Rant About Used Machinery Descriptions

Mickey_D · Mar 1, 2011

I am in the market for another cnc mill and a more idiot proof sawing solution than I presently have so I have called on a couple of reasonably close machinery dealers and a few machines that have shown up in Texas listings. I had no idea that so much plastic is run around here. Everything is described as only having cut plastic with a tiny bit of aluminum every now and then and the 12 year old cnc mills have less than a thousand hours on them! I guess this is just like the little old ladies who only drove the car to church on Sundays. If a 10 year old mill has less than a 1000 hours on it it is because it was either broken down all the time or they had no idea how to run it (or maintain it for that matter) and I bet the oilers are clogged and the ways are metal on metal. If you tell me you ran the thing all the time but maintained it well (you have service and repair records) and were upgrading to a newer faster machine I would be much more likely to buy it than one with a BS story. Rant over.

Forrest Addy · Mar 1, 2011

Where do you suppose they train used car salesmen if not in bottom tier machine tool outfits. Sleaze, bunko artists, scum bag, and chisler are mild terms for a few of them and their prey is the naive and desparate.

OTH many used machine tool dealers present their offerings fairly. Trick is to find them.

rcoope · Mar 1, 2011

One exception to this rule is machines used in academic settings or research labs, defence labs etc. "Used Machinery Consultants" for example has all those fabulous old manual machines you can see on youtube. I think they said in one of the videos that the machine in question was from an Air Force lab. They could open an NOS museum. I extracted a Czech mill (A 3hp 30 taper slightly-heavier-than-bridgeport "Supermill J") from our university for a friend because I worked there and knew when conditions were right to ask for it (for $400). It has a few divots in the table from incompetent techs, but other than needing some quill oil seals is perfect.

I'd be very surprised if there were many CNC machines in this category, but keep the research machine angle in mind.

RC

moonlight machine · Mar 2, 2011

Mickey_D said:
I am in the market for another cnc mill and a more idiot proof sawing solution than I presently have so I have called on a couple of reasonably close machinery dealers and a few machines that have shown up in Texas listings. I had no idea that so much plastic is run around here. Everything is described as only having cut plastic with a tiny bit of aluminum every now and then and the 12 year old cnc mills have less than a thousand hours on them! I guess this is just like the little old ladies who only drove the car to church on Sundays. If a 10 year old mill has less than a 1000 hours on it it is because it was either broken down all the time or they had no idea how to run it (or maintain it for that matter) and I bet the oilers are clogged and the ways are metal on metal. If you tell me you ran the thing all the time but maintained it well (you have service and repair records) and were upgrading to a newer faster machine I would be much more likely to buy it than one with a BS story. Rant over.

My thoughts exactly....But this is for real.....the last mill I bought was packed with plastic......in every nook and cranny,......pounds of it!...... not one aluminum chip anywhere, let alone any steel.

Milacron · Mar 2, 2011

Forrest Addy said:
OTH many used machine tool dealers present their offerings fairly. Trick is to find them.

A few dealers do pay attention to hours in purchase decision and only tend to buy the low hour stuff in the first place.

I've got a couple of ten year old Nachi robots that have apox. 400 hours on them. Besides the hour meters I have the paperwork to prove they came out of a GM Truck training facility and were never used in production, but only for training...thus the low hours. Most 10 year old robots would have 20,000 hours on them.

What is maddening sometimes are machines that you know have very low hours (via discussions with ex employees and other clues) that have no hour meter and no means of checking via the control to actually prove it. Milltronics is one example of that.

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Rant About Used Machinery Descriptions

Mickey_D

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Forrest Addy

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rcoope

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moonlight machine

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Milacron

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