All my machines have to be moved to the first floor using a small stairway. So I must take the machines apart and even then, it is a tough job. My latest mill (F207-V) is moved in 4 peaces.

These Chinese machines (I have 4 of them) need a full service right out the box and also a full adjustment. That is good to combine with the assembly.

Don’t lift the milling machine by the head. All forces will be applied to the Z-axis nut/spindle and it could be damaged doing so.

If you want to take the head off, there is a grub screw (not on drawings) at the right bottom of the head, hidden deep in a not fully threaded hole.
Place the head on a piece of wood before you loosen the 2 nuts and use the X-axis to pull the milling head off. Mill a pocket for the spindle end and pinole depth gage to avoid damaging these.

If you take the Z-axis apart, remove the paint in the nuts before you place the wrench. The 4 bolts can be very heavily torqued.

If you have the Z-axis laying horizontal on a table, it is easy to adjust the z-axis gibs.

To mount the z-axis vertical you need a large (100+ mm) granite square or angle block and an indicator mounted on the Z-axis slide.

Once the Z-axis is mounted square, you can mount and adjust the milling head.

The z-axis is probably not square in the X-Z plane. You can use a 400 grid diamond sanding block to get it straight. Give it 1 stroke at the top or bottom half of the mounting planes to get it square. You have to do this a couple of times to get it within 0.02 mm/100 mm. After each stroke with the diamond disk, you have to mount the Z-axis and check the squareness in X-Z direction.

‘Break-down’ a 1t. engine crane, carry into apartment and re-erect.

Buy or hire.

Do not let the neighbours see.

Sonic asked how he can do this on his own without dismantling the mill.

Possibilities:

• Dismantle an engine crane to get it into the flat then do a conventional lift.   A safe one man operation provided an engine crane can be deployed. (Cranes are easier to reassemble than mills.)   OR
• With the mill secured on a platform, perhaps the pallet it was delivered on, jack the platform up in stages, building a stack of wooden baulks underneath to support the mill between lifts.   Risky, so proceed with caution.  Mills being top-heavy are liable to topple and have to be jacked evenly whilst secured to a wide base platform.   Equipment: a supply of fence posts and 4 car jacks,  maybe rollers to help slide the mill off the stack into position on the bench. (I’d lever it across a bench, only has to be lifted a millimetre at a corner to swivel it into position.)

Jacking lifts are common in Civil Engineering. Done with levers In the olden days rather than jacks, but that breaks the Sonics rules because a team is needed, ideally 4 blokes levering whilst № 5 coordinates and inserts baulks.

Note the right abutment of Brunel’s Saltash Bridge is being built up under the span in stages to support a jack, and, then the whole span when the lift is complete.   Also common for the supports to be temporary timber.

New word learned from Jason this morning: this is called ‘cribbing’.

Just in case a literal minded friend thinks I’m suggesting lifting a mill on a stack of matchsticks, this is only an example:

6 grams of matchsticks easily support a 720g battery:

And if it’s not obvious, the stack doesn’t cope well with sideways forces.  Take care!   Even if it doesn’t crush Sonic, a falling mill will probably damage the floor, alarming the neighbours and annoying the landlord.

Dave

Another traditional way of heavy lifting is to improvise a lifting tripod. You do need emough headroom. Material can be rough timber and rope, and it may need tethering round the base to prevent outward slippage. Needs a bit of cunning to ensure the load can be pushed sideways onto the bench etc., or it may be possible to”walk” the whole thing into position.