This all started right here on PM when I posted a wanted ad for a like new Hardinge HC chucker. Had a couple of replies but only member 'jrwoodca' ever sent photos. Wasn't thinking in terms of a Tawainese copy but this one was so new and pristine I was interested.
In with the Victor lathe photos email were photos of a mid 1980's Aciera F4 mill he just got in. This I needed like a hole in the head, but never having even seen one of these Swiss beauties in real life much less owned one, I couldn't resist. Anyhoo, jrwoodca or Jason likes to sell tooling, which I don't like to do....so we horse traded some cash and about 500 pounds of high end tooling (mostly Hardinge stuff) I'd accumulated over the years for both machines.
And since I was saving Jason both freight and crating costs, his "contribution" pretty much paid for the diesel up there and back (even at current outrageous prices)...and I saved another $1,200 on so on freight for the two machines for my part..and seeing as I get the itch to cruise somewhere for my annual Spring iron fetch trip, I could justify the trip on the economic end, and that's where I went.... 1,100 miles each way.
Anyhoo, the first concern was getting Jason's soon to be tooling into Canada and getting the Aciera and Victor, out. I called US Customs (phone number on USCustoms website) and the guy says, no problem, if for personal use all you do is fill out form 7501 and have legit receipt, there may be some duty, but no more than 3 percent. Now, based on previous thread here about getting machines from Canada, I thought this too good to be true, so I grilled this guy "Are you SURE, that's all ?" He goes to talk to supervisor and comes back and says, yes, that is all.
I was to find out at the actual border, that was not all..
But before my US Customs tale of woe, I should digress back to how we got Jasons tooling into Canada. We met on the other side of the border at the small town of Ogdenburg, NY...in the parking lot of the Lowes. We transferred the tooling from a box in my truck piece by piece to his SUV. He then led the way to the Canadian Customs entrance where he declared the value via the receipt I had prepared for him, paid some duty and went on his merry way.
I, on the other hand, even with nothing in the truck now, got the third degree treatment as to why I was entering Canada ! Turns out, it seemed highly suspect to be driving a one ton dually truck all the way from South Carolina to a "artists community" of Merickville Ontario. So, I had to pull over and the truck was searched !
At this point I'm ok, but still in the back of my mind is the thought that at any moment the guy will say something like "sorry, you cannot enter Canada" and I will have driven 2,200 miles for nothing !!
After they found no drugs or handguns, all was ok and the customs guy was actually pretty friendly. We chatted awhile, and I was free to go and then got back up with Jason and followed him the 45 or so miles to his shop/warehouse with his dad in my passenger seat to provide directions and conversation.
But back to my southbound ordeal... after loading the Aciera and Victor, I headed back home but hadn't noticed until it was too late that my GPS was leading me back a different way. I ended up crossing back not at Ogdenburg, NY but at the Thousand Islands bridge that connects to Interstate 81. At first I thought this was even better since it connected directly to I81 and I got to see the cool views of a few of the Thousand Islands and such. But what I realized as I crossed the first bridge was, unlike sleepy Ogdensburg, this was a major crossing point with 3 lanes and probably 50 semi trucks back upped ahead of me. But they moved at a decent clip and within 20 minutes or so I was at the US Customs chicken coop for my lane. Customs guy looks over the situation and my form 7501 and invoice, keeps my drivers liscense and tells me to move the truck to the Customs warehouse parking lot and check in there. This was my first indication things were not going well
So, I report to the officers in the warehouse. Droll place inside...kinda dark with unpainted cinderblock walls, two booths with scratched thin plexiglass windows and little sliding doors at the bottom so you had to stoop way over just to talk thru the hole. What I wasn't expecting was the Gestapo treatment... these guys were total A holes compared to the Canadian guy. But to make a long story a bit shorter, the critical tidbit the customs guy on the phone neglected to mention is that your goods have to be for personal use and no more than $2,000 in invoice price Anything over $2,000 and unless you can present rock solid evidence the goods are for personal use, you HAVE to have a customs broker !
And FWIW, the invoice was made to me, not my company, and even though I sell machinery, these particular pieces ARE for personal use ! I never told them I sold machinery, but when grilled about what I do for a living I told them I run a machinist's forum and derived renenue from advertising. But even the slightest hint of "commercial" use throws these guys into a tizzy.. so didn't matter in the end...all that mattered was the over $2,000 aspect.
