What Is The Best Tool Score You Ever Got?

[alloy]

I'm at work today and one of the kids I'm trying to train (long story) were talking about the mill I brought home this last weekend and asked me what was the best tool score I ever got.

I thought this would be a fun topic for the long holiday weekend.

I've scored a lot of great deals especially the course of this year and it's hard to pick just one.

But I think my best ever score was the Kent 4VK mill I got with the Servo power feed and Kurt power draw bar for $1000. The motor shaft was destroyed, but I picked up an entire head with a Baldor Super E motor for $200 at an auction. I'm going to have to replace the non working DRO, but my total investment in the mill will be $2500. I saw one on EBay last night without the E-head for $12k.

So tell us about the best tool score (forklifts included) you ever got.

 

[Ed ke6bnl]

I just picked up a 1955 round ram Bridgeport with a newer J head, seems pretty tight for $500 delivered to my house about 75 miles for $100 and sold my smaller good working Burke Millrite for $1400. so just got a DRO and Power feed for the new mill. Just got a couple of months ago a Delta surface grinder with mag chuck and whitney punch and milling end cutter some wheels ( a bit sloppy in the gibbs) for $150 and sold the whitney punch for $100.

also my old BurkeMillrite and 11" rockwell lathe both loaded on my trailer $900 as I said just sold the the mill for $1400 Did add igaging dro's to mill

 

[T Bredehoft]

Yard sale, 36" Starrett vernier caliper in original wooden box stamped USAAF (Ca. WWII). $25.00. Took it to work, showed them the receipt (yeah, I hadta ask for it). The shop paid me 1/2 of the cost. They had it calibrated, came out exact. It was the only one in the shop, got used a lot. Still have it, don't use it any more, nothing that big to measure.

 

[carkrazd]

1963 Hardinge HLVH
With tons of 5 C collets and tooling
A Taper Attachment ,Radius Cutter.
Metric Threading Gears
and a Hardinge Dividing head for
$ 2200

 

[rgray]

14 inch John Steptoe shaper. Bought at auction for $50.00.....Had alot of fun with it.

 

[BGHansen]

Rockwell 10 x 36 lathe (picture attached). Holt, MI school shop closing sale - $25. Caveat is I did a lot of work to get it to the photo below. Completely disassembled it and stripped off at least 10 coats of paint using Dad's water-based paint stripper. Bought all new badging, new wrench for the tail stock. Came with a Dumore no. 44 tool post grinder and full complement of lantern style tool holders also. Had to make a brass bearing block for the telescoping taper attachment. Replaced most of the screws too. Probably had an additional $100 in the lathe so we'll say $125. Still gloating even though the lathe is going up for sale . . .

Bruce

 

[TOOLMASTER]

to many to list...but my favorite funny one is.....

i see a box full of these items and i offer the guy 20 bucks for the box full....the guy says no way i have to get at least 50 cents each...i say ok...he counts them out to a grand totals of 16.50....paid , left n laughed

 

[bill stupak]

This is part of a score from an auction. A gent in his nineties was downsizing to a smaller property and had to sell off all his tools and equipment. All of this stuff was buried under a lot of other junk in a box. Starting at 12 o'clock, a Starrett and two no name squares, a hand knurler -later sold on ebay $65-, 5 edge finders -two working-, various indicator holders, inspection mirror and a working digital thermometer, 12" Brown and Sharpe square , 18" Starrett square, 12" no name square, very old and still working Chicago trim router, circular saw ripping guide, tablesaw feather board, Starrett button back indicator w/ magbase -works perfectly-, miter gauge -fits my disc/belt sander slot. The good, I got the lot for $12, the better, I regularly use almost all of it. I’m still grinning.


Bill

 

[hman]

Best for me so far was a very nice Gerstner 6 drawer tool box - full of tools - I bought from a pawn shop in April and posted to the forum. Total price was $300.
http://www.hobby-machinist.com/threads/gerstner-score.34808/

Thoroughly cleaned up and polished the box and dust cover, used a stem iron to repair the felt on the door (Gerstner uses hide glue), spent about $10 or so to buy a key from Gerstner, and sold the box for ... $300. Here's s photo of my "free" tool haul. Lots of other minor "goodies" in the box.

 

[Charles Spencer]

Well I posted this a little while ago:

http://www.hobby-machinist.com/threads/i-finally-caught-a-deal.39719/


I also got a South Bend 9C two years ago for $65.00.