My friend Tom bought a Jones and Lamson #5 turret lathe for a nice price this week. Getting it
loaded onto his trailer was easy - the seller had a connection to a guy with a crane. $150 later it's loaded. Getting
it unloaded took a little more work. Tom had a gantry and he was sure that it would lift the lathe.
It did. It was just fine for picking the lathe from the trailer, pulling the trailer away and then
setting the lathe down.
Tom has borrowed some machinery skates from work, but his driveway wasn't real flat and the lathe kept
lifting off of one corner or the other until it eventually slipped off the skates. No harm done. We picked
the lathe with the gantry again and Tom suggested that we try to roll it into his garage on the gantry.
Everything was fine until we hit a big crack in the concrete and bang! The I beam on the Gantry bent.
The gantry came back most of the way when the load was released. We were able to use the Ganrty to lift
one end at a time to get the Lathe back on the skates and because the cement in the garage was smooth,
the last 8 feet of it's journey went fine.