So now, at aprox 7:00 PM on a Monday evening.... I HAVE to have a customs broker to do the proper forms and pay the duty for me. They tell me there are at least ten customs brokers on site, so I set off across the parking lot again. Seven of the ten are in little seperate huts and I start with hut one.... closed, hut two...closed, hut three...open but they are getting ready to leave...won't do it, hut four closed, hut five...open but won't do it without account....and on and on. A couple of them were there and would have done it if I had an account but that was the critical thing...and getting an account could take days...not something easily done on the spot anyway. The only hope was FedEx... they might could have done it without account, but only if I came back the next day ! And even then it was "maybe"........
So at this point I'm looking at being turned back into Canada, staying somewhere overnight, and after paying $2.75 (each way) in bridge tolls, trying again in the morning and maybe getting it done after many hours and probably "we have you by the nutty bits" ripoff brokerage fees.
But then I remembered something rather useful, that Jason probably had a broker. So I called him and yes he had an account with a customs broker (Livingston), but at 7:45 PM highly unlikey they would be "open" much less be able to help since they were off site. So I tell my tale of woe to the Gestapo and they yell that Livingston is indeed open and get the number for me, so I call Jason back and he calls them.
Now, seeing as customs brokers are used to dealing with commercial transport only and not some guy in a pickup truck, there are still complications. The only solution is that US Customs grants "a one time waver on the Ace Manifest" I have no idea what an Ace manifest is, all I know is I gotta get this thing wavered ! So I tell the Gestapo, expecting them to say "no way", but intead they say "maybe".. but supervisor has to approve it face to face. So I have to trapse across parking lot again to yet another building, request supervisor, tell my tale, and to my amazement he says "sure, you got it"
So Livingston gets go ahead, faxes paperwork back and forth. After another 45 minutes or so, I am seemingly getting toward the goal posts, but by then there are other truckers lined up to be waited on for their problems, and there is some other beaucratic glitch and even a "frozen screen" on the Gestapo computer issue ! Now, if I had to wait for all this and the tribulations of at least 8 more truckers, I could still be there for many more hours and all the while still not knowing for sure I could get thru the border.
But to my pleasant surprise, after 20 minutes of sitting eating walnuts (naturally they had zero food anywhere...only soft drinks in the vending machines...thank goodness I has some nuts with me as I was starving at that point) listening to French trucker chatter, one of the Gestapo calls my name and hands me my drivers liscense and paperwork and says I'm free to pass thru. Hallelujah !!!
In with the Victor lathe photos email were photos of a mid 1980's Aciera F4 mill he just got in. This I needed like a hole in the head, but never having even seen one of these Swiss beauties in real life much less owned one, I couldn't resist. Anyhoo, jrwoodca or Jason likes to sell tooling, which I don't like to do....so we horse traded some cash and about 500 pounds of high end tooling (mostly Hardinge stuff) I'd accumulated over the years for both machines.
And since I was saving Jason both freight and crating costs, his "contribution" pretty much paid for the diesel up there and back (even at current outrageous prices)...and I saved another $1,200 on so on freight for the two machines for my part..and seeing as I get the itch to cruise somewhere for my annual Spring iron fetch trip, I could justify the trip on the economic end, and that's where I went.... 1,100 miles each way.
Anyhoo, the first concern was getting Jason's soon to be tooling into Canada and getting the Aciera and Victor, out. I called US Customs (phone number on USCustoms website) and the guy says, no problem, if for personal use all you do is fill out form 7501 and have legit receipt, there may be some duty, but no more than 3 percent. Now, based on previous thread here about getting machines from Canada, I thought this too good to be true, so I grilled this guy "Are you SURE, that's all ?" He goes to talk to supervisor and comes back and says, yes, that is all.
I was to find out at the actual border, that was not all..
But before my US Customs tale of woe, I should digress back to how we got Jasons tooling into Canada. We met on the other side of the border at the small town of Ogdenburg, NY...in the parking lot of the Lowes. We transferred the tooling from a box in my truck piece by piece to his SUV. He then led the way to the Canadian Customs entrance where he declared the value via the receipt I had prepared for him, paid some duty and went on his merry way.
I, on the other hand, even with nothing in the truck now, got the third degree treatment as to why I was entering Canada ! Turns out, it seemed highly suspect to be driving a one ton dually truck all the way from South Carolina to a "artists community" of Merickville Ontario. So, I had to pull over and the truck was searched !
At this point I'm ok, but still in the back of my mind is the thought that at any moment the guy will say something like "sorry, you cannot enter Canada" and I will have driven 2,200 miles for nothing !!
After they found no drugs or handguns, all was ok and the customs guy was actually pretty friendly. We chatted awhile, and I was free to go and then got back up with Jason and followed him the 45 or so miles to his shop/warehouse with his dad in my passenger seat to provide directions and conversation.
