Who do you call when you've got a 250 lb large format printer that's too big to manhandle up a flight of stairs and shoehorn into a home office... Rapha Large Format Moving and Storage (aka my pal Brendan and his friend Navjeet). A day earlier I'd been standing in the garage staring at the imposing size of the Epson 9890 watching my plans for a painless installation go out the window before it hit me... the window, it needed to go IN the window.
A few measurements confirmed the printer cross section would fit, with the added advantage it would arrive within inches of it's final destination in one ballsy move. As luck would have it the good folks at United Rentals immediately across the road from our community had just the right forklift for the job and one of the service reps just happened to be a neighbor. Jennifer, her husband and son Sean dropped by that evening for a sanity check and gave me the thumbs up. Time to call in Brendan my heavy equipment specialist and perennial conspirator in these kind of plans.
Not wanting to let the opportunity for a little fun while the $4000 printer was suspended 12 feet above the ground I painted up a construction helmet in Rapha colors for the occasion. Came out looking rather sharp as modeled by the big guy I think.
I engineered a cardboard sled between the printer and palette so two of us could simply pull it through the window once Brendan had the forklift in position. It all worked like a charm... twenty minutes later we had it safely pinned to its stand, mission accomplished.
Many thanks to Jennifer (her husband) and the United team for their help. The rental made all the difference. I highly recommend them, if you need to go vertical. Brendan and Navjeet, thanks boys and Juli, well none of this would ever happen without your indulgence and support. Let the printing begin.
7 Comments
I’d make a point of not parking my car directly under the printer position, you just never know with things this heavy. LOL> could only happen to you Michael.
Good luck with the exhibition a great opportunity I know you won’t let pass by.
Douglas
that hardhat is epic.
Amazing what a can of black spray paint, a Rapha decal and some pink label tape can produce.
There have been many little “projects” that Michael has taken on that take unusual methods to complete. I am sure he has a list somewhere but as we walked through the house & garage I saw a few of them here and there. Huge flat filing cabinets, a BBQ with a past, and few others that I have blocked out. Cheers to Navjeet who is now broken in to our special needs and clients. I went to him right before lunch and asked him to help me for a bit…”we need to forklift a giant and expensive printer up to a 2nd story window with minimal clearance.” Always great to see Juli!
So I am looking at the pictures thinking..,.that forklift driver looks like BR.
It’s great to have a friend who knows how to work a joystick!
That’s our boy 😉
I think I know why I wasn’t invited.
Brendan haz skillz! Still – must have been some nail-biting moments.
At times like those it sometimes occurs to me we live near a fault-line thingy.