Thanks for the official suckage title. That tells me I did better than I thought.
I used this saw daily for about 13 years. It doesn't run like brand new, but considering it's 60 years old and the environment it came from, it is bulletproof.
The company bought this saw in 1960 for $1200 and was offered $800 for a trade-in in '99 when they bought a new DoAll. I offered the trade in price at that time. They accepted the offer. The new saw came in and before I could get this one out the door, another department decided they wanted it. They kicked it around for a couple of years but never used it. Then our maintenance department claimed it for a couple of years until they realized they never used it. Well, they did try to use it but were only successful at destroying blades. I guess speeds and feeds DO make a difference. Go figure. It's been sitting in different areas at work ever since. I offered $800 for it again a year ago, but the owner's brother thought he might like to have it for his airplane hanger. That's when I decided to give up on this forever.
A week ago one of the management types asked if I still wanted it since the owners have decided they won't use it after all and just wanted it out of the way. I said yes, I was still interested and was even willing to give them the $800 I originally offered. Owner sends me an email to say that $800 would be way too much for an employee. He said how about $200? After my free score from them last week I felt bad about this price, so I told him I'd go $300. 50% more than he wanted but still a screaming deal for me.
Here's my thread from last week's free score....
http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=138820
It is 3 phase, but I have a rotary converter on the back of the mill sitting next to saw in the pic. I have already plugged it in and fired it up. It all works. I haven't tried the welder yet, but it did work years ago when this thing was parked, and I expect it still does. It is a very touchy welder. Took me a while to figure out how to make it work. The new welders are much easier to use than this one, but I'm glad to have anything. This welder is also set up for etching too. Not fancy, but it works to scratch your name into tools or whatever.
And rwhite692 you are correct. My roller cart has unleashed some very creative vocabularies. It hasn't quite extracted a pound of flesh from my ankles, but now that it's in my garage I am sure it will eventually get the entire pound. 'Ergonomics' wasn't really on the radar back then. I'd never get away with this design today. Maybe that's why they sold it to me? So I can experience the pain I have inflicted on others?
This did used to have the vaned chip blower assembly on it, but it didn't work when I first used this saw. That was removed years ago and a regulator connected to shop air was added. Still there.
Here's a shameless plug for Lake Region Medical, the company I work for. We are an OEM device supplier for the big companies. X&X, **, ***, Xxxxxxxxx and many more. We have a few branded products of our own too. We do mainly cardiovascular and neurological guide wires and devices, so if you've ever had angioplasty, a stint placed or a pacemaker installed, Lake Region Medical probably had something to do with it.
My project for the last three years was developing the machines, tools and processes for manufacturing a mystery component for a *** pacing lead. It makes the lead and pacemaker completely MRI compatible, up to 1.5 Tesla. It's a huge game changing technology for the pacing industry. It was released in Europe last fall, with releases in Australia and India planned for next month I believe. It will be coming to the US in another year or two. You can thank the FDA for the rest of the world getting this technology before the country that developed it, but that gets into politics and I won't go there.
To say LRM treats me well would be an understatement. I hope all of you like your job as much as I do. It makes going to work everyday much easier.
