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Intact Gauge/indicator shop Waltham,MA - interest in the machines

looks like a one lot sell for 100k to me . there's a lot of foxes out there wanting to guard this hen house . get the going 1 going 2 sold man in there mite see 500k so you have to give him 30% or more lot better then your $10 for your $50 roll of copper mite be your family could pocket 300k even 150k to 200k is better then your 10k to 20k

Not a chance. Not even close.
 
Hi guys. (Yes I'm using "guys" even tho they voted not to on the new Survivor. Haha)

Thanks for all the input.

This week we met with representatives from the Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation in Waltham. I was happy when they suggested they would like to do a documentary on the business/building. I anticipate things would have to fall in line to get this to happen, but am optimistic.

One poster on here also suggested he would like to preserve the shop on his YouTube channel.

As far as timeframe, Id say we probably have a 3 or 4 months, maybe more. But that time will fly by. The main house is as full of personnel stuff as the shop is full of business stuff, and we have only recently hired someone to clean that out. That process could take 1-2 months. When the main house is cleared out, the property will go on the market. I don't feel as tho the shop has to be cleaned out for that to happen. It is a hot real estate market, but who knows how long before we get an acceptable offer. Any sale has to be approved by the courts, so that could take a while also. See what I am tasked with? Even that doesn't have a simple answer. Haha
 
Ha. What you want to do is find a regular here who wants to move to Waltham, then the guy will buy the residence, the shop, and everything in it!
 
Hi everyone,

I went back yesterday and continued to do a rough cataloguing of everything I could identify. Next week I might spend some more time in the attic- a quick look up there yesterday found a Stark pinion cutter. In rougher condition than anything out on the floor, but complete, even with a separate box of indexing wheels present. I'll share actual pictures next week if I do go back. Pic below taken from lathes.co.uk

Stark pinion cutter.jpg
 
Also found in the attic was a box of blank collets. Some of these were marked FE Randall, so I'm assuming they were all made in house. I did find casting patterns for step collets in the attic so I am wondering if some of those were made in house too?

Here are a few pics of the one box I brought downstairs- A series of Stark #3 solid extensions, a bunch of blank #2 collets, and the beginnings of some tailstock tooling. Also another box or collets and arbors for the small P&W mills. I'm sure there is more up there once I dig a bit further.

balnk collets in box.jpgblank collets.jpgtailstock taper blanks.jpg

Jim shared some of what he was finding in the office space too. Lots of manuals, receipts etc... It seems like everything was pretty well documented. The first page he opened to when he was showing me was the receipt for new nut blanks for the topslide on the small compounds. I found that drawer last week- The second photo shows me holding a long casting but there are a few finished ones just below to the right. I think that receipt was for those. $.80/ea :)

receipt for lathe parts.jpgnut casting blank.jpg
 
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I also found a drawer of tooling for the small Hamilton gear hobbing machine. Many arbors/collets, a small collection of nice sharp hobs and what looks like a full set of gears. Manuals too- I realized as I was rotating the photos that the manual I am showing is for a different model than what is in the shop. It is likely the correct one is in the pile but I was moving a little quickly and did not verify that.

Hamilton gear hobber.jpgHamilton brochure.jpgHamilton parts in drawer1.jpgsmall gear hobs.jpg
 
And a few photos of the bigger stuff- the Landis grinder with its beautiful lineshaft system all intact. And the B&S mill in the corner with a cabinet full of tooling for it.

Landis grinder and lineshaft.jpgB&S mill.jpgtooling cabinet for B&S mill.jpg
 
I've been inspecting the photos pretty closely and I have not seen any smaller P&W milling machines there. If the tooling for those are orphaned, I do know there are several posters here (including me) who own one of those machines and would be interested in purchasing tooling.
 
Jim, these aren't the 3C bench millers, they are size 1 Bench hand milling machines. There are 3 of them- 2 set up seemingly to cut racks in the indicator spindles and another rougher one. I've found a good number of extra arbors for them (not shown in the photos) and a few collets. Curious that in the catalog it shows only 1/4 and 7/16 collet sizes available? That corresponds pretty closely with what I found.

P&W pair machines.jpgP&W catalog page.jpg
 
After a little hiatus I was back over today and continued digging through the tooling, while a friend set up to take some nice studio style photographs. I spent time in the attic- I knew there were some older tools up there and I was curious to get a closer look at them.

What I was able to dig out today gives some idea of how the pinion and wheel cutting was accomplished before they got the nice Hamilton machine that I posted photos of previously. I found 3 different pinion cutting tools in the attic- 2 stand alone machines and a separate Stark head for the bench miller.

Both the larger stand alone machine and the head for the bench mill had Stark labels on them. The smaller one had no makers mark but was certainly made in a similar fashion, although interestingly the spindle would have sat at an angle if mounted on a bench using the base. Tony's site shows a drawing of the larger (small) pinion cutter but nothing that resembles the smaller one as a Stark product. I wasn't able to get enough stuff to move to remove the collet and see if it matched anything else in the shop.

The larger of the small pinion cutters has a worm gear and belt driven power feed mounted to the front, just like the smaller Pratt and Whitney mills do. The casting for that is stamped "FE Randall" and there is the casting form for it in the attic- they definitely made and added that to the existing Stark machine.

There was a box of index wheels for the smaller pinion cutter (with handwritten label) and an extensive box of index wheels for the larger pinion cutter with the wheels for the bench miller indexing head (they were similar sizes but with different mounting holes).

All in all very interesting to see the progression- I'd be curious to know how old each machine was, and how long they were all in use.

Here are photos of the 2 stand alone cutters and close ups of the smaller one, with its box of index plates
 

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And lastly, I have been surprised to find so many blank collets- Some of every size as well as casting forms for the larger step collets. There are 30+ large step collets in the attic that don't obviously fit any of the machines on the floor- Unless they fit in one of the large engine lathes on the first floor? They are too big for any of the Stark machines, unless there is a Stark #5 hidden in there somewhere.

Jim found many very small watchmaker lathes and boxes of parts in the house and brought them in- in one I found 2 boxes of partly milled Stark D size collets. Head to head milled from round, waiting to be parted off and bored to size. There must be 50 or more blanks there, along with an already decent selection of already sized collets. Its the same with the size 2 and 3 Stark collets- boxes of blank collets and arbors waiting for a purpose. It makes perfect sense, I've just never seen them prepared like that and waiting to be used.

stark D size blank collets.jpg
 
I don't have any news. I got extremely busy in December and didn't head back in and that has continued so far into January. I'm hoping to go back and continue cataloguing but I have no idea if any forward movement has happened with regards to what will happen with the space/machines/tooling. I'll update if I learn more!
 
I tried contacting the owner at one point towards the beginning looking to purchase and preserve some of the equipment but never heard anything back. I would be curious if they plan to just sell with the property or if they have any plans to sell the equipment seperate from the property.
 








 
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