Old rusty Bridgeport

It just "could be" your last chance, especially if its close by. Or it may be a pristine one for cheap and 5,000 bucks to truck it 3,000 miles
your choice. anything can be fixed I think 500 bucks is probably a set of new tires these days and they will wear out.
 
I look at it as a guy who used to buy Bridgeport's, fixed them up and sold them. I would go look at it and see how the ways look and if they are smooth and no scratches or scores, the table top is smooth, head runs, table power feed, has any collets, has any tooling, etc. A little elbow grease and you could probably sell it for $2500.00. That's what I sold several for. I would pay up $1000.00 for the machine if the ways were OK. That machine has a round arm column with a dovetail ram, it might be a machine built that way as it appears to be an early 50's machine I'm guessing. It has a Kurt vise on it or a copy that is probably worth $100.00 as is. If he accepts $250.00 more power to you. But even if it's rusty and needs some TLC it is worth more to me then a Rung-fu.
 
Well, I emailed the seller and no response so far, no phone number. The machine is in Memphis and I'm in Nashville so it's a little tougher to just go take a look. But if I could get it for $250 (which by the way it looks might be about right), I'd buy it just to part it out! That does look like a neat place to go poke around and see what they might want to get rid of.
 
patclem said:
Well, I emailed the seller and no response so far, no phone number. The machine is in Memphis and I'm in Nashville so it's a little tougher to just go take a look. But if I could get it for $250 (which by the way it looks might be about right), I'd buy it just to part it out! That does look like a neat place to go poke around and see what they might want to get rid of.
Click to expand...

If you have the room, why not get it up and running. It might not need a whole lot other than a bit of cleaning to get it usable.

Parting it out sounds so harsh.
 
If you get it; a VFD and a "drop deck" trailer is the way to go IMO. The bed on a drop deck trailer lowers to grade on hydraulics. You roll the BP on and off. NO lifting!!
 
I hired a 26' truck with a lift gate to get my BP clone home and it was a nightmare. The machine weighs one ton (almost exactly) and the lift gate bent a lot under load. I wouldn't do it that way again without wearing rubber pants! Other people have used a U-Haul 4-wheel trailer and that's what I would suggest instead. You'll need a engine crane or fork lift at each end to get it shifted whatever you do but apart from that it would be a lot easier and cheaper (and safer) than a lift gate. If it doesn't have the lifting eye, you need to get one or bring loads of straps etc. The lifting eye is easiest.

Muzzer
 
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