicker if the crate's cross-pieces are thicker than 3/4"), length-wise on the bottom of the crate along each edge. Then you will have two long flat pieces to ride on the pipes. Maybe you can get the delivery man to help you put these "slides" in place. The two of you should be able to tilt one side of the the crate up slightly so that you can nudge the first slide into place with your foot. Then repeat on the other side. Each end of each slide can then be attached to the ends of the crate with some blocks of wood and screws. As long as the ground is fairly level, the crate will move very easily on the pipes and plywood.

Good luck.

Bob

[Michael Koons]

UPDATE - I got the jointer today and wanted to share my process with everyone in case it will help others.

The jointer was delivered to my house from the freight company on a truck with a lift gate. (After a couple of tries and me waiting home previous days for nothing.) The driver had a pallet jack and we rolled the box onto a piece of plywood at the curb. We then alternated between three pieces of plywood to roll the 750 lb box across 50' of lawn onto a back patio. The driver couldn't do anything more at this point because the box would not fit through the basement door because the pallet jack lifts the box so that the 72" profile has to fit through the opening. I only had a 60" opening with my doors so we had to turn it 90 degrees so we could get it in on the 28" profile. Therefore we dropped it right on the patio and sent the driver on his way.

I then proceeded to use a car jack to jack up a corner of the box at a time to attach 6" caster/wheels from home depot. Attached the casters with carriage bolts with swivel casters in the back and fixed casters in the front. The box rolled very easily at this point. I rolled it up a ramp I made from plywood and 6' long wedged shaped supports to get it over the 6" threshold between the patio and the house. This made getting it into the house very easy. With the swivel casters, it was very easy to negotiate any turns in my basement to get into place. Then I removed one set of casters (again using the car jack) and the jointer easily slid off the base onto the floor.

If you ever have to move something this heavy, just be sure to ask the delivery company if the delivery truck will have a pallet jack on it. If that's the case, it makes it much easier. I could have gone the jack/caster method from the curb, but the pallet jack made it much easier.

I hope this helps.

[Paul McGaha]

Congratulations on the Mustard Michael.

Please post some pictures of it when you can.

PHM