Craftsman 12 101.28900 Lathe upgrade??

[RYAN S]

I am heading to an estate sale on Friday, one of the items is a craftsman 12 lathe. It looks to be in great shape from the pictures (very clean and several options). I curently have an Enco 9x20. Would the craftsman 12x36 be an upgrade and what would be a good price? Also there is a small bench top horizontal mill, any thoughts on a value for that?

Thanks,
Ryan

 

[mickri]

I paid $1200 for my craftsman 12x36. It had been lightly used by a hobby machinist and came with every accessory that craftsman offered except for a taper attachment. It also came with two 4 jaw chucks, three 3 jaw chucks and a lot of miscellaneous tooling and odds and ends. I paid $500 for an Excel 31 mill/drill which is a rong fu clone. It had sat in storage since new and did not come with any tooling except for a huge Walther rotary table that I sold to a local machine shop.

 

[RYAN S]

How does the craftsman compare to something like my enco 9x20. Would it be an upgrade or a lateral move (obviously the craftsman is larger). Which machine would be more ridged?

Thanks,
Ryan

 

[jwmay]

What are the details of the little miller?

I’m interested to see if anybody has owned both machines.

 

[mickri]

I really can't compare the two machines because my craftsman is the only lathe that I have ever owned. My speculation is that the craftsman would be an upgrade because it can machine larger diameter and longer material. I would think that the craftsman should be more rigid because everything is larger and heavier. The knowledgeable folks on this forum seem to always recommend to buy the largest lathe that you can afford and have room for.

 

[RYAN S]

The only info I have on the bench top horizontal mill is a picture. Hope this helps.

Thanks!

 

[RYAN S]

Well, I went to the estate sale yesterday. The lathe was $1,600.00 and they were selling all of the extra chucks at an additional price. The horizontal mill was $800.00. Most everything they had was expensive, including the dull endmills for $4.00 each. I did find a nice .0001 Alina indacator for $30.00 and a cigar box of slitting saws for $10.00.

 

[jwmay]

Wow. At an auction? This explains why the Craigslist resalers are always asking such stupid prices for old broken rusted machine tools. They paid more than it was worth to begin with...

There's a little 618 Atlas selling at auction in Washington Indiana today. Starts in 20 minutes. You better get on the road!

 

[RYAN S]

It was an estate sale. Those were the prices listed. Neither had sold after maybe 50 people looked at it.

 

[jwmay]

I’ve never been to an estate sale where things had prices attached. It doesn’t sound like a very good way to clean something out.