Thread: Wadkin MF Storage

Originally Posted by aarggh

I will say if you are putting it on a pallet, lift it up and put a sheet of MDF at least 15mm thick under it to distribute the weight of the machine. Pallets are very weak and the weight of the machine in travel is very likely to rock back and forth, and most likely will smash through on one of the sides next to the centre bearer!

I had this happen to a machine I had freighted from NSW, the pallet was destroyed in transit, and the machine ended up doing a lot of damage to the goods stacked next to it, needless to say the driver was somewhat unhappy!

Very good advice!

A couple of years back I delivered a concrete saw to Cairns for a mate of a mate after couriers refused to "pick up" from Grays because they were getting stuffed around. I can fully understand why! Unfortunately, Gray's staff in Townsville were a real PIA to deal with, totally disorganized and had not done anything before arrival despite prior arrangement and their specified pickup time. To top it off they found an el-cheapo light weight pine pallet and just dumped it on it then loaded it with a forklift, damaging the pallet in the process. Not wanting to be pi$$ed around anymore I strapped it down then went and found a decent pallet. Ever tried to move a machine off a broken pallet on the back of a ute. Not fun!

Just recently I delivered a mill drill for my BIL - around 400kg, same trip. No issues at all dealing with a highly organized business owner, a forklift, decent dunnage and plenty of rachet straps. Looked like a Christmas tree but with the very high center of mass I wasn't taking any chances of it toppling.

Originally Posted by Chris Parks

That was a softwood pallet not rated to carry that sort of weight, a hardwood pallet in Oz will handle that all day. Softwood pallets here are only rated to 500kg from memory, hardwood pallets to 1000kg.

The key words here would be "distributed weight", a high or top heavy machine with a not very large base is a very unbalanced load and will rock on any pallet in transit, potentially breaking the top planks if it moves enough. Especially more so if the pallet is large as there is so much more unsupported top planks with the gaps between the gluts further apart.

Once the planks start weakening, it's game over and one hit of the brakes or a sharpish turn will finish them off. My metal shaper wasn't very big and at around 350kg, was strapped to a smaller hardwood pallet, but it wasn't a distributed load and it destroyed the pallet and dropped down one side in transit. Even a 1/2" thick MDF sheet between it and the pallet would have stopped that from happening.