RIP Little Clausing...(Rant)

[G-ManBart]

Time is money. If they are sitting around, taking up space that is needed for other things, then the company will want them gone. Sometimes its the auction house, sometimes its the scrapper.

It isn't pleasant for us, but that is the way life is sometimes. There is a scrap yard not a mile from me, and sometimes I will see lathes in the yard there, sitting. And they end up sitting for years sometimes, waiting for someone to buy them. I bought a Craftsman 6 inch from them, but that is a small lathe that I can pick up and put in my truck. I don't need a rigger to get it moved.

No argument, but this wasn't a company, just a guy who collected, restored and sold parts as a hobby. He owned a couple of local businesses mentioned in his obit that weren't machinery related. He had a massive collection that was being liquidated, and it was mostly incredibly nice stuff. The stuff I could see in the scrap bin was obviously scrap...old motors in pieces, etc....until the lathe.

 

[sdelivery]

There are old factories in Ohio that are abandoned with Machine Tools so big that NO ONE can afford to move them.

 

[Nesse1]

With larger companies, it's sometimes easier to just scrap something, than to manage selling it. The finance dudes may even be able to take a write-off.

Where I work, we are downsizing our shop footprint, to save money on a sq-ft basis. Two areas being shrunk, are our machine shop and maintenance department. Bottom line: we have too many machine tools, like mills and lathes. Among others, there is a Bridgeport and Clausing 1300 lathe that are likely to be jettisoned. I've already told our Operations VP to keep me in mind when they go to get rid of them. Fingers crossed, I can get them for cheap.

 

[Provincial]

I spotted an Atlas 12x36 cabinet lathe at the local scrap yard years ago. It seemed to be in excellent shape. I asked the yard man about it, and he said "where do you think it came from?" I said it must have been the Government. He told me to look at the tag on the tailstock end of the bed. It said "United States Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs." It was scrapped by the nearby Indian School.

When I got it home, I couldn't close the half nuts. I discovered that the lead screw threads were full of Cosmoline. It is possible that the lathe had never been used.