Tools/machines that have become obsolete?

[MushCreek]

There's an ad running on FB right now for a Moore jig borer, for $1000! If you've ever run one of these machines, they are amazingly accurate. They once sold for well over $100K. Kind of a super-accurate milling machine, they are not as versatile as a Bridgeport-type machine, and sell at scrap prices these days. I'd buy it if I had the floor space. What other machines or tools can you think of that have become obsolete?

 

[Debcrow]

saw sets.......

 

[rmack898]

Shapers, planers, die filers.

 

[unslow1]

I've known people giving away distributor testers, Sun machines and brakes lathes over the last few years. Often having difficulty getting rid of them for free. The same with Lincoln tombstone welders.

 

[Jack_K]

I've known people giving away distributor testers, Sun machines and brakes lathes over the last few years. Often having difficulty getting rid of them for free. The same with Lincoln tombstone welders.

I wish I could get a distributor tester for free. I haven't seen one under $1000 AUD

Engine analysers are more common but still aren't free, cheap enough though that I have four Allen ones.

 

[Jack_K]

Spark plug cleaners I would say are definitely obsolete.

 

[dutchgray]

Liquid fuel blow lamps, solid copper soldering irons.

 

[Whitworth]

Any mill accessories like rotary table, indexer, gear hobber, all can be done better and faster with CNC.

 

[MushCreek]

With the rise of CNC, I'm surprised that manual mills and lathes still command good money. I have a manual surface grinder that I can't give away. I still have all of my precision tools from when I was building plastic injection molds. Once worth 10's of thousands of dollars, I shudder to think of what they would sell for today. I'd rather watch 'em rust away than sell them for 10 cents (or less) on the dollar.

 

[loganb]

There's an ad running on FB right now for a Moore jig borer, for $1000! If you've ever run one of these machines, they are amazingly accurate. They once sold for well over $100K. Kind of a super-accurate milling machine, they are not as versatile as a Bridgeport-type machine, and sell at scrap prices these days. I'd buy it if I had the floor space. What other machines or tools can you think of that have become obsolete?

Does it have the wood jig cabinet that came with it? Lol....I'd buy it for that alone

 

[MushCreek]

I don't think so, but I HAVE one of those cabinets! An old former employer sold a bunch of stuff at auction, and I got the cabinet for $35. It had some tooling, too, but nobody could find the key. Some time later, one of the guys found the key and sent it to me. I refinished the beautiful mahogany, and now my wife grabbed it for a china cupboard.

 

[honcho]

With the rise of CNC, I'm surprised that manual mills and lathes still command good money. I have a manual surface grinder that I can't give away. I still have all of my precision tools from when I was building plastic injection molds. Once worth 10's of thousands of dollars, I shudder to think of what they would sell for today. I'd rather watch 'em rust away than sell them for 10 cents (or less) on the dollar.

I agree that CNC is great for so many things, but for one-off production and repairs, lots of utility left in manual tools.

 

[tool_scrounge]

Power hacksaws
- bandsaws are faster, but power backsaws can have a much smaller footprint for the capacity so they are good for small shop use.

dental lathes
- aka polishing and grinding lathe for smaller stuff

Horizontal mills
- can cut a crazy amount of material, but not as flexible as a vertical mill. But a Nichols tool room model is a joy to use.

Burgmaster turret drill
6 spindles and auto indexing. Really cool mechanics, replaced by CNC.

Die filers (as previously noted)
- really nice for square internal corners and other odd stuff. Replace for mold work by wire EDM

Dedicated motorized tapping machines
- replaced by CNC. But small ones with compact footprints like the Hamilton are nice to to have around for repetitive stuff.

 

[Samuel D]

Breaker bars.

(Not strictly true, but close enough for many people. Facom sells a lot of socket sets without a breaker bar these days.)

 

[Firebrick43]

valve seat grinders.

Neway type seat cutters and their significant advantages have displaced the seat grinders in most shops.

 

[neophyte]

Shapers, planers, die filers.

Non of these are obsolete.

 

[blue-5]

Most corded tools?

