jermfab
Cast Iron
- Joined
- Jul 25, 2013
- Location
- atlanta, ga
I’ve been lusting after a BIG American machine for a while now. I’m in Atlanta... machine tools of any stripe are rare down here in the south and proper, “big-boy” machines rarely come up.
So I’ve been scouring eBay and waiting for a machine worth pulling the trigger on. I first saw this machine yesterday. I made a lowball offer to get things rolling, the seller came back to me and accepted my counter to his offer.
Pictures in the listing are neither great, nor plentiful, but here are the best three:
I haven’t seen the machine in person, I’m fully aware how risky that is, but for the price I negotiated, coupled with eBay and PayPal’s buyer protections I’m pretty sure I won’t get stuck with scrap iron.
The machine does have a rebuilders placard:
Best guess is that rebuild was a coat of paint that seems to still be holding on fairly well. If anyone here has any knowledge of Hoffacker I’d be interested to know about them. There’s a post on PM about a grinder, but I haven’t found much else.
In any case, my excitement is stronger than my trepidation, as long as it gets to me in one piece I don’t foresee too many issues from the pictures. And if it sucks, I’ll send it back.
Pros:
1740-rpm spindle speed
Taper-attachment
DRO already mounted
Cons:
Only a 3-jaw and nothing in the way of any other tooling.
I’ll be in the market for a 4-jaw chuck, once I’m certain of what the spindle mount is and a handful of 3MT to 5MT adapter sleeves.
Hopefully I didn’t let emotion open my wallet, in any case, if anyone here feels the need to burst my bubble, or spots something I’ve missed, do it quickly. I haven’t even started on logistics and it should be no problem at all to get my money back now.
Be safe and stay healthy
Jeremy
So I’ve been scouring eBay and waiting for a machine worth pulling the trigger on. I first saw this machine yesterday. I made a lowball offer to get things rolling, the seller came back to me and accepted my counter to his offer.
Pictures in the listing are neither great, nor plentiful, but here are the best three:
I haven’t seen the machine in person, I’m fully aware how risky that is, but for the price I negotiated, coupled with eBay and PayPal’s buyer protections I’m pretty sure I won’t get stuck with scrap iron.
The machine does have a rebuilders placard:
Best guess is that rebuild was a coat of paint that seems to still be holding on fairly well. If anyone here has any knowledge of Hoffacker I’d be interested to know about them. There’s a post on PM about a grinder, but I haven’t found much else.
In any case, my excitement is stronger than my trepidation, as long as it gets to me in one piece I don’t foresee too many issues from the pictures. And if it sucks, I’ll send it back.
Pros:
1740-rpm spindle speed
Taper-attachment
DRO already mounted
Cons:
Only a 3-jaw and nothing in the way of any other tooling.
I’ll be in the market for a 4-jaw chuck, once I’m certain of what the spindle mount is and a handful of 3MT to 5MT adapter sleeves.
Hopefully I didn’t let emotion open my wallet, in any case, if anyone here feels the need to burst my bubble, or spots something I’ve missed, do it quickly. I haven’t even started on logistics and it should be no problem at all to get my money back now.
Be safe and stay healthy
Jeremy