Hey Adam, i went to machinery values. I 've been to many dealers. I can't say their "tour" was a highlight. I bought a small sensitive drillpress from them on ebay. Not much to remember, lots of stuff really crowded, their specialty however is not really stuff that interests me- they just do not have a huge selection of what I consider sexy machines- lots of big things that you have no idea what they do. They are too big for me and it was pretty damn crowded, dirty, and packed in.
The most impressive part of the trip was upon leaving. Earlier I had noticed but not grasped many twisted steel plates in the parking lot. As I was leaving I realized they were Richard Serra's "Torqued Elipses". Serra is an artist I have admired for some time and seeing his sculptures in an industrial environment was a very cool thing. I believe they are now housed up at the new Dia center of the arts in Beacon, NY- a museum built from an old nabisco factory.
Perhaps the coolest dealer I have been to in recent years is gallery of machines in marathon NY- I helped a friend pick up a woodworking planer he had bought. they are actively rebuilding machines to tight tolerances and that is a cool thing to witness. Other than that I would rather go to an acution and see machines in situ- much more interesting than dealers.
As luck would have it, and since my words do not really do my stories justice..... Ihad my digital camera at mv, so here are a couple of pics. also The galleryofmachines.com website is a good look into what they do.
enjoy- pete.
Hey Don, check out the building....
Parts of Richard Serra's sculpture- i believe it is 2" thick plate