Worth of Knife Grinders and Furnace

frank r

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I recently responded to a local craigslist ad for some machinery for sale. I found a young man who was selling his deceased grandfather's shop. He had no clue about what things were worth. It looked like he needed the money and I did not want to see him get ripped off. So I helped him sort out the piles of tooling and organize things for sale. I also gave him ballpark figures for what things were worth. I went through many toolboxes and gathered things into piles. When i was done I think I found about a 12 different micrometers stashed away.

I am not a knifemaker and I am not familiar with the prices. There were three knife grinders there and a small heat treating furnace. One of the knife grinders was a Burr King. It was a basic model but with a variable speed control. I did not recognize the other two models but they both had variable speed control.

I would like to know what the ballpark figures are for knife grinders so that he could have a good starting price. I saw another ad where a nice Burr King was re-listed a few times and he was asking $250 for it. So I think these are worth a little less. Same question about the little heat-treat furnace.

All of these items are in the Detroit area.
 
If you can measure the inside cavity of the furnace you can get a better idea of value. Mostly they are just big heaters, and cost is proportional to size. Smaller ones tend to go at somewhat of a premium as hobyists can find a place for them. Assuming the it's around the same size as my little Paragon (SC-2), I would figure $250 might be a good starting point. As for the grinder, don't have much experience, so I can't give much advice there.
 
If you can measure the inside cavity of the furnace you can get a better idea of value. Mostly they are just big heaters, and cost is proportional to size. Smaller ones tend to go at somewhat of a premium as hobyists can find a place for them. Assuming the it's around the same size as my little Paragon (SC-2), I would figure $250 might be a good starting point. As for the grinder, don't have much experience, so I can't give much advice there.


Thanks, that is about the size. It is pretty small.

If I bought it, could I use it in the machine shop?
 
Type in burr king on ebay, you might be surprised what they go for. They seem to hold their value depending on what model they are, variable speed is worth more also.
 
They are useful for a number of things, depending on the temperature range. I purchased mine for heat treating, but I have also done some jewelry work, and some firing of low-fire clay. You could also melt small quantities of some metals, so it might work for small scale foundry work.
 
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