Milling machines in California

250 said:
Thanks for the replies. Apologies for the vagueness, wasn't a vague in my head.

Central california is where we are. I have a decent size garage w/dedicated 240v that I'm working out of so I've been looking in the typical knee mill size. So far all my larger pieces of equipment are older American in origin so that's what I've been looking for. Bridgeport, Gorton, Index, Millrite, Tree, Rockwell perhaps, maybe others that I've forgotten about. Looked at an Index 45 this last weekend, but I'm not super excited about he condition/price ratio. Missed out on an Index 55 last month. Hopefully it went to a good home.

Yes, I'm sure craigslist will play a part in this. I don't want to use CL as a sole price gauge because you only know what people think there stuff is worth, not want it actually sold for.

I think most of my projects will probably be on the smaller side, so I don't really need 4000# of iron that's hard to move. Like to have the vertical mill capacity to help fix any of the machine projects that I have lined up.

Full disclosure, I've asked some condition related questions over on OWWM about the latest Index since I've been involved to some degree for a while over there and found those guys helpful. Since I need some pricing help, I'm asking over here as well.
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Traveling to SoCal is not that far and that's where you are going to find a lot of choices. I traveled to SoCal from here in Utah to buy a Lathe, Mill and tooling from an Estate, It was worth the time and trouble/expense etc. It's a 6 or 7 hour drive for me one way. Here where I am at there is hardly anything and if something pops up, It's gone in a hurry. I also Travel to Las Vegas Frequently to buy stuff I can't find here.
 
Thanks for the responses. Biggest challenge with SoCal is just getting the time to do it. And its a long drive to find a pig in a poke awaits. There's a member over on OWWM that has said he'd help out with things, but a mill might be beyond his capacity.
 
250 said:
Thanks for the responses. Biggest challenge with SoCal is just getting the time to do it. And its a long drive to find a pig in a poke awaits. There's a member over on OWWM that has said he'd help out with things, but a mill might be beyond his capacity.
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I'm not as far away as you, but I HATE driving in SF or LA traffic in just a car. It feels like something out of Road Warrior. And then to be towing a trailer with topheavy mill of unknown weight.....no thanks. IMHO there's interesting deals show up on CL in Sac and the South Bay. As far as what it's worth, this is going to be up to you. That's why it's such a sliding scale when you factor how far you have to drive, the condition of the machine, the logistics, cost of gas, trailer rent etc etc. No matter where you shop there's always somebody who thinks whatever they have is as good as new so should be priced the same. It's why you want to talk to them first. YMMV.
 
You should drive down to Sterling Equipment and look at their used showroom. They get lots of good BP clones, being in southern California they always have Lagun mills, as well as the good clones. Dealing with an equipment dealer is different, but not always bad. I bought my lathe from a dealer and am glad I did. I could have gotten a better deal if I were ready to drive 500 miles with cash money in hand at a moment's notice. Instead, the dealer had dozens if not a hundred machines on hand to pick from. They rigged and shipped for me, I just had to be ready on the receiving end. So consider another possibility. So Cal is not a manufacturing hotspot on the globe, but there are still lots of machines around.
 
pontiac428 said:
You should drive down to Sterling Equipment and look at their used showroom. They get lots of good BP clones, being in southern California they always have Lagun mills, as well as the good clones. Dealing with an equipment dealer is different, but not always bad. I bought my lathe from a dealer and am glad I did. I could have gotten a better deal if I were ready to drive 500 miles with cash money in hand at a moment's notice. Instead, the dealer had dozens if not a hundred machines on hand to pick from. They rigged and shipped for me, I just had to be ready on the receiving end. So consider another possibility. So Cal is not a manufacturing hotspot on the globe, but there are still lots of machines around.
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If you can’t find anything used that pleases you, you could order a machine new from Precision Matthews. That’s what this Californian did 4 out of 4 times. Their Taiwanese machines are as good as machines made in USA.
 
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Precision Matthews isn't really the theme I'm looking to stick with, but I've heard good things about them.

I've never purchased from a dealer, at least anything of size that I'm aware of. I looked through Sterlings inventory and there are lots of shiny machines that are more than I can ask the Mrs for money for. Probably doesn't hurt to keep looking from time to time though.

I'm going to message the owner of the Index I looked at before christmas and make him an offer. Best I can tell its still for sale, worst case scenario is its sold already or we can't agree on price. Made an offer last month on an item to a guy, post had been up for over a month. He said no that wasn't enough and he was raising the price by about 25%. Don't understand that logic but best of luck.
 
250 said:
Precision Matthews isn't really the theme I'm looking to stick with, but I've heard good things about them.

I've never purchased from a dealer, at least anything of size that I'm aware of. I looked through Sterlings inventory and there are lots of shiny machines that are more than I can ask the Mrs for money for. Probably doesn't hurt to keep looking from time to time though.

I'm going to message the owner of the Index I looked at before christmas and make him an offer. Best I can tell its still for sale, worst case scenario is its sold already or we can't agree on price. Made an offer last month on an item to a guy, post had been up for over a month. He said no that wasn't enough and he was raising the price by about 25%. Don't understand that logic but best of luck.
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I saw that "Index" Machine for sale. Those machines actually have a very good reputation and I wouldn't be afraid of buying it for home use. And the price is pretty good.
 
Harry Knutz said:
I saw that "Index" Machine for sale. Those machines actually have a very good reputation and I wouldn't be afraid of buying it for home use. And the price is pretty good.
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This is the machine I went and looked at, and the inspiration for the thread. I didn't make him an offer that day, told him I needed to think about a couple things. Someone shot grease into all the oil zirks for the ways. I've learned subsequently that there are oil zirks out there so I can see how that error was made. Still means I'm looking at taking it apart to clean. There seemed to be a lot of play in the table feed, maybe half a crank or more, which I think was something like 0.100, and a noticeable gap would develop between the dial and the table. Don't know if its an adjustment issue or if its a worn parts issue. Didn't snap a pic of this unfortunately. Story is it didn't come out of a production environment, so that's good.

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