For all those who can't find a GREAT lathe they can afford. $555+10%=Priceless

[flylo]

https://www.govdeals.com/index.cfm?fa=Main.Item&itemid=238&acctid=6617

How much use do you think it saw in a fire house? Look at the long row of pics near the bottom, came with 2 chucks, steady, new spare set of belts, face plate & more, easy access to load. If my mobility wasn't gone I would own it now. What more would you want for $600? 2 full weeks to pick up. You know city firemen keep up there equipment. Just hope a machinist & not a scrapper got it. There are deals like this all the time & in many many places, it just takes a bit of effort. Chicago or china $600 or $6000 Let me think?

[BCRider]

The size and power requirements for that would mean a fairly limited audience. Not all of us have that sort of shop and power. One helluva great deal though for anyone that can make use of it. Let's face it, that is scrap metal pricing. Maybe not even.

But similarly let's also face the fact that deals like that only come around about once a decade. And more than once the topic of the wide disparity in regional pricing has come up. You being in Michigan which was in the middle of the industrial heartland means that even at the right price for your area you're going to find far more machines that are a small fraction of what those of us out in the styx are going to pay.

[tom_d]

Unfortunately that one is sold. But there's still a few hours left to bid on this one!:

https://www.govdeals.com/index.cfm?fa=Main.Item&itemid=237&acctid=6617

Limited need for something that big. Hopefully someone will keep it out of the scrap pile.

[BCRider]

Damn, 20 hours to go and still only at $250? I agree wholeheartedly about the hope that someone buys it that will use it.

[flylo]

The size and power requirements for that would mean a fairly limited audience. Not all of us have that sort of shop and power. One helluva great deal though for anyone that can make use of it. Let's face it, that is scrap metal pricing. Maybe not even.

But similarly let's also face the fact that deals like that only come around about once a decade. And more than once the topic of the wide disparity in regional pricing has come up. You being in Michigan which was in the middle of the industrial heartland means that even at the right price for your area you're going to find far more machines that are a small fraction of what those of us out in the styx are going to pay.

Not true, a good friend of mine bought a better one for almost 1/2 the price with a 10HP & that included loading 2 months ago. Deals on great well cared for machines are out there you just have to be willing to spend the time to look. I went to buy a Bridgeport & ought 32 working machines in a shop & 20 more in the back room in various states of being rebuilt. A couple members whined & cried that I was a machine dealer till George had to take it down. I gave most of it away & paid $1500 for all including a bobcat trailer. Not a gloat just saying great machines are still around IF YOU"RE WILLING TO LOOK. Most just want to check the boxes for the options type in a CC # & wait for a tiny bit of China to appear & that's fine but don't say Great American Iron isn't available or affordable. That's what I get sick of as Chicago is much closer than china, just takes a bit more thinking & planning. Just looked & there's tons of auctions in BC. Ritchie's is a big player & I think you farm so you should have equipment to haul a decent size lathe or other machines.

[BCRider]

Flylo, around here deals like the two machines in this thread literally would be a once a decade thing. I know Ritchie is around but I don't go out of my way to shop for stuff so I likely miss a few deals. But when lathes or mills show up if they are suitable for home use they generally get bid up pretty high, pretty fast. It's very much a seller's market around here for such things. Granted the big stuff like that Pacemaker don't go for what they should be worth. But they would haul in $3K to 4$k. But few home types have the room or power to run a beast like that.

And that includes me. I'm living in farming country but it's "just" a house. No barn and no gear to move anything that big and no room to put it even if I could get it home. I'm looking at buying a plasma cutter shortly and even that will likely mean selling a motorcycle to make room for it

Far more typical from what I've seen in casual looking is an older Southbend 9" listed for $900 and a Sharp Tiawanese 12x36 listed for $1500. And they'll get those prices or very nearly to them without any trouble. The ones that show up for even a bit lower price are gone within a couple of days.

[754]

Damn, 20 hours to go and still only at $250? I agree wholeheartedly about the hope that someone buys it that will use it.

Flylo, around here deals like the two machines in this thread literally would be a once a decade thing. I know Ritchie is around but I don't go out of my way to shop for stuff so I likely miss a few deals. But when lathes or mills show up if they are suitable for home use they generally get bid up pretty high, pretty fast. It's very much a seller's market around here for such things. Granted the big stuff like that Pacemaker don't go for what they should be worth. But they would haul in $3K to 4$k. But few home types have the room or power to run a beast like that.

And that includes me. I'm living in farming country but it's "just" a house. No barn and no gear to move anything that big and no room to put it even if I could get it home. I'm looking at buying a plasma cutter shortly and even that will likely mean selling a motorcycle to make room for it

Far more typical from what I've seen in casual looking is an older Southbend 9" listed for $900 and a Sharp Tiawanese 12x36 listed for $1500. And they'll get those prices or very nearly to them without any trouble. The ones that show up for even a bit lower price are gone within a couple of days.

