jspivey
Aluminum
- Joined
- Nov 18, 2018
- Location
- Southern Illinois
Hello Everyone,
I've been reading the forum for quite a while now but this will be my first post. For reference, I'm located in Southern Illinois (close to Kentucky) and I only have a small home shop. I also don't have a ton of experience under my belt. Two years of machining school, home shop experience, and currently work at a small shop.
Now to get to what I am hoping to get a little bit of help with. I currently have an old worn out Jet knee(turret) mill that I desperately want to replace with something decent. Machine selection is relatively limited in my area.
However, I have found a Brown and Sharpe No2 Universal on craigslist about three hours from me that I am interested in. From the pictures and my limited knowledge, I would guess it to be a very late 1940's to early 50's machine. The add says that it is in average condition for its age, 1/4 turn back lash on both dials, and everything works including the table feeds. It comes with 17 NMTB 50 tool holders for the horizontal spindle, 10 NMBT 40 holders for the vertical head, the original dividing head, tail stock, and driveshaft to connect to table, two overarm supports, horizontal arbors, and a couple other things.
To everyone who has experience with this machines, what is your general consensus on these machines? I assume they would be very rigid and could do heavy work. What would the value(roughly) be on a machine like this with tooling. What kind of precision (again, I know condition is important) could one expect? I know that I need to see it in person to really tell, but I just want to get an idea about the machine.
I also realize that this is a whole lot of machine for a small home shop like mine. However, I have space for it and I love the idea of having an big old piece of American Iron in the shop.
I've been reading the forum for quite a while now but this will be my first post. For reference, I'm located in Southern Illinois (close to Kentucky) and I only have a small home shop. I also don't have a ton of experience under my belt. Two years of machining school, home shop experience, and currently work at a small shop.
Now to get to what I am hoping to get a little bit of help with. I currently have an old worn out Jet knee(turret) mill that I desperately want to replace with something decent. Machine selection is relatively limited in my area.
However, I have found a Brown and Sharpe No2 Universal on craigslist about three hours from me that I am interested in. From the pictures and my limited knowledge, I would guess it to be a very late 1940's to early 50's machine. The add says that it is in average condition for its age, 1/4 turn back lash on both dials, and everything works including the table feeds. It comes with 17 NMTB 50 tool holders for the horizontal spindle, 10 NMBT 40 holders for the vertical head, the original dividing head, tail stock, and driveshaft to connect to table, two overarm supports, horizontal arbors, and a couple other things.
To everyone who has experience with this machines, what is your general consensus on these machines? I assume they would be very rigid and could do heavy work. What would the value(roughly) be on a machine like this with tooling. What kind of precision (again, I know condition is important) could one expect? I know that I need to see it in person to really tell, but I just want to get an idea about the machine.
I also realize that this is a whole lot of machine for a small home shop like mine. However, I have space for it and I love the idea of having an big old piece of American Iron in the shop.