Doesn't stuff like this break your heart

Found on Craig's list

http://westslope.craigslist.org/tls/951554269.html

Only asking $1000

It is hard to imagine how many things have been left to go to ruin and still they want fair $. Yes it breaks ones heart to see good iron go to waste and there seems to be no end to it but there will be. There is a big Bradford lathe and a 16" Sidney on the Sacramento Craig's list and neat old Pillar drill in Palo Alto They need homes. I pointed out a couple old slightly over priced mills in the Oregon Craig list and hope someone was interested! Never did figure out what the mill was that was in the botom picture.
I am preaching to choir so I will shut up now!

it's safe rusting away now as another scrap bubble has come and gone
better a plaything for the local kids than melt for the chairman

Typical answers from Iron Country

Cleaned Up with a LOT OF TLC,

That would Make a Fine Lathe for An Auto Driveshaft Shop, Electric Motor Rebuild Shop, or other less than Tool Room Quality Work.

Not every Shop Needs a 10 EE, or Pacemaker...

Capable of Plenty of grunt work, and if too far gone, perfect for Spray Welding...

Real early RP - especially if a P made by RP - you westerners are always complaining there is no old iron over your way.

I charge you with the task of saving this one after you beat the price down in the good old American bargaining game.

As you can see by the inset (in the listing) photo there is still good looking private parts inside. The rest will consist of shoving the rust off the outside to let the iron peek thru again. There is hardly anything that works as well in doing this as a somewhat dull carbide way scraper - the rust yields, the iron is not cut and sees daylight again.

I think it was Joe P. that reminded us that rust is many times as thick as the teeny bit of solid iron it was made from.

Here is a similar but smaller PB product:

John Oder

Yup and if you want to see more rusting away head toward Savannah Ga and check out the Georiga State RR museum right downtown. Lots of rusting iron there. Or head south a little farther to Kellners Flea Market lots there too...Bob

R-P Toledo CR

Hello for those of you that need another lathe here is a good one on CR Toledo:

http://toledo.craigslist.org/tls/971714417.html

Very close to my brother's place, too far from me. Dark pictures make it dificult to see what is for sale.

Bret

johnoder said:

Real early RP - especially if a P made by RP - you westerners are always complaining there is no old iron over your way.

I charge you with the task of saving this one after you beat the price down in the good old American bargaining game.

John Oder

Click to expand...

I wish I could save that one John, but I am over 500 miles away and I just acquired a 1945 13" LeBlond Regal that needs a little bit of attention.

Interestingly enough, I used to live in that country and about 20 years ago I nearly bought a very nice Reed Prentice geared head lathe from a local guy. It had been sitting a barn for several years and it was a really clean old lathe. I wanted it in the worst way, but the guy wanted $1500 for it and even though I thought that was pretty high, I set about trying to get some money together. Of course he sold it before I managed to scrape up the cash.

John is right! For years many of us " I know I have" have wined about the lack of good old Machine tools here in the west! Now it seems they are coming out of the wood work and we over whelmed.
I have pretty well picked up the lathes I wanted size wise 9"-50", and I see more machine tools coming along that have been taken care of that are going away and to clarify my earlier comment I don't have a problem with rebuilding a machine that has been in the weather as long as the price is reflective to cost of moving and the time of cleaning and rebuilding but that also that would be in the eye of the buyer. I bought a American High duty 24" in fair shape for what is being asked for the above lathe, I am currently not in a position to save everything and the nice part of this board has been if we post something here maybe someone else will have a use that will warrant saving it.

Another good thing about the biggies is that there is a fair chance they will still be in that spot for a long time to come.

Too much effort to move them!

John

I always find it funny how the "owners" of these machines, think they were going to fix it up later ands it's been sitting in the rain the last few years! And it can be a problem to try to change their minds too. The only tactic I can suggest to make an offer you can live with, and then keep calling him every few weeks ...it'll slowly sink in and one day he'll tell you "ok" ...Then be prepared to RUN over and grab it before he changes his mind! ...Worked for me! *G* Good Luck!!!

