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Tooling & Machinery from "The Real Leigh" Estate

morsetaper2

Diamond
Joined
Jul 2, 2002
Location
Gaithersburg, MD USA
Merely passing on the info, you will have to work out details & pricing w/ seller.

The former moderator of the Metrology Forum, "The Real Leigh", passed away a couple months back. His widow is selling off his shop. I was there yesterday and took 43 photos and you can view them by clicking the link to a folder in my google drive below.

Items are located in an Industrial park in Beltsville, MD. You will have to make arrangements w/ her to visit during the day as there is currently no operable electrical lighting. The unit has a skylight that illuminates the space adequately to see during daylight. And opening the door and/or roll-up lets addtl light in. But bring a good flashlight.

She will not ship anything, You will have to visit the building. The adjacent unit owner has a forklift and has offered its use for the machines. It would be an easy straight and almost level move-out through the roll-up door out to asphalt.

It is unclear if 3-phase machines can be powered. I didn't investigate their electrical connections. The 3-phase machines all looked to be disconnected from power.

Contact Info:
Sue Bassett
(cell) (240) 462-0655
(email) sue(at)smart(dot)(net)

Link to Photos:
Leigh Basset - Google Photos

Quick summary of machines and larger tooling:

  • 1957 Monarch 10EE: Looks to have had a drive conversion, some tooling, 3 & 4-jaw chucks, Jacobs Rubberflex Set.
  • Bridgeport Mill: 32" table, 1950's s/n, has a Kurt vise, DRO, Rt angle head, collets, and some misc other items.
  • Nichols Horizontal Mill
  • Delta Wood/Metal Bandsaw: single phase, I plugged it in and it works
  • Belt sander: Motor hums when you hit switch
  • Bridgeport 12" Rotary table
  • Browne & Sharpe Rotary Table
  • Carrol 11inch? Dividing head w/ plates
  • Material stock: Steel, brass, alum, bronze, SS, no certs
  • Four Billets of Titanium, about 3 x 2 x 15, alloy unknown
  • Coffing Chain Hoist NIB
  • Hardware cabinets
  • Measuring instruments
  • Plenty of NIB endmills, drills, reamers, dies
  • Boring heads
  • Various measuring instruments
  • Misc tools

Anything & everything you might see in photos is for sale.
 
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She would be way ahead to have an auction. Is there prices on anything?

Maybe not. Metro DC / Baltimore / and surrounds are a bit starved for this sort of material. Leigh's shop had decent goods. It could go in a few large "chunks", relevant to lathe, mills, etc. all tooled and ready to use.

Transport is not hard, many folks have the space and the funds.
Mark has helped a great deal with good photos.

Too much "overlap" for me, but there should be others "locally" being a same-day out and back go-fetch, level extraction, forklift on-site, and no dificult rigging nor "heavy" transport involved.

This can work. I wish her well.
 
I spoke to the lady. She is allowing people to pick what they want and make her a fair offer.

This is local to me, and as a beginner I am looking for tooling. Concern is, I really don't know what a fair offer might be on a pile of mills, inserts, and misc small stuff. I have a SB 13 and Millright that I plan to spend more time learning.

Any advice? I plan to go there in the next day or so.
 
She is allowing people to pick what they want and make her a fair offer. Any advice?

Having tried to buy thing under similar circumstances I will tell you how this will probably end up. Your going to go look at the stuff and find something and ask "how much" she will reply "what will you give me" you will make an offer what ever you offer it won't be enough. You put it down pick up something else same thing this goes on until you give up and leave. You don't have any idea what anything is worth so you will make some offer that to her will be way less than her husband paid for it and she will reject it expecting to get what he paid for it.

This is why an auction is the best way of disposing of a hobby shop. Everything gets sold in one day. The people that own the property think they got cheated. The people that buy think they got cheated. Everybody gets to go home mad it's as they say a win-win for everybody.
 
Having tried to buy thing under similar circumstances I will tell you how this will probably end up. Your going to go look at the stuff and find something and ask "how much" she will reply "what will you give me" you will make an offer what ever you offer it won't be enough. You put it down pick up something else same thing this goes on until you give up and leave. You don't have any idea what anything is worth so you will make some offer that to her will be way less than her husband paid for it and she will reject it expecting to get what he paid for it.

This is why an auction is the best way of disposing of a hobby shop. Everything gets sold in one day. The people that own the property think they got cheated. The people that buy think they got cheated. Everybody gets to go home mad it's as they say a win-win for everybody.

There're a million reasons your hypothetical, constructed reality might not be valid.

Ya want something, make an offer on it. She might very well take it.
 
Presumably you'll have a cell phone with you, so you can search for new pricing on common tooling items you want. Machinery is a little trickier, but for stuff available new you can try:

1) New - 50%
2) Lightly used - 33%
3) Used but serviceable - 20%

Ebay searches for similar machinery will give a start point, as long as you both realize that the asking prices can be fantasy numbers for machines that have been listed for a while. Searching the "Sold" section is probably better.

