My Latest Craigslist Acquisition

Well, I've been watching Craigslist for a while looking for a turret punch of some sort for sheet metal.

A guy near me had been advertising a Rotex on and off for a while and we corresponded a bit - but he wanted more for it than I could afford so I left off the conversation with an offer of what I could afford and 'call me if anything changes' sort of message - then I continued the craigslist search.

A nice little Thor turret punch was also listed by another seller, and he and I also corresponded but once again his price was more than my budget. Story of my life, eh?

Eventually the Thor guy and I came to terms and I acquired his punch for an affordable price and I thought I was in 'turret punch Nirvana' - it did most everything I needed done - and flipping through a turret to the desired punch size 1/8" - 1" was a dream come true after spending 5 minutes at a time changing the punch and die on the ironworker (but of course we all know there's a bit of a capacity difference between an ironworker and a sheet metal punch and having both machines makes perfect sense, right?)

So, now I'm set for life in the sheet metal punch department . . . . you know what's coming now, right?

The guy with the Rotex emails and offers it to me at a price only slightly higher than my last offer. Oh dear. The Rotex does holes up to 2" and reaches deeper - and I guess I did make the offer - so now I have a Rotex, too.

The seller even delivered it - yes, it was a Rotex but it came out of a sheet metal / welding shop and had a bit more grime on it than I'm comfortable with. So the Sunday project was cleaning it up.

These punches are really cool and quite easy to disassemble and work on. It took about a half-day to completely take apart, give it a bath, assess its condition and reassemble. Several of the punches had mushroomed heads so I turned them down a bit to give a close fit without binding and adjusted several clearances. As funds allow I'll replace the ram and a few of the punches that were obviously the favorites in her previous home.

So that's my story - and my project of the day - and here are pictures of the new baby after her bath. Yes, like most everything else in my shop, she wears roller skates for greater mobility.

And I think I can stop looking for another punch - Whew!

... and even a chute and catch bucket for the chad! Wowsers ... ya done good!

You can never have too many punches.

JimDawson said:

You can never have too many punches.

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Duh?
John.

Hi Gr8legs,

Congratulations on those finds. You didn't start out meaning to buy both, but life had other plans.
I have seen a couple similar units come and go at my local used-tool shop, but they were always too much money.

It sounds like the three you now have are all complimentary in feature/capacities without too much overlap.
I always try to have multiple ways of doing something, each job is slightly different and lends itself to one method over another.
Of course the problem becomes one of having the shop space for it all....

-brino

Very nice Rotex 18. I have seen one similar on CL (AZ) but can't bring myself to drop 3K. Those baby's are very well built.
I like the coupon chute too!

How do I get to be your tool huntin buddy, nice tools you have there. Punches like those are rare around where I live and when they do come up seems they want my first born plus my wife. Someday I hope to find one along with a few new American made machinery

You did real goooood!

Very nice machine. Sometimes the Gods smile. Mike

firestopper said:

Very nice Rotex 18. I have seen one similar on CL (AZ) but can't bring myself to drop 3K. Those baby's are very well built.

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It has taken me a very long time and a lot of experience to resist the urge to buy the first of anything I want that comes along. Patience is definitely a virtue and opening a dialogue with someone who has something you want for sale can pay big dividends. That plus hovering over craigslist and religiously attending garage and estate sales.

We all understand the seller's position: I also have had 'stuff' to sell and set a price that I thought would be 'nice' to get and I could sit on whatever it was for a while - but situations change and prices are negotiable.

The Thor punch started out at $1,000 and I paid $500, the Rotex was 2,800 and I paid $1,250 plus half a day of sweat equity to clean it up and it still needs a couple of punches to be 100% but both the seller and the buyer ended up with the best deal available at the time.

Now if I could only apply this knowledge and restraint when it comes to buying shoes! Hello, my name is Stu and I'm a shoe-aholic.