What Did You Buy Today?

dkemppai said:
Yes, 50 mil is pretty good. Just have a bug to get a 20 mil yet (For a repeat-o-meter project I'd like to do). Closest so far is a 0.5um (~20mil) coming from over seas (isn't here yet). That was about 1/4 to 1/6 the cost of what some places are asking for 20 mil. The way things are going, that may be as close as I ever get!
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Does this work? :laughing:
I was thinking the same thing for a repeat-o-meter. Mines pretty big though…

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It seems the larger the surface plate the harder they are to sell, and they tend to go for less money than the smaller ones. The big drawback is they are so heavy no one is willing to pay shipping. They are almost always sold to local customers that have their own way to transport them.

A few years ago, I purchased a 24" x 36" Challenge cast iron surface plate for $100.00. It had been for sale for several weeks, but no one in the vicinity was interested. Weighing in at 475 lbs. the shipping would have cost more than the asking price of $500.00. To put things in perspective the plate I purchased originally sold for $321.00 in 1964. In today's money that's a little over $3,100.00. I tried to find what they actually sell for today, but it appears they no longer offer cast iron plates. Everything offered today is Granite.

Don't be fooled by "asking prices" on eBay. Do an "advanced search" and check the box for "sold items". Often times you'll find larger heavier items go for considerably less than the initial asking price. That's how I arrived at the price I offered the seller for the surface plate I purchased. Several of the same size listed-on eBay had an initial asking prices in the $800.00 to $900.00 range. They ended up selling for $100.00 to $300.00 depending on the manufacturer and condition.
 
projectnut said:
It seems the larger the surface plate the harder they are to sell, and they tend to go for less money than the smaller ones. The big drawback is they are so heavy no one is willing to pay shipping. They are almost always sold to local customers that have their own way to transport them.

A few years ago, I purchased a 24" x 36" Challenge cast iron surface plate for $100.00. It had been for sale for several weeks, but no one in the vicinity was interested. Weighing in at 475 lbs. the shipping would have cost more than the asking price of $500.00. To put things in perspective the plate I purchased originally sold for $321.00 in 1964. In today's money that's a little over $3,100.00. I tried to find what they actually sell for today, but it appears they no longer offer cast iron plates. Everything offered today is Granite.

Don't be fooled by "asking prices" on eBay. Do an "advanced search" and check the box for "sold items". Often times you'll find larger heavier items go for considerably less than the initial asking price. That's how I arrived at the price I offered the seller for the surface plate I purchased. Several of the same size listed-on eBay had an initial asking prices in the $800.00 to $900.00 range. They ended up selling for $100.00 to $300.00 depending on the manufacturer and condition.
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yes, that does always seem to be the case as most 'hobby' people don't have the room or ability to deal with large heavy stuff. I have seen huge stone surface plates that are within a day trip from me listed for reasonable prices. I just don't have the ability to offload it! I'd have to rent a forklift... and then there is the sq-footage it takes up.
I don't know what I would to with this plate either.... It's also of dubious use as an actual surface plate. How would you re-scrape it?!? There are surface plate calibration services in the area but I have no idea if they do cast iron.
Basically, it's a huge awesome table, which I guarantee it was bought for...

The seller had maybe 8 huge vintage bandsaws in the sale (He held like 6 back). They sold for for between $50 and $300..... Most below $200
It was painful to watch.. I definitely have no room for those beasts (nor a need/use)... but I WAS seriously considering buying one for $100 and sticking it in my yard! I despise putting awesome old machinery out to pasture like that, but it's better than the TWO (known) that went DIRECTLY to the scrap yard....... UGHH....
 
Mill Lee farm said:
yes, that does always seem to be the case as most 'hobby' people don't have the room or ability to deal with large heavy stuff. I have seen huge stone surface plates that are within a day trip from me listed for reasonable prices. I just don't have the ability to offload it! I'd have to rent a forklift... and then there is the sq-footage it takes up.
I don't know what I would to with this plate either.... It's also of dubious use as an actual surface plate. How would you re-scrape it?!? There are surface plate calibration services in the area but I have no idea if they do cast iron.
Basically, it's a huge awesome table, which I guarantee it was bought for...

The seller had maybe 8 huge vintage bandsaws in the sale (He held like 6 back). They sold for for between $50 and $300..... Most below $200
It was painful to watch.. I definitely have no room for those beasts (nor a need/use)... but I WAS seriously considering buying one for $100 and sticking it in my yard! I despise putting awesome old machinery out to pasture like that, but it's better than the TWO (known) that went DIRECTLY to the scrap yard....... UGHH....
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I probably shouldn't have purchased such a large surface plate, but I did have a bit of emotional attachment to it in that it was originally purchased by the company I worked for and spent its life in the inspection department. The nice thing is that it was certified 2 years before I purchased it at a cost of over $1,400.00 to the company. In this case it was a hand scraped model (at the time they offered either machine ground or hand scraped) and was certified accurate to within .0005" over the entire length and width.

As for moving it myself and a friend loaded it into the back of my truck by hand. When we got to my house we carried it by hand through the garage, through the kitchen and family room, down the stairs to the shop, and set it up on the table that it originally came with. I can't imagine trying to do that today. I doubt either of us could lift that much weight let alone carry it several hundred feet, and down a stairway.
 
Hitting the garage sales this weekend, I found this at one of my stops:

Well, I couldn't pass that up for $5! I wasn't sure what all was in this, but I had a chance to go through it last night:

all sorted out, sort of. I still need to check the sizes of everything, but there looks to be a set of taper pin reamers, drill bits, chucking reamers, center drills, end mills, and so on, most of it in very small sizes. The Starrett box and a small pill container had these in them:

I will be tucking all of this in with my Unimat, and these should be great for working on tiny jobs.
 
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