what should I pay for this Enco mill?

Glad I was able to help. I hadn't found this site when I was looking for my stuff and was mostly flying blind and in the dark. It would have been nice to have had some guidance.

Now the fun really begins. I have been making mostly tooling for my lathe and mill/drill. I have found that making tooling is a great way to learn about machining. And making a mistake ruining something isn't a financial disaster. Making a QCTP was very instructive on the capabilities of my machines. I am now making an ER32 lathe chuck. Won't get back to that until after the holidays.

Have fun with your lathe and mini-mill/drill
 
jsh said:
Well I must also be some what unrealistic. I have been looking for a benchtop mill for a while. Most of them in this neck of the woods are in pretty poor shape. This past week I put a bid in on a central machine mill. It had been sitting unused for about 20 years, it came with very little tooling, a wooden stand that was not of great use. I knew the gent selling it, he had used it less than a few hours total, year of mfg was 1985.
I checked what I could get a brand new equal shipped for, half price +10% was my bid. I lost it for $10. I need/want a machine to finish some projects, not another project.

It may have been a deal, but I figured setting that long a complete tear down was due. Bearing grease may or may not have been fine.

So myself, I have decided to just go NEW and be done with it. Because as we all know so well, about the time I hit the go button on this purchase benchtop mills will fall from the sky for pennys on the dollar with large amounts of tooling thrown in.
Because this is exactly what happened on my lathe. I looked for several years before finding a used lathe I was happy with. The next three months I was turned on to close to a dozen 8x36" class lathes.
Click to expand...

It doesn't help if you live far away from a major metro area that also has a large manufacturing presence. If you only lost by $10, you were being realistic, IMHO. I was going to buy a beat-up machine, but when I looked at what it would cost it parts to get it in decent shape, I decided to look elsewhere. It was going to be at least $400 for parts on a machine the seller wanted $750 for. I was going to offer less, but I'm not sure he would have taken it. It was too heavy for the "standard" stands and tables, so I'd also have to get a stand made. For about $500 to get one welded, and maybe $150 to make a decent one out of wood myself. I could have bought a new on for that kind of money. So, I went smaller and got a LMS 3990.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top