 

[Radio Flyer]

I've known people giving away distributor testers, Sun machines and brakes lathes over the last few years. Often having difficulty getting rid of them for free. The same with Lincoln tombstone welders.

Funny, saw this yesterday!

 

[WWheeler]

Timing light

 

[Sumboodie]

Spark plug cleaners I would say are definitely obsolete.

I remember going over to the shop with handfuls of plugs from our 74 Ski-Doo Olympic.
Probably had 25 plugs for it!
My brother still has it. Bought new in 74 by my grandfather, back when snowmobiles didn't cost 2 kidneys and a first born.

 

[Sumboodie]

Funny, saw this yesterday!

What's wrong with those welders? My Dad bought on in the early 90s and still uses it.

 

[seber]

blow torch. I used one when I was in grade school. By the time I hit high school it was all propane.

 

[dchawk81]

Milwaukee 2767.

 

[loganb]

Non of these are obsolete.

In 99% of today's production shops where profitability is important....yeah they are.

The old saying about metal shapers being "able to make anything but a profit" is applicable here. For the hobbyists with space, they can be a great machine as they're cheap and capable, but take up significant floorspace for anything of size and are deceptively heavy making moving a challenge. The vast majority of home shop users will be better served with a knee mill over a shaper, and in production shops where floorspace matters, more versatile cnc mills have taken their spot for most things

 

[Fatboyslim95]

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I think adjustable wrenches are becoming obsolete. I have a lot of very nice Bahco adjustable wrenches that I never use anymore after purchasing a couple Knipex Pliers Wrenches.

I find being able to apply pressure while turning is a huge pro.

 

[Packard V8]

Obsolete for production use is one thing.

Still very desirable for home shop/hobby/custom is a very different thing. In my world, smaller shapers, horizontal mills, jig borers, stick welders, Sun distributor machines, et al, still sell quickly.

OTOH, I just saw a mechanically mint Haas CNC turret mill sell for scrap price because the software and circuit boards were no longer being supported. The electronics would no longer send commands and there is no way to operate it manually. Result is a 75-year-old Bridgeport mill is worth more than a 25-year-old CNC machine.

jack vines

 

[Firebrick43]

Obsolete for production use is one thing.

Still very desirable for home shop/hobby/custom is a very different thing. In my world, smaller shapers, horizontal mills, jig borers, stick welders, Sun distributor machines, et al, still sell quickly.

OTOH, I just saw a mechanically mint Haas CNC turret mill sell for scrap price because the software and circuit boards were no longer being supported. The electronics would no longer send commands and there is no way to operate it manually. Result is a 75-year-old Bridgeport mill is worth more than a 25-year-old CNC machine.

jack vines

That’s haas’s planned obsolescence which is why I tell people that they are not as good of deal as they appear. You can put another control/drivers on them like a centroid Oak but even then good luck getting hard parts if you needs them and haas has ran out.

That and their absolutely deceptive sales and rating specs.

They have HP ratings like shop vacs

 

[cvairwerks]

Spark plug cleaners I would say are definitely obsolete.

Not even hardly in the aircraft world. At 50-160$ each for plugs, you don't just toss them. They get cleaned and tested. Even more so when dealing with radials. Anywhere from 14 to 56 plugs per engine.

 

[dutchgray]

With the rise of CNC, I'm surprised that manual mills and lathes still command good money. I have a manual surface grinder that I can't give away. I still have all of my precision tools from when I was building plastic injection molds. Once worth 10's of thousands of dollars, I shudder to think of what they would sell for today. I'd rather watch 'em rust away than sell them for 10 cents (or less) on the dollar.

Most manual Mills and lathes don't command much money at all, if its home shop sized, a particularly good piece of machinery of high quality or specification (such as oil country lathes) then they can still be worth good money.

I just bought my second Dean Smith and Grace lathe, one of the best makers the UK ever had, a 1972 13"x40" machine in excellent condition with very little wear, with an almost brand new Pratt Burnerd 10" 3 jaw chuck, 4 jaw chuck, fixed steady, hydraulic copier, 18 spindle speeds, 29 to 2240rpm clutch driven forward or reverse by a 10hp 3 phase motor, threading gear box does 45 inch and 26 metric pitches plus loads more if you want to change the change gears out (right up to 2" or 52mm pitch).

