Bringing Home a Bridgeport Mill

What you see above, is my uncle's 1975 Bridgeport Mill. That's me, Steve, standing next to it contemplating how to wheel that 2600 pound beast out of my uncle's shop, onto a rented ground-level loading trailer, and onto my garage floor some 5 miles down the road.

I've been dreaming of breaking out from the under the woodcrafters spell and jumping into the metal craft realm for some time now. It just was more obtainable and applicable to get into woodworking first. But in my mid to late 50s I began to find more time and resources to make the jump. So now I have one. A mill. And a big one too. I couldn't pass up my uncle's offer to sell it as he is a retired machinist and is family. A tiny bit of the purchase had something to do with that latter aspect. Family. Kind of neat - I get to carry-on using an important tool from my uncle's collection.

Coordinating the move of this beast was quite interesting and exciting for me. In all it probably consumed a few weeks of my free time to get all the pieces in place to execute. I summarize the resources needed to make this happen...

• Rented drop-deck trailer

• Rented pallet truck

• Rented truck with 5000lbs plus towing capacity

• Stack of 1x4 boards (lifting shims)

• Multi-ton pry bar - the business end is shown below...

• Heavy-duty tie-down straps

• One friend - Greg's time and strength to help

• My uncle's time and help (mostly advice on this and that - he's in his 90s)

• Cordless driver to fasten blocks on the trailer

• 2x1.5 Rectangular Steel tubing and 4x4 wood sections to make a pallet

The following photos include my uncle giving me the basics on how to operate the mill, the loading, securing, offloading, and positioning the mill in its new home.

I've decided to leave the mill rest on the 4x4 wood and 2x1.5 steel pallet to make repositioning it easier. I also find the height of the mill now better suited for my height.

Next up, and perhaps another subject for a future blog, is figuring out what method I want to go with to convert 220-230v single phase to three phase to make this new machine operational. The three methods that I am currently aware of are...

• Static phase converter

• Rotational phase converter

• Variable Frequency Drive (VFD)

The little research that I have done so far is leading me to favor the VFD approach. Time will tell.