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Some bad news – I tore the the X and Y axes apart over the last couple days, and to my (untrained) eye, the ways look torched. These aren't the best pictures of the Y axis ways, but I'm curious to hear what you guys think. I don't have any good pictures of the X axis yet as it's still too...

Thanks for the info guys – yep, planning to fully disassemble and clean (although getting the knee off is going to be a challenge). I'll get into the alternative lube systems once I just have the mill up and running again...I still need to wire the VFD, too.

Fun discovery I made a couple weeks ago: the shop that had this machine before took out the entire lubrication system since they were using grease instead of oil. So now I gotta find one of those, and they're like $4k from Hardinge. If anyone knows a cheaper way to find a full lubrication...

Oh, no, the mill is 3-phase, which is why I need to wire up a VFD. I got a VFD that supports 1Ph 240v to 3Ph 220v.

The power in the shop is, yeah. I called our utilities provider to confirm.

A quick update, that'll turn into a longer one later: I bought a Bridgeport! One came up for auction not too far from me, and with the help of a bunch of very nice people over in this thread I decided to buy it. $690 after auction fees, which is a steal as far as I can tell. It needs a good...

I'll probably be posting the updates in my main thread here (also in my signature)...feel free to come follow along! Good to know, thanks! I'll grab one of those sprayers. Fingers crossed the machine cleans up ok.

We got the mill home! It was quite the process...took most of a day, but we did it. The solution we ended up going with was using the forklift at the auction site to load the mill onto a pallet jack in a drop deck trailer. It worked out quite well. We were late picking up the mill, because I...

There are a couple places within a couple blocks of me that might have forklifts. I'll go ask around when I get back. That would definitely make life a lot easier. Sounds like they have a forklift on site, so that should make loading it relatively easy. Fingers crossed that this goes smoothly :)

Yeah, I'm wondering if I can just get some local person with a forklift to come lift it off the trailer and bring it into the shop. I have about 10' of clearance, which may not be enough for a raised forklift...probably won't know till I get home and can do some measuring. I'm mostly concerned...

Ok, well, I won the auction! $600 hammer price, $690 after buyer's premium...not too bad, I think. I'm in Europe at the moment, and almost lost the auction because of not having good enough service, but it seems my bid went through at the last second. Now comes the fun part: moving it. @RoninB4...

When you say a cherry picker, I think of the bucket trucks they use for working on power lines. Are you talking about something else? Edit: whoops, missed a couple of the later replies. I looked it up and see what it is...I'll see if any companies near me rent them. Wow, that's a crazy deal on...

Yeah, definitely don't expect it to go for $100, but I have seen a TON of machine tools go for crazy cheap at auction. I think my upper limit is around $750, given that I know very little about the condition it's actually in, and I'm in no real rush to buy a mill (although it would definitely be...

Ah, didn't realize you can't see the price without signing up. No one has bid yet, so it's $100, but the auction doesn't close till August 24th. I would be surprised if it sold for more than a grand, based on what I've seen in these auctions in the past. Thanks for all the tips on transport. I...

Whoa, thanks for all the info everyone! I'm primarily interested in making parts for motorcycles and cars, but I've just been broadly fascinated by metalworking for a long time, and have hardly done any of it. This seems like a reasonably priced way to start, and I'm guessing I'll find more and...

All the advice is much appreciated! I'm gonna go for it (if the bidding doesn't get up too high). I don't have 3-phase, so I'll be buying a VFD. All the tooling in the pictures is included, so yeah, the DRO, vise, collets, and chuck. I'm hoping to buy some more tooling at auction to keep the...

I've been wanting to learn to use a mill for ages, and while cruising industrial auctions, this one came up. Based on the machine number it looks to be a 1959, with a J-head and a 1HP motor. I don't know much at all about using real machine tools, but given the price, the fact that I have plenty...

Hahahah, the royal wave is the most important part...or maybe the brakes, I'm not sure which. Once it's registered I'll start tooling around the city in it and see what happens. I was kind of amused by how easy the clutch is...I expected it to be terrible, but it's way easier than my 4Runner...

Quick update: the Mercedes runs!!! I put everything back together yesterday, hooked it up to my 4Runner (the battery was VERY dead), and after about 60-90s of cranking in total, it started up! I kinda can't believe it. It's idling really high, but it holds an idle and revs just fine. I was even...

Thank you! I appreciate the kind words. I agree about the investment, and that's how I've tried to look at this all along. There have been a couple months where it's paid for itself through events, but mostly this has been a massive money sink – but I've met tons of cool people, gotten to host...