Packing Up My Shop........

[Woodes]

I moved my shop (local move) several years ago and used the following method to move a garage shop with driveway access.  I got ahold of a couple of pallets and built boxes out 2x2's and 4'x8' flake board.  4'x4' pallets work great as you only need 3 sheets of flake board to complete the pallet box, 2 sheets for the side and one sheet for the top & bottom.  A little framing with the 2x2's and deck screws to hold it all together works wonders.  You can really load these up and use the following to move the pallets.

To move the pallets, rent a pallet jack and a drop deck trailer  http://dropdeckdepot.com/our-trailers/
Then roll the pallets right onto the trailer.  

I found a hand operated drop deck trailer at a local rental yard.  You may have to check around to find one.   The powered units are nice, but they may need  a special electrical connection on your truck.

Make sure that you can roll the pallets into your storage facility before embarking on this effort.  Another way to move this is to put the pallets on the Harbor Freight furniture carts.  These are rated for a 1000# so 4 of them will suffice for most shop equipment.  It makes it easier to move at a storage facility or around the old and new place as you have 360 turning capability.  

Another tip is stretch wrap to wrap up all of the things or odd sizes or shapes.  There are two widths, narrow or wide and I find this a the big boxes or wally world in the moving supply area.  

Good luck

[tnff]

One thing I forgot when we moved.  If you have any tools with coolant, oil, water, etc, be sure to drain it.   I drained all the mowers, weedwackers, etc, but forgot about an old rock saw that had a oil coolant tank that I hadn't used in decades.  Guess which way the movers loaded it in the truck.

[ToeNailer]

You guys and gals, rock.  Thanks for the input and ideas.

[atgcpaul]

For those who have moved shops and with decent sized tools (cabinet saw, big band saw, jointer, planer, etc), how much did it all weigh? We're the weights on manufacturer sites pretty accurate?

[JimReed@Tallahassee]

During my last shop move the moving boxes with tools were labeled:
"Misc kitchen stuff" instead of "Rare Japanese Chisels"

None of my boxes were tampered with.

[R Clark]

For those who have moved shops and with decent sized  tools (cabinet saw, big band saw, jointer, planer, etc), how much did it all weigh?  We're the weights on manufacturer sites pretty accurate?

Those weights are certainly accurate enough for this task.  But remember that the weights listed don't normally include the shipping materials like pallets, dunnage, etc.

Regarding the suggestion above about not labeling boxes with their true contents.  Might get away with this if you're not insuring the load.  In my experience with literally a dozen moves over the course of three decades, including two shop moves, moving companies will only list the stuff on the inventory as they are marked.  Special items like the "rare japanese chisels" will be reimbursed as if they are $1.99 ecko kitchen knives if the mover is told they are "miscellaneous kitchen items."