My Taiwanese BP copy is a very faithful clone of the original and has a confusingly mixed heritage of UNC, Whit and metric threads. It's a metric model and made for a non-US market. However, I checked the thread on the eye and it's definitely either Whit or UNC – without checking the thread angle I can't be sure. Either way, it's not metric.
I bought this machine a couple of months ago and had the task of manhandling it down a 5" step, along the side of a house and onto a tail lift – and off again at the other end. As my "proper" Weber crane was too large to take out on the lorry, I acquired a nearly new Chinese "2 ton" engine crane. We had some fraught moments with the crane I can tell you. By consensus, the std BP in 42' x 9" guise seems to weigh almost exactly 1 tonne, so you'd think that said "2 ton" crane would be able to dangle 2 BPs. But with just the one, it wobbled and sprung alarmingly. I'd love to see what would happen with a 2 ton(ne) load for a bet but I'm sure it wouldn't be pretty. Once you are on flat concrete it matters less but rubber wheels would help enormously. I bought some for mine but they were the wrong size. However, the Weber crane has nice rubber wheels and is a dream to use in comparison.
I thought about buying another one recently (as you do) and had resolved to remove the whole turret and possibly also the whole knee if the transportation turned out to be as tricky as the first one. I reckon the head, ram and turret together must weigh about 250kg and the table and knee must be getting on for 250kg also, which would make the body around 500kg or so. Certainly, even removing the head and table would make a big difference to the size and weight of the main lump.
BTW, there's an interesting report with lots of pictures on rebuilding one of these at
**LINK** It gives you an idea what's involved if you need to break it down at all. In the end, I pretty much dismantled and rebuilt the whole thing although I chose to keep the shabby chic look rather than the bright yellow Mike Hoffman chose! There are some pictures of mine in my photo albums….
Muzzer
Edited By Muzzer on 05/08/2013 07:27:51
Edited By Muzzer on 05/08/2013 07:29:18