Shop Class Surplus

[fmeisenheimer]

Local school is releasing these as surplus. Have an opportunity to pick up for pennies on the dollar. Havent looked at them yet, but plan to stop by soon. Are they worth the time?

 

[bczygan]

Great opportunity, and I would love to find things like that shear.

But I feel like a vampire, sucking the blood from schools where kids will never get the chance to use those tools.

Instead, they will learn to tap on a keyboard.

 

[DonPowers]

YES!!!!!!

Lots of good stuff there

 

[Ridwaan Gallow]

The education that schools are giving now is just sad.. kids are only taught to use their hands when sent to a Technical School.. i fear that my kids will never know what it is to be in a ''shop class'' or ''handwork'' as it is known in RSA..

 

[thewatusi]

I'd be all over that unisaw like a fat kid on cake.

 

[Zrexxer]

I'd love to have that box-and-pan brake and the Beverly shear.

 

[G_P]

Definitely some good stuff to be had there!

 

[A_Pmech]

Dialarcs are good machines.

 

[zkling]

Depends on condition. I've seen some school shop equipment that lead a very hard life as the students typically don't care.

 

[bonneyman]

I, too, would grab that box and pan brake.

Would love to have a 2 foot brake handy for small projects. I'd have you buy it for me, but the shipping would probably kill me!

 

[LordPsychon]

I'd have no objection to picking any of these up but I am given pause to wonder: are they being sold to replace/update or sold to clear space? The latter choice makes me somewhat sad - I never had shop class at my high school so I had my dad teach me some woodworking/DIY stuff but not every kid nowadays is going to get that chance.

 

[crerus75]

Probably to clear space. In many places, vo-tech/technical programs are being phased out. In others, these programs become the type of place where you send kids that aren't old enough to send to jail. Unfortunately, nowadays if you want to go into the skilled trades (and you manage to not let your guidance counselors talk you out of it), you either go to a technical college or you learn by playing around with stuff on your own time. This is unfortunate, because college certainly isn't a silver bullet for everyone. There are lots of smart, skilled tradespeople that can't write a research paper or do calculus but can build a house, rebuild an automatic transmission, etc.

 

[3 Gun Shooter]

I took machine shop auto and welding in high school most of the equipment in the machine shop and half the welding shop was from WWII. in the 90's they closed all the shop classes and sold the equipment at auction. The excuse is they couldn't find teachers to teach it.

A bunch of us that graduated in the early 70's protested at the school board and outside the auction.

I won a blue ribbon in my senior year at the California State Fair in metal working, for designing, drawing and building a power hack saw, including cutting my own gears.

 

[rancherbill]

There is lots of good stuff there.

For profit, the first our items (metal bending) will either go low or high depending on the crowd. If you get them low you can flip for profit.

There may be widespread interst in the woodworking so prices might get high.

The Dialarcs are worth scrap.

 

[ZRX61]

They don't always sell everything off after they end the classes. The autoshop teacher at my kids HS told me that when they stopped the other vocational classes (wood butchery, metalwork/welding) that the just shuttered the workshops. Everything is still in there ready to go should they ever pull their head out of their asses & decided to offer the classes again.

 

[cgv69]

I have a Delta 8" jointer I got from one of those school auctions. Its a great machine but it was in pretty rough shape when I got it so I pulled it apart, stripped it and rebuilt and painted it. I also replaced the motor (see below) and the belt and blades.

One thing to keep in mind, many of these school shops were wired with 3-phase power and their equipment will have motors to match. You may have to replace the motors in these machines (or get setup with a 3-phase power source)? I opted for a new motor.

 

[iajonesy]

I know that when our high school stopped shop classes,the tools and machines sat for several years. The school had not finished depreciating them out. After that was done they sold everything at auction. Ironiclly,the company I worked for bought it all and used it in the new training format they went to.
As far as condition goes, those tools and machines were in very nice shape even though some were quite old.
I'd jump on the stuff the OP asked about.

Mike

 

[rsanter]

Box and pan brake
Shear
Belt disc sander
Bandsaw
Unisaw

Go get them

Bob

 

[rick carpenter]

Our high school has Ag Mechanics, Welding, Auto Tech, and Construction Trades.

 

[BikerDad]

I'd have no objection to picking any of these up but I am given pause to wonder: are they being sold to replace/update or sold to clear space? The latter choice makes me somewhat sad - I never had shop class at my high school so I had my dad teach me some woodworking/DIY stuff but not every kid nowadays is going to get that chance.

An interesting question. I can see the table saws being sold in order to update them to SawStop, but not sure about the rest of the machines.

 

[fmeisenheimer]

Thank you all for your comments. It will be a few weeks before they are released, but I should have an opportunity to inspect them. I'll let you know how it ends up.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[PugetDude]

I'd be sweating like a priest at a Cub Scout meeting at that auction.

 

[ehaines]

Can you help us with which school this is? I am in the North Texas area as well and would like to keep an eye on this equipment because there are a couple really nice pieces in there.

 

[ozyborn]

Get it all.