But back to my southbound ordeal... after loading the Aciera and Victor, I headed back home but hadn't noticed until it was too late that my GPS was leading me back a different way. I ended up crossing back not at Ogdenburg, NY but at the Thousand Islands bridge that connects to Interstate 81. At first I thought this was even better since it connected directly to I81 and I got to see the cool views of a few of the Thousand Islands and such. But what I realized as I crossed the first bridge was, unlike sleepy Ogdensburg, this was a major crossing point with 3 lanes and probably 50 semi trucks back upped ahead of me. But they moved at a decent clip and within 20 minutes or so I was at the US Customs chicken coop for my lane. Customs guy looks over the situation and my form 7501 and invoice, keeps my drivers liscense and tells me to move the truck to the Customs warehouse parking lot and check in there. This was my first indication things were not going well
So, I report to the officers in the warehouse. Droll place inside...kinda dark with unpainted cinderblock walls, two booths with scratched thin plexiglass windows and little sliding doors at the bottom so you had to stoop way over just to talk thru the hole. What I wasn't expecting was the Gestapo treatment... these guys were total A holes compared to the Canadian guy. But to make a long story a bit shorter, the critical tidbit the customs guy on the phone neglected to mention is that your goods have to be for personal use and no more than $2,000 in invoice price Anything over $2,000 and unless you can present rock solid evidence the goods are for personal use, you HAVE to have a customs broker !
And FWIW, the invoice was made to me, not my company, and even though I sell machinery, these particular pieces ARE for personal use ! I never told them I sold machinery, but when grilled about what I do for a living I told them I run a machinist's forum and derived renenue from advertising. But even the slightest hint of "commercial" use throws these guys into a tizzy.. so didn't matter in the end...all that mattered was the over $2,000 aspect.
So now, at aprox 7:00 PM on a Monday evening.... I HAVE to have a customs broker to do the proper forms and pay the duty for me. They tell me there are at least ten customs brokers on site, so I set off across the parking lot again. Seven of the ten are in little seperate huts and I start with hut one.... closed, hut two...closed, hut three...open but they are getting ready to leave...won't do it, hut four closed, hut five...open but won't do it without account....and on and on. A couple of them were there and would have done it if I had an account but that was the critical thing...and getting an account could take days...not something easily done on the spot anyway. The only hope was FedEx... they might could have done it without account, but only if I came back the next day ! And even then it was "maybe"........
So at this point I'm looking at being turned back into Canada, staying somewhere overnight, and after paying $2.75 (each way) in bridge tolls, trying again in the morning and maybe getting it done after many hours and probably "we have you by the nutty bits" ripoff brokerage fees.
But then I remembered something rather useful, that Jason probably had a broker. So I called him and yes he had an account with a customs broker (Livingston), but at 7:45 PM highly unlikey they would be "open" much less be able to help since they were off site. So I tell my tale of woe to the Gestapo and they yell that Livingston is indeed open and get the number for me, so I call Jason back and he calls them.
Now, seeing as customs brokers are used to dealing with commercial transport only and not some guy in a pickup truck, there are still complications. The only solution is that US Customs grants "a one time waver on the Ace Manifest" I have no idea what an Ace manifest is, all I know is I gotta get this thing wavered ! So I tell the Gestapo, expecting them to say "no way", but intead they say "maybe".. but supervisor has to approve it face to face. So I have to trapse across parking lot again to yet another building, request supervisor, tell my tale, and to my amazement he says "sure, you got it"
So Livingston gets go ahead, faxes paperwork back and forth. After another 45 minutes or so, I am seemingly getting toward the goal posts, but by then there are other truckers lined up to be waited on for their problems, and there is some other beaucratic glitch and even a "frozen screen" on the Gestapo computer issue ! Now, if I had to wait for all this and the tribulations of at least 8 more truckers, I could still be there for many more hours and all the while still not knowing for sure I could get thru the border.
But to my pleasant surprise, after 20 minutes of sitting eating walnuts (naturally they had zero food anywhere...only soft drinks in the vending machines...thank goodness I has some nuts with me as I was starving at that point) listening to French trucker chatter, one of the Gestapo calls my name and hands me my drivers liscense and paperwork and says I'm free to pass thru. Hallelujah !!!
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Especially after 45 years of big city traffic, taxes and all the ensuing BS, a small historic town sounds good. Now throw in that its a picking ground for machine tools and ....
thats some adventure....
. Now to find as many unobtanium accessories as possible....
