What you can buy for $1400 - Tool Gloat: Mills and Drills!

[Fasttrack]

Well I made a big purchase today. I checked scrap prices and, after putting the machines on a scale, I reckon I got $1750 in scrap iron for $1400, at the very worst. At the very best, my brother-in-law and I are the new owners of some nice equipment.

I bought the following two pieces:

A Kearney Trecker 2D rotary head mill in excellent condition. Mr. Oder on the PM has informed me that it was one of 15 finished in Feb. of 1957. It has been, I believe, professionally rebuilt not too long ago as there is still frosting on the longitudinal ways and the knee-to-column ways. This is very precise, regular frosting that is very shallow and you can see scrape marks on the knee-to-column ways. I suppose, based on the pattern, that this would be produced by something akin to a Biax power scraper. All the features work beautifully, from the built in air compressor (the taller motor featured in the third photo) and coolant pump (the shorter) to the rotary head feature. It has rapid traverse for the knee and power on all axis. It came with a working DRO and the power bracket to drive a rotary table or dividing head. Note in the fourth picture the built in step in order to change the CVT. There is also a hand-hold cast into the top. The spindle speeds are "infinitely" variable from 250 to 4000 rpm. All of this for only $500! Very many thanks to Mr. Hunt from the PM forum who passed along this deal.





Not that this is neccessary with a DRO - but how cool is this? They've got pockets for DIs and a track for gauge blocks!




You know it's a man's mill when you need a step up to get to the belts :-D