I Bought The Bridgeport

It is potentially a good buy if the machine is in decent shape. You can tell the production year of the machine by reading the serial number on right way of the the knee. It should be easily visible when the table is in a position similar to the one in picture 7.

Here's a link to the serial number of machines produced between 1938 and 1995:
http://www.metalwebnews.com/howto/bridgeport/bridgeport.html

Too bad you aren't in the Midwest. On our Craigslist there's currently a similar Bridgeport with an asking price of $1850.00, another for $2500.00, a third for $3000.00 and a fourth for $4500.00 a CNC version for $2900.00, a Gorton with an asking price of $750.00, an Index for $300.00, a Burke Millrite for $1800.00, and a Tree for $2000.00 among others

With the mill/drill machines, the Cincinnati's, and other really heavy iron there are currently over 30 vertical milling machines for sale ranging in price from $250.00 to over $10,000.00. I have never seen this many machines for sale at one time in over 15 years. It's truly a buyers market in the Midwest.

We moved from Virginia last year, and there is a much better selection of machinery back east, but I went and looked at the machine and bought it today! I will pick it up on Wednesday, I just have to rent a trailer and a forklift to unload it. It is the BR2j built in 1976,everything on the mill was smooth, the drive was quiet and all axis were tight. There was a lot of spotting left on the knee ways, and the y axis ways had about 4" with the rest of the way clean and well oiled. I think that I got a good machine for a great price, and the tooling is worth more than the machine. Now I have 2 days to clean the garage and make a spot for it.

eodcoduto said:

I am going to go check out the Bridgeport tomorrow, and then figure out the logistics of getting it home if I do buy it. The Index is nice, but the tooling that comes with the B'port would take me years to affordably buy. Plus I grew up in Bridgeport Nebraska.
Here is what I am going to see: http://losangeles.craigslist.org/wst/tls/5749116660.html

Click to expand...

Well hell, the craigs list ad was deleted. Do you have a saved copy that you can post? At least give the details on price and the tooling that you got with the deal. Pictures, Pictures, Pictures you need to do a tool gloat! Did I mention for you to post pictures for me (us?) to drool over?

I have some saved pictures on my home computer, and I will get things posted up once I pick it up on Wednesday. I came with a 15" Bridgeport rotary table, 10" rotary table, 70x and 30x tapmatics, 6" Bridgeport vice, tilt table, 2'x2' granite comparator slab, 2 or three clamping kits, 2 boring heads, 4 drill chucks, parallels and 8 drawers full of endmills, reamers, center drills, and so on. The mill has a 36" table with x axis powerfeed, a Kurt power drawbar and Mitutoyo 2 axis DRO with a simple digital scale on the quill. I need to order a rotary phase converter today, I am pretty excited about it!

Wow that is a lot of tooling. Congrats.