The chances of getting a lathe cheap at a Ritchie Sale are pretty slim.. probably the best attended auctions in the world.
They started off here in our town.
When John Ritchie split off and ran his own small auctions, there were often a few deals, and I scored some nice Starrett stuff from his sales.
In general prices around here have always been pretty high... there is the odd deal, but you got to hit most of the auctions.
Just heard about some school equipment that went cheap in a small interior town in BC... a San Yuen 14 inch and an import turret mill... I know the guys that got them.

[MattiJ]

Been looking for that amazing deal for 3 or 4 years now. If I would get 1 dollar per hour I have spent looking for used machines that would make enough to buy brand new one

https://www.nettikone.com/muu-merkki/rjazanin-sorvi/1504655

Also amazing value for the money if you happen to need lathe with 36" chuck

[Mcgyver]

deals do happen all the time, but my sense is its declining. This is both from the inventory or old quality machines and tools diminishing (at some point the gov and universities will have sold all their old lathes) and the democratization of information. The later meaning as time goes on an increasing percentage of sellers are tech savvy and will be looking up values of whats sold on ebay. I think there are but a fraction of deals via the classifieds that there were 10 or even 5 years ago. Nowadays it seems everyone with one of gramps machinists tools is factoring it into their retirement plans

The chances of getting a lathe cheap at a Ritchie Sale are pretty slim.. probably the best attended auctions in the world.

or any commercial auction. If they're too cheap they shill bid, buy it themselves and drag it out to the next auction. Granted it has to be very cheap for all the handling to be worth it, but its not the spot market you think it is

[jdedmon91]

deals do happen all the time, but my sense is its declining. This is both from the inventory or old quality machines and tools diminishing (at some point the gov and universities will have sold all their old lathes) and the democratization of information. The later meaning as time goes on an increasing percentage of sellers are tech savvy and will be looking up values of whats sold on ebay. I think there are but a fraction of deals via the classifieds that there were 10 or even 5 years ago. Nowadays it seems everyone with one of gramps machinists tools is factoring it into their retirement plans



or any commercial auction. If they're too cheap they shill bid, buy it themselves and drag it out to the next auction. Granted it has to be very cheap for all the handling to be worth it, but its not the spot market you think it is

True also most of the best deals seem to be in the Midwest and Northeast. Here in the southeast the prices are at least 1/3 higher than those two places, most of the manual lathes and Bridgeport type mills were worn out in the Textile machine shops that is why when the mills went out

I got my Lagun for $4200 if it had been up north the same machine would have sold for $3800


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[bborr01]

Those old Pacemakers are built well but with a thru hole of a little over an inch and a small Morse Taper in the tailstock they have some shortcomings. To those who have limited time running them they look cool but a nice big thru hole allows you to cut parts off of bars of stock instead of using short cutoff pieces of stock. This is really a big advantage when making some parts. Also having a big Morse taper allows the use of large drill bits without them spinning in the tailstock.

Brian

[754]

I have been at quite a few auctions where prices were reasonable, but not dirt cheap.
And quite a few machines then get bought up by the big dealers for resale.

[Glug]

Those old Pacemakers are built well but with a thru hole of a little over an inch and a small Morse Taper in the tailstock they have some shortcomings. To those who have limited time running them they look cool but a nice big thru hole allows you to cut parts off of bars of stock instead of using short cutoff pieces of stock. This is really a big advantage when making some parts. Also having a big Morse taper allows the use of large drill bits without them spinning in the tailstock.

The through hole size is 2.25". The tailstock is MT5. The diameter of the tailstock spindle is 4 5/8".

Troll us again about this machine not being able to hold large drill bits.

[flylo]

Pacemakers were made so the operator can do all the adjustments on the machine. I wouldn't trade mine for 2 Osama Ben Logans
OPEN EYES, OPEN EARS, OPEN MIND
THINK HARDER

[bborr01]

The through hole size is 2.25". The tailstock is MT5. The diameter of the tailstock spindle is 4 5/8".

Troll us again about this machine not being able to hold large drill bits.

We had a couple of Pacemakers where I worked and a bunch of other lathes. The Pacemakers rarely got turned on but the two Clausing Colchesters and the Monarch 10 EE ran every day. There was a reason for that.

Lathes are a little like tractors. A guy once told me that you can buy a John Deere 4020 for less than a smaller JD because the smaller tractors are in demand more than the larger ones for the hobbyist and the real farmers have moved on way beyond an old 4020.

Brian