For £3,000
It cost as much as a decent house did in many areas of the country when it was new.

 

[MushCreek]

What surprises me is that cam operated lathes, such as Brown & Sharpe screw machines seem to have largely disappeared. These machines can make complex turned parts in seconds, much faster than CNC lathes. I assume all of the high volume stuff is made overseas now? I used to run an eight spindle machine that made brass parts that were turned, knurled, drilled, then picked up and machined on the back side, including tapping. Cycle time was 1-1/4 seconds for a finished part.

 

[dutchgray]

What surprises me is that cam operated lathes, such as Brown & Sharpe screw machines seem to have largely disappeared. These machines can make complex turned parts in seconds, much faster than CNC lathes. I assume all of the high volume stuff is made overseas now? I used to run an eight spindle machine that made brass parts that were turned, knurled, drilled, then picked up and machined on the back side, including tapping. Cycle time was 1-1/4 seconds for a finished part.

You'll find those were either scrapped, or exported overseas and are still in use somewhere churning out parts.

Even small manual engine lathes get exported overseas from the UK, there are dealers who go round and buy all the common makes if the price is low enough and fill shipping containers.

I sold a nice no6 fly press to a guy who buys those and anvils and ships them to the USA, where it seems they are worth about 3 times as much as here

 

[2ndGearRubber]

I wish I could get a distributor tester for free. I haven't seen one under $1000 AUD

Engine analysers are more common but still aren't free, cheap enough though that I have four Allen ones.

In shop use, all of the features aside from a gas-analyzer have been replaced by digital storage oscilloscopes. Cheaper, smaller, more powerful.

 

[Old Man Roger]

So you guys are saying my 1890’s engine lathe might be a little outdated? It has a home made milling attachment, that’s gotta be worth something..lol

 

[cvairwerks]

Mush: screw machines for the most part are being replaced by Swiss lathes. Where a screw machine still shines is parts production when the count crosses somewhere above a couple thousand parts. Add a barstock feed system to a Swiss lathe and a shop can run it lights out til it's out of material. A Swiss will run things that a screw lathe would never be able to do.

 

[MushCreek]

Yes, I used to have a cam operated Swiss lathe in my shop. It made two complete parts in the amount of time it took my CNC lathe to feed out stock. Swiss have all gone CNC now, too. When I ran screw machines, we had work orders for 1 million parts at a time. In those volumes, even fractions of a second count.

 

[bpwoodworking]

I think a planer still has plenty of relevance. There are German made woodworking machines with planed tops in current production. I’m sure the planers that cut them are ancient but certainly still useful.

 

[seber]

I sold a nice no6 fly press to a guy who buys those and anvils and ships them to the USA, where it seems they are worth about 3 times as much as

Blacksmithing has become a popular hobby here along with knife making. The two are often combined.

 

[cvairwerks]

Yes, I used to have a cam operated Swiss lathe in my shop. It made two complete parts in the amount of time it took my CNC lathe to feed out stock. Swiss have all gone CNC now, too. When I ran screw machines, we had work orders for 1 million parts at a time. In those volumes, even fractions of a second count.

I've never seen a cam controlled Swiss before. All the ones I've seen were 6+ axis and computer controlled. Most ran 20+ operations on a part, including drill, ream, c'sink, thread and profile milling.

 

[chris142]

I've known people giving away distributor testers, Sun machines and brakes lathes over the last few years. Often having difficulty getting rid of them for free. The same with Lincoln tombstone welders.

What! No free brake lathes here. I really need one. Napa takes 2 days to turn a drum or rotor. I don't have that kind of time to wait. A worn out brake lathe Is $3500+ here.

 

[Packard V8]

What! No free brake lathes here. I really need one. Napa takes 2 days to turn a drum or rotor. I don't have that kind of time to wait. A worn out brake lathe Is $3500+ here.

PM me. We've got a mint AAMCO in the attic.

jack vines