I also have came across situations like your old lathe lying outside shivering in the rain, frost & snow, and try as one can, there is no way one can wrestle these machines from the owners cold grasping hand
Some years ago i was passing a scrapyard, belonging to a firm in a neighbouring town, couldnt believe my eyes, sitting in a row were not one, not two, but three nice Elliott 14" stroke shaping machines, which had been purchased as redundant plant, from a technical college, These machines were complete with good machine vices.
Upon enquiring as to purchasing one or two of them,and offering cash in hand, I recieved a very negative reply, I said i would come back in the morning with money, and talk to them again, In the morning i arrived back to see a few green painted shards of scrap, where they had been broken up, With indecent haste.
Another case in point was in the late 1950/s, in Hillington industrial estate near Glasgow, one of the local fair sized firms was re-equiping, and amidst the redundant plant was a few little lathes , plain instrument, and at least one or two screwcutting, one was a 9" Southbend, One of the workers tried to purchase two of them, (one would have been passed on to me) He could not get past the beancounter in the office, who was more hell-bent on smashing them up, than to see them go to a good home
In another case in 1970, near where i live a firm closed down, they had a line of cone drive Smart & Brown instrument lathes, again our friendly neighbourhood accountant in charge of disposal, made the weird decision to sell the lathes as scrap to a local scrapyard, minus the tailstocks, which he sent to another scrappy No chance of them ever being of any value again
These three examples from memory are poor, And reflect the negativity of some mens mind, but frequently one comes across folks who will go out of their way to be of help in saving nice items from destruction, whether it be a machine or something else You gain some & lose some, keep cheery & roll with the punches guys!

Beancounters Thoughts

A story of how a beancounter thinks. About 1980 Mercedes-Benz of NA, my employer, was closing a facility in Englewood NJ, near the home office where I worked. One of the vehicles there was a prototype vehicle, a articulated Mini Logskidder, based on a MB Unimog powertrain built around 1970 or so. No way would they sell it to me, scrapped it must be, With a little help from the manager of the warehouse, my bid to scrap it was the highest. A very cool machine it is. Still running in the possesion of a friend of mine, running through the woods, and plowing snow.

Old Iron

Has anyone ever been to a used equipment place called HGR? Its on the east side of Cleveland. They have a lot of modern stuff but they also have some old lathes and mills and such up there. And talk about a lot of tooling, wow.

About 12 years ago I was visiting a local scrap operation. I spoted a big old Cincinati Vertical mill siting out in the weather. I asked about it. The scale master said the owner is "storing" it for a friend. I was there a year or so ago and that mill is still siting in the same damn spot.

Mike

About 4 years ago, an Amtrak train I was riding passed a large scrapyard in central Connecticut. Laying on its side, high up in a pile of scrap, was a vertical mill with a table about the size of a twin bed !!!

More recently, a nondescript industrial building on US 1 in Avenel NJ was torn down revealing a huge vertical boring mill or VTL, table musta been 12 feet in diameter. Next day there was a scrapper up on a ladder with a torch, slicing it up. Now, that one might have been very expensive to move because some vertical axis machines actually go beneath the floor.

The desire to scrap MAY be driven by fear of liability in some cases.....

Uniknick

Tom wheels, are you telling me you bought a uniknick for scrap value? Do you have any photos? I'd really like to see them. Although I don't have one I'm a unimog fan, and have been trying to find the right 'mog' and scrape together the money for when I do find 'the one'.

Hgr

Sparks- HGR is a favorite haunt of just about everyone on the forum within passer-by's reach, and some have been known to buy sight-unseen for travelling others to pick up and transport in their general direction... Me being in the latter category...

curious - just what's left of whatever accuracy was put into a lathe like that. Likely it was worn before it rusted up. But if you cleaned off the rust w/o removing any of the metal, what would a bar look like if you turned it down some? I was told once that rust is *selective*. Granted tough rust is a lot less selective as the years roll by!

JCSparks said:

Has anyone ever been to a used equipment place called HGR? Its on the east side of Cleveland. They have a lot of modern stuff but they also have some old lathes and mills and such up there. And talk about a lot of tooling, wow.

Click to expand...

I stop in at HGR from time to time just to see what's "new". On one trip I found my Index 645 mill.


Rex