The Home Machinist!

I just picked up a sievert torch at a yard sale for the princely sum of $2.00.

Ed lucky finds like that are generally caused by the forceful departure of a mechanically minded husband when the female is left with her hands on the old man's goodies*.

Unka(*That is NOT intended as a double entendre)Jesse

Jesse,

I'll have to agree with you on that one. I picked up a Brown and Sharpe planer gauge at an estate sale for $15 along with a Starrett mag base. Too bad I didn't have more cash with me; there was a nice sized Monarch lathe there for $1000. (about a 16" x 80" with 3 chucks 2 faceplates and a complete collet chuck with collets if I remember right)

A buddy of mine can smell the deals. And, it helps if you're lucky. He bought a Clausing lathe identical to the one I own with all the tooling and he got it for 1/10th what I paid for mine with a 3 jaw and a faceplate. He's spent less than $1000 for all the machinery he's got and most of it came from a closing well known university machine shop.

Andy Pullen

I picked up a box full of stuff including a set of 6 Starett adjustable parallels, two sets of radius gauges, calipers, angle and vee blocks, a planer gauge and a bunch of other stuff for $30. It was at an estate sale for a tool and die maker. There are 3 (very old) wooden machinist boxes full of tools that didn't sell, because they wanted to sell them whole, but nobody took. They are going to let me go down and take a look maybe next week to pick through.

One of the best buys I've found garage sale-ing was an 8" Palmgren X-Y rotary table for $15.

Steve

One of the best buys I've found garage sale-ing was an 8" Palmgren X-Y rotary table for $15.

Not to gloat....I got one of those rotary tables from a CNC shop for nothing. They were going to throw it out along with a dividing head. They didn't see the need for either any more. Until about a year later. Then, they had to pay me to run some parts on the dividing head.....

Andy Pullen

I got my Southbend lathe from a widow in England for about $800 or there abouts.
My best guess is that it made it's way to England on a Liberty Ship, and served
some miner part in the war effort in some small tool room.

Who knows really.

got wind of a U-Lock it storage sale, bought the whole unit for 900.00. Got a Reis surface grinder, Clovos mill, ofbrand 9 by 20 Lathe. That mill was HHHHeavy.

It works the other way, too. I recently visited a widow who was trying to sell the Gerstner box and assorted stuff as a package. She had looked in a catalog and figured it all at half the new price. But there's a lot of stuff out there that just doesn't go for half price. While a Starrett mic might go for $100 new, used ones are available for $20 or less. She had a slew of assorted dull drill bits, K-Mart socket sets and other cheapo items which she priced in the full-retail, brand-name catalog. She wanted $3000 for the lot. I didn't have the heart to tell her that the best I thought she could do would be about $500.

Then, they had to pay me to run some parts on the dividing head.....

Andy Pullen

Love it! [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/smile.gif"%20alt="[/img]

With all due respect to CNC machines and machining, I don't see them replacing skill and talent in the near future. The best of all worlds is to have each, and the knowledge to run them properly.

Harold

I rarely get anything at a "steal" price. The one exception to this was when a co-worker ask me if I knew anyone who would want an electric hacksaw. I am thinking something like a hand held band saw like Milwaukee makes. I never had a big desire for one but when he said $15.00 I said I would take it. After work I went by his house to get it and what it really was, was a Wilton horizontal/vertical band saw with coolant set-up. It needed a little minor work but it has served me well.

(No I didn't kiss him)

In the mid-1970's, I bought a 6' Atlas, NEW with a good bit of tooling and some starrett tools and the like. I built a really nice bench for it, and set up my first real shop..

Before I turned a single useful part, I got Divorced, and had to sell all of it to "buy back" her half of all the household goods. Sad, but true.

. . . once a few years ago a live steamer friend of mine who was associated with aerospace work had a kinda decrepit little Burke #4 as his mill. It got him by, but he had built some tooling for it to allow him to moonlight make a few specialized parts a month, for pocket change, for a local engineering company. One day they called and said NASA urgently needs a whole bunch of those parts (say a year's normal production) ASAP, how soon and how much?

He did a little figuring and quoted 10 days and $4,534.76, and they gladly signed off.

The 10 days was all his accrued vacation/sick leave, just enough time to get the job done. The $4,534.76 was the price of his materials, . . . and a brand new Series ll Bridgeport delivered and installed in his workshop. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/grin.gif"%20alt="[/img]