Hm... that's an interesting deal. And in this case, "interesting" is used like the supposed old Chinese curse, "may you live in interesting times".
$200 is a good price, just in general. Won't break the bank too hard, and chances are you can get your money back later if you decide to resell.
However, the mill isn't exactly a steal. It's decent, and I'd rather have it than a micro-mill like a Taig or Unimat, but it's still a tiny, low-powered, bare-bones unit with more than a few shortcomings.
Assuming the spindle bearings aren't trashed, and the table ways are reasonably tight, you can do some useful work with it. But without a quill, drilling is a pain in the adz- and really, depending on what you're doing, drilling can be 1/3rd to a full half of the machining you need to do.
It's not a bad deal overall, but keep in mind it's
very limited in what it can do.
It's also worht noting that that particular sale is boosted somewhat by the extras- there's three boxes of tooling, including tool holders, Morse-taper drills, what look like they might be Morse-taper reamers or cutters, a couple of fly cutters, and other goodies.
One box, though, appears to be nothing but square lathe tooling- useful if you have a lathe, of course, but apart from a few bits you might use in one of the fly cutters, won't do the mill any good.
That little motor in a box is, however,
very curious. That's a tool-post grinder, with what appears to be both an OD and an extended ID spindle. It doesn't look like a Dumore, but it's got a nice fitted case, several shanks and accessories, and possibly some extra wheels. If you don't need it (I've been a machinist for 15 years and I've used one maybe four times) you can probably turn that on eBay and make the price of the mill back. (If you buy the mill, I might even be interested in the grinder.)
Last, that block next to the mill base might very well be a cast-iron surface plate. Very handy for setting up and layouts, assuming it hasn't gotten rusty and/or somebody hasn't cleaned it off with a wire wheel.
The little plate, too, could fetch a few bucks on the 'Bay- depending on condition, of course. Even rusty, though, somebody'd give you $40-$50 for it, just so they could practice scraping.
He's got a "project" South Bend lathe up for sale, too. Looks like a nice project, and would be much more useful if/when fixed up.
Doc.
