Thinking of buying a Bridgeport Mill

[Tmate]

If you need a machine delivered, look at point to point delivery on a flat bed. Don't let your machine go through a freight terminal once you have paid and accepted risk. If you can avoid residential delivery, that is good, and if you can avoid lift gate service, even better. Dave

I had mine shipped to a freight terminal, and picked it up on a drop-bed trailer. Two of us used a pallet jack to move it off the trailer and into my garage.

 

[sdelivery]

Look at TAS IRON LTD. Website.
They do great things.

 

[Beckerkumm]

I've done the same thing but terminals are still dangerous places for machines. Here is my drop deck. I hit a deer with a 9K load. Pretty exciting and bad for the deer. Dave

 

[projectnut]

I will note that he claims to be including every attachment available for the BP, it is not just the right angle head. It does sound like he is including a lot of tooling as well as a like new Kurt vice which alone could run $450+.

If you assumed $2800 for the mill, $500 for the vise and $2500 in tooling with $1000 added for negotiating it might not be that overpriced. Of course that all depends on what tooling he actually has and the condition of everything.

$7000 will put you into most of the PM knee mills, but then you have to consider taxes, delivery fees, a vise ($600 for a new 6" Kurt), tooling (a lot more $$$$$), so this could actually be worth a look, as new could easily run you $10,000 delivered with a nice variety of tooling.

Edit
I'm not saying that this is a good deal, just that it could be, all depends on what it actually comes with. Based on the photos I'm not seeing the "every accessory made for a BP", I don't even see a rotary table included but if he has a lot more than is shown it could actually be a decent price.

From what I'm reading the vise isn't part of the deal. He mentions he also has 2 vises "for sale". Here's a quote from the ad. The semantics are poor, but my interpretation is these vises are not part of the package, but are being sold separately.

Along with the head and attachments I have an immaculate Kurt vise (not pictured) and an additional vise for sale with oversized jaws.

 

[sdelivery]

The person that shows up with a truck and a pocket full of cash can walk away with it and the other peices for much less.
He probably has had enough "inquiries " that someone who actually comes over prepared to buy can do well.

 

[Aaron_W]

From what I'm reading the vise isn't part of the deal. He mentions he also has 2 vises "for sale". Here's a quote from the ad. The semantics are poor, but my interpretation is these vises are not part of the package, but are being sold separately.

Along with the head and attachments I have an immaculate Kurt vise (not pictured) and an additional vise for sale with oversized jaws.

Yeah there is actually quite a bit of mismatch between what the ad says and what is actually shown in the photos. I took that as he had a second vise available for sale, but yes it is not clear if the the Kurt is part of the deal or not.

I mostly commented because most of the focus was on what the mill is worth by itself, when the ad suggests there is a lot of tooling for it, and as it often said, it is not hard to spend more on the tooling than on the machine. However having looked more closely through the photos, I'm seeing a bunch endmills and cutters, but not seeing several thousand dollars worth of extras to justify the asking price, and now you point out the vise might not even be part of the deal.

 

[Cheeseking]

Mill the OP posted probably $1,500.
The seller needs a reference as.
what a 7k BP should look like…

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[kb58]

When an ad uses terms like "high precision", it speaks volumes.

 

[mattthemuppet2]

I think you're all getting hung up on the $6.8k price. That's for the mill AND the lathe. Take off what he wants for the lathe and the mill comes out about $4k, which is not unreasonable for that area with all that tooling. Don't forget Chelan WA is in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE in a part of the world where used machine tools command a premium. A very very beautiful middle of nowhere, but still

If you can get all that tooling and the Kurt vise for $4k, I don't think you will have done too bad at all. People really don't get how much money tooling costs when they start out, but they learn real fast There's also no way you would get a comparable machine new for that kind of money. I'd give the guy a call, have a chat with him, see where he's at and leave your number. Given that he's time constrained, you may be able to get a decent deal if you don't abuse the situation.

 

[ErichKeane]

I think you're all getting hung up on the $6.8k price. That's for the mill AND the lathe. Take off what he wants for the lathe and the mill comes out about $4k, which is not unreasonable for that area with all that tooling. Don't forget Chelan WA is in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE in a part of the world where used machine tools command a premium. A very very beautiful middle of nowhere, but still

If you can get all that tooling and the Kurt vise for $4k, I don't think you will have done too bad at all. People really don't get how much money tooling costs when they start out, but they learn real fast There's also no way you would get a comparable machine new for that kind of money. I'd give the guy a call, have a chat with him, see where he's at and leave your number. Given that he's time constrained, you may be able to get a decent deal if you don't abuse the situation.

Nope, its not! From the listing:

Bridgeport and all tooling $6800 OBO

South Bend Lathe and original table $2800

As far as the tooling... that is a 'brown paper bag' full, which in my experience tends to be of variable usefulness. Additionally, it assumes that ALL of that tooling is useful to a buyer. I find that 'bucket of tooling' sales tend to have a handful of useful things, and a near-full-buckets worth full of 'never gets used'. I say this as someone who has bought a number of those buckets