Value of Van Norman Mill

[Sureshot]

http://regina.kijiji.ca/c-buy-and-s...man-Duplex-Milling-Machine-W0QQAdIdZ388943669

Ad claims he was offered $1500.Seems high but does anyone have any experience with one of these. I have an extra phase converter and 3 phase motor sitting.

 

[kmacht]

I wouldn't pay over $500 for it. You can get a nice bridgeport J-head for under the $1500 he is asking. The Van Norman's #2's are tough to get parts for and also don't have an R-8 taper so collets and tooling are harder to find and more expensive. I'm not sure in the pictures but I think the #2 also didn't have a quill. All Z-axis work was done by raising and lowering the table. That's not much of a problem for milling but if you want to do a bunch of drilling forget about it.

Keith

 

[Kevin54]

$1500 is way to high. Like kmacht said, maybe $500. With a horizontal mill you are also limited to it uses. If you are willing to spend $1500, keep your eye out for a good Bridgeport or something similar. A vertical mill is far more universal in what you can do.

 

[Sureshot]

Kind of what I was thinking. I have a mill/drill combo and was wondering for a mill but this one looks to be not much over scrap. Thanks for the input I just didn't want a you **** to slip away.

 

[kmacht]

Just for clarification, some of the van norman mills had a universal head that would work as either a horizontal or a vertical mill. Not sure on this one as I didn't look at the pictures too well. The only problem with a universal is that you have to re-tram the head every time you switch it around.

Keith

 

[HoosierBuddy]

Seems too high to me.

If you've got the room, get a bridgeport.

I didn't quite have that much room, so I searched and searched and searched and finally found a Millright (sort of a 2/3 scale model of a bridgeport) for about the same money.

A real key when buying machine tools is how much tooling is included? Another, as mentioned, is what is the chuck taper. There's a huge difference in how easy it is to obtain tooling for an R8 machine vs something more obscure like a BS9.

If you use your machine a lot, you can easily end up spending more on tooling than you did the mill.

I think my next "big" project will be to put a DRO on mine. $$$$$$

Phil

 

[rsanter]

He made a mistake, he should have taken the $1500

I would have a hard time justifying $500

Bob

 

[A_Pmech]

That thing was already an antique in WWII.

It's not worth anything remotely close to $1,500.

 

[CKC]

http://regina.kijiji.ca/c-buy-and-s...man-Duplex-Milling-Machine-W0QQAdIdZ388943669

Ad claims he was offered $1500.Seems high but does anyone have any experience with one of these. I have an extra phase converter and 3 phase motor sitting.

As everyone else said scrap price, $1500.00! I wouldnt even want to move it for $0.
you might have more into a bridgeport or one of the offshore clones but you will have a excellent tool.

 

[Sureshot]

My first look I just glanced over the text and went to the pics and was thinking freebie. When I went back to the text and read the details I thought I may be missing something and thought I have to ask. Don't want to miss a garage sale Van Gogh.

 

[Slick111]

Not worth more than scrap value waaaay to old and a round ram style hard to find any parts and I am betting it is well worn any way I picked up a low hour series I Bridgeport loaded with tooling delivered to my garage for $2500.Shop around for a better deal.

 

[Falcon67]

My 3 phase square column mill/drill isn't a B-port, but it's an R8 spindle and a decent tool, brand new delivered it was $1600. When I finally spring for a DRO, yes I'll have that much in tooling.