Heidelberg Tango - Transport

[Allen in Montreal]

Hi everyone,

I've been wondering..if I were to buy a Heidelberg Tango........

Karl is a great resource and was very, very helpful when I had a Linotype Topaz scanner!

When I considered having him in to tune my scanner(since sold as I am downsizing and the Topaz has a large foot print) he was MUCH less expensive than Heidelberg for more work on the scanner (Heidelberg set a time limit on the tune up, which includes travel time, if it is not finished in that time limit, over time, Karl offered a flat rate full tune up).

Good luck, I hear the Tango is a great scanner, please let us know how it works out.

[:Kraftakt:]

Hi,

Sure I will let you hear about the result and how everything worked out

Hi Toby,
Gar kein Problem...ich bin Amerikaner, aber ich kann auch Deutsch.
Karl

Perfekt Du hörst von mir.

Best,

Toby

[:Kraftakt:]

Hi everyone,

it has been a while since my last update on this topic. I would like to share the great experience I made with Karl Hudson, the transport and the Linotype-Hell Tango.

It all began when I found the scanner listed on eBay for a great price. I contacted the seller and asked him to hold back the offer as I wanted to do all the preparation first. We wrote a loooot of emails about accessories, tranport, payment and so on. First I wanted to do the transport myself with some moving company (as mentioned in the posts before). However, I seemed as if the seller could find all of the transport parts and locks. I got worried and wanted to make sure that we won't break anything during the transport. After loads of emails between me and the seller everything was pretty clear, but not the transport. At this moment I contacted Karl (after his post here).

At first I just planned to ask him for some advice on the transport.
The Scanner was set up in Germany about 500km away from my home in Zürich, Switzerland. I wanted to go there and check the scanner myself. This was around the Christmas Holidays and despite that I barely had time to get there because of work.

About a dozen of Emails from and to Karl, we decided that - on his way to another job - he will check the scanner for me. This was just after new year. Karl planned to check out the Tango on Sunday the 8th January and do the transport on the 10/11th. Unfortunately some problems with the other job forced us to do everything on the 10/11th. Karl, the seller and me arranged everything for those two days. The day came and all of us three stayed in contact by phone and email.

Karl arrived in the early afternoon and checked the scanner. He called me and told me about the fantastic condition it was in. The seller had EVERYTHING: transport locks, rollers, all the original packaging for the mountingstation, drums and the MAC workstation (with software) and even the original tools (screwdrivers etc.).

So he installed the locks and rolled it to the top of the stairs. Yes, there were stairs - 1st floor actually. Karl hired a local moving company to have some people helping to carry this beauty down the stairway. This happened in the morning of Wednesday. At about 11am Karl left the sellers place with the scanner in the back of his transporter.

After a long trip Karl arrived in Zürich in the late afternoon. At first we unloaded all the accessories and then drove to the walkway where we unloaded the Tango. The hardest part was to move the scanner out of the transporter - meaning to bring a 250kg beast from hoizontal to vertical. With three people this was not much of a problem. Karl did most of the work. He basically rolled the scanner about 50m down the slope of the walkway himself. The only thing we had to look out for, were small stones on the way down. (There was a lady who thought we were carrying a fridge)

After 20min the scanner was already in its place. Now I was looking forward to a long evening with lots of technical information. Karl started by setting up the Tango in its final position by removing all the locks and the transport kit. Afterwards he lowered the feets and leveled the scanner. Now we began cleaning the scanner and its insides. It was in a really good condition and there was almost no dust (but we found two pieces of positive film inside of it - and a small bug in the transparancy light arm). Dispite that, we cleaned everything down to the filter and aperture wheels. During all that, I could see that Karl really knows a lot about these scanners - he had a clear plan of what he was doing and never hesistated loosening a skrew. He always explained me how and why he was doing, what he was doing. He showed me all the insides of the Tango and told me what they where for and how they worked. During the maintenance we where always using the diag software, which he of course also explained to me. Apart from cleaning he also did all the adjustments i.e. of the light path.

All the maintenance took about 5.5h and resulted in a clean and fully operational scanner - and of course my head being full of new knowledge about drumscanners.

It was time to scan something. I took one of the transparancies we found in the scanner and dry-mounted it on one of the three drums. We did a quick scan and Karl explained me the software. Of course the results where as one would expect it from a slide that has been inside a scanner for more than 5 years. But as I decided to set-up the whole software from scratch on a Windows PC, we didn't really go into Linocolor. The Software is really easy to understand and as it was already midnight we decided to finish up After a 8hrs of work (the work outside of Zürich not included) Karl left Zürich heading for Germany again.

I had to work the next days, but on the weekend I set up a PC Workstation. Compared to the slower 400Mhz Mac, the speed in Newcolor is way better, fun to work with and the whole thing integrates in my PC Network. In the last weeks I scanned around 40GB of data directly to the NAS. Wet-mounting works good despite that darn Tango Mount. All the stuff in the boxes found its place and everything looks tidied up. After a while the Tango doesn't even look that large anymore. (I might upload a picture later on)

All in all it has been a really, really great experience I made with all the people involved - Karl Hudson, the seller, the people I called at customs and everyone else who responded to my many questions. Thanks again!!! The aftermath shows me that it would have been really hard to do all this by myself - I am really glad I did do it that way. Karl is a really nice and funny guy and probably one of the best, if not the best, person to talk to when having questions or work to do on a Linotype-Hell/Heidelberg machine!!!

The Quality of the scans and the machine itself are amazing. I started seeing things in my slides that I never saw before It is not all about resolution (of which this scanner offers more than enought) but more about tones, shadowdetail and colors. Digitalising my slides has never been easier - sure the drumscanners is slower that my V700, but I don't have to do anything in Photoshop except removing one or two dust particles. Compared to the Epson where I had to do a lot of adjustments to make it look like the actual slide.

I am really looking forward to months and years of happy scanning!

Best,

Toby

[Steve Smith]

I know it's too late to give advice for this particular situation but I would contact a local piano moving company for help if I was doing something similar.

But not this company: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CUTT...eature=related


Steve.

[Peter De Smidt]

What a great story. Thank you for relating it! I'm sure that you'll get terrific use out of the scanner.

[Allen in Montreal]

Toby,
I am so happy to hear you saved the Tango and it will see another life. I had no doubt working with Karl would be very good experience.
Looking forward to seeing some posts of some work scanned with her.

[georgl]

Great report, sent you a PM!

Mine is hopefully up and running after the weekend. Let's share our experience with the community!

[Jody_S]

I have moved many metalworking machines by myself, ranging from 250kg for a small one right up to 2500kg for my DS&G lathe. Never had an incident, but it takes time and a solid grasp of physics. Not to mention assorted jacks, come-alongs, tow ropes, pulleys, etc. Getting your machine up the stairs should not be an issue to qualified movers, nor should they charge a stupid amount of money to do so. Just make sure all the moving parts are locked down as they should be, and measure everything before you attempt it. Does it fit up the stairwell, and through all the doors?

If I were trying to do yours solo, I would be using a built-in-place ramp out of 2x10s, and a pair of winches at the top using whatever structure is convenient (like a 6x6 across a doorway, with rope rigging for the winches). Then strap the machine to a wheeled platform, and you're good to go. Getting it on and off the platform is a simple matter with prybars and a few wooden blocks.