The important thing is to be considerate, and appreciate that you're dealing with a still-grieving widow. Don't take rejected offers personally, just mention that if the stuff is still around later and she changes her mind you're still interested.
 
Damn, I think we can avoid impressing negative attitudes on a person who we have never met, who happens to be a widow, I mean, seriously

Should find out if the bridgeport is a V Ram, my favorite was a short table short knee machine, as this would seem.

So much nicer to run than the long table machines
 
Should find out if the bridgeport is a V Ram, my favorite was a short table short knee machine, as this would seem.

So much nicer to run than the long table machines

The Bridgeport is a V Ram machine, as can be seen in Mark's pictures.
It is the first or early year of the switch and has the old style
column-to-turret style. 1956 or 1957 per the serial number (which I now forget).

Bill
 
Fine, give me 500

The only ONE that matters is that a new Widow is trying to resolve what HAD BEEN a joy to her late husband, but has now become a burdensome and time-consuming chore to her - there's more to wrapping up Probate than just Old Iron, after all.

Your initial post was not necessarily wrong. Neither does this circumstance need a bun-fight over it.

Nor any OTHER meddlesome trifling and side issues.

Just let it be. Not our decision to make. Help if you can actually HELP.
 
Thermite

I Usually don't respond to your verbal vomit, but I will make an exception this time. As the only person in this thread that has sold off 4 shops for the family's (I'm in the middle of one now) I know what I'm talking about. If the family wants to spend the next twenty years having a bunch of cheap ass hobbyists come and pick up everything paw through everything and buy nothing fine. If they want to close out the estate and get on with there lives have an auction and be done with it.

As for neilho whenever somebody attacks me I always respond (unless there a total retard.)
 
SIP6A,

I viewed your 1st post as a realistic suggestion. I sent Sue a message as such, and provided her w/ a local auctioneers contact info. Said Auctioneer is familiar w/ small auctions, machinery related. I thank you for that, a worthwhile suggestion.

But your followup posts... please refrain. Your follow-on posts are not helpful. :toetap:
 
"The only ONE that matters is that a new Widow is trying to resolve what HAD BEEN a joy to her late husband, but has now become a burdensome and time-consuming chore to her - there's more to wrapping up Probate than just Old Iron, after all."

+1

When I die in a firey motorbike crash (or slip and fall in the tub and bust my head open) please don't go through this for me.
Some of my possessions will be set aside for family members. Some set aside for my friends.

The rest will be just so much cast iron ballast in the shop and garage. Show up, give any survivors some cash, of a nominal amount,
and carry that crap away please. As I joke about the signs that keep apperaring in my front yard (WHO IS DOING THAT): "Cast Iron Stuff
For Sale, All Items One Dollar You Haul Away."

Nobody has attempted to purchase anything from her yet, so all discussions are hypothetical.
 
Nobody has attempted to purchase anything from her yet, so all discussions are hypothetical.

Well "barriers". Mayhap we can still overcome some of the more noisome ones.

I commuted Annandale <=> Rockville for ten years. Mark does a bit more, sorta in reverse, still yet. MOST of us do much the same. Or did do. As if there is a Federal law no one is allowed to live close to work!

Ergo, ALL of we Metro-DC/Baltimore/Frederick, etc. denizens know very well how trying and unpredictable traffic is for easily a hundred miles around, even on our "regular" commute.

Scheduling a "meet" to pick-over "some inserts and endmills" - not even for the same machine type nor toolpost is simply daft. eBay can drop those into yer mailbox in 2 days to a week and a half, never have to leave the keyboard.

Negotiating over such trivia in person can't cover the fuel burnt, either party, let alone time wasted, nor re-scheduled / strung out over even EXPERIENCED commuters guestimated time-en-route.

Leo got that part right.

But Leigh had been a working craftsman, not a random hoarder.

He had some basic, serviceable, "cells" of capability covered there.

Coalesce:

- a BP vertical mill AND ALL its workholding and tooling,

- a Nichols horizontal mill AND ALL its arbours, cutters, workholding, etc.

- a 10EE AND ALL its lathish accessories, workholding, cutting tools.

etc., etc.


Yah have ready to use turnkey packages.

Nothing "magical". Dead-average. But working order or near as dammit, not junk.

We KNEW this guy, yah?

Meet prepared to take each "cell" - all or none.

Metro DC has the retirees. They can afford it, same-day out and back go-fetch.

The rest is easier to "delegate" to be moved as lower mass, more easily severable collections of general purpose hand tools, metrology, etc. thereafter.

May not need to hold the rented space?

Auctions suck. Even on big bucks and 'sought after' goods. Especially with DC traffic. This is just too small to even reliably draw attendees.

You'd have to know the DC metro area. As some among us DO.
 
Now that all of that has died down....

I am confident that anyone who makes arrangements to see the goods, "puts together a pile of stuff" to purchase, and makes an offer that is fair to both buyer & seller she would take it. And you will be pleased w/ your deal you made.
 
Where in Beltsville? Any chance of a pic of the exterior? When our shop left there 27 years ago I knew pretty much every machine shop in the area. I was glad enough to escape Maryland but still a picture of the area gets me reminiscing...
 








 
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