Surface grinder buying guide, what to look for, help needed

[kolbroshop]

As a title says, an opportunity emerged for me to buy a used surface grinder. A guy is offering me a surface grinder cheaply, but he says that its table stuck on one side because it is sitting for a longer time. What could be the problem? In generally speaking, what to look in when buying these type of machine used?
I am a total beginner in this part. Any help would be welcomed.

 

[sdelivery]

Corrosion is number 1
But many of the surface grinders use a metal or fabric belt to move the table back and forth....if one side breaks it will move one way but not the other.

 

[kolbroshop]

Corrosion is number 1
But many of the surface grinders use a metal or fabric belt to move the table back and forth....if one side breaks it will move one way but not the other.

so if the corrosion is the case, wouldn't it have effect on machines geometry, precision? Is it solvable? What kind of tolerances i can expect in these type of machines? What could be called "good" shape, and what "bad"?

 

[FOMOGO]

Depends what cheap is. If it's really cheap you can always part it out if it turns out to be junk, and get your money back. The whole idea of a surface grinder is the ability to work to 1/10,000 of an inch. If you want to work with it, and not on it, you want one that is up and running, and can demonstrate it's accuracy.

 

[mmcmdl]

1/10,000 of an inch.

Those damn things are so small , there must be a million of them in an inch !