Feb. 26, 2004
We did away with the floor jack. It would not work. The new
hydraulic system has an external hand pump and is rated at
10 tons. It has 6 inches of piston travel and many extensions.

One more work day should finish the mill mover.

The general shape is there. The parts are functional. All the moving parts are tacked in - yet to be completely welded.

The safety bars rest on top of a dolly cross member. As the dolly is moved up or down these safety bars slide on the top of the cross member. The pin holes are 4" apart. Retaining pins are placed and moved as movement of the dolly begins.

The mill is pulled forward using the cable winch. The safety bars and hydraulic system stop the forward motion when the mill finally tips over and begins to fall of its own weight. At that point the jack is used to slowly lower the mill until the dolly is sitting on the cross member of the roller portion of the mill mover.

Tooling for the jack system. It is a 10 ton unit. The piston in the jack portion only moves 6" so the various extensions have to be placed to accomplish the full movement of the dolly.

I could have used a similar jack only - no hand pump - with a good deal longer piston action, but the long jack would not go under the dolly at a sufficient angle to produce lift. The shortest piston setup with the current system is short enough so that the jack can be place at a very good angle to produce the initial lift. It is then repositioned along the track on the base of the mill mover so that it engages the dolly at close to a 90 degree angle.

Not a pretty setup and a bit slow, but I think it will work fine. It has redundant safety features too.