Where to Find Big Iron ??

[Ben Roman]

Hello All,

Where do you find big iron or machines that you want to try and restore ? Is there websites to check ? Any help in this area would be appreciated. I would like to get a Delta Rockwell Bandsaw to try and restore.

Ben

[Jamie Buxton]

Check www.craigslist.org for your area. For instance, on the Austin one, there is a 36" bandsaw for $800 in Decker Lake. (Look out for the 3-phase issue, though.) Same guy offers a 16" 5 hp jointer. Big iron.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Hello All,

Where do you find big iron or machines that you want to try and restore ? Is there websites to check ? Any help in this area would be appreciated. I would like to get a Delta Rockwell Bandsaw to try and restore.

Ben

Do you want a tanniwitz or a snowflake?

[Dev Emch]

Oh Boy! First you need to go to the self study department and earn a degree in big iron! Joking aside, you really need to become a wise consumer. Lou has posted a lot of suggestions that can help.

Secondly I try to avoid dealers these days. They are wolves in sheeps clothing and can really eat you up if your not careful. There are a handful of guys out there can help and I would suggest Bill Kerfoot at CS Machinery in PA. He is popular with SMC folks.

Then you might try Odie White Machinery in Texas. I see your in Texas so you can actually go there and visit to see if this is your cup of tea.

Lastly you can scan ebay. Ebay is the wild west of our times so be careful. Also I set up ebay to email me when something of interest is listed. No point in my scanning hundreds of used women's underwear postings searching for heavy iron wood shapers!

Then there is the old saying. YOU DONT FIND OLD IRON>>>>>> IT FINDS YOU! So put your name out there in old iron land that your looking for something and see what happens. Post online want adds. Like you did here, etc. Also check the postings on www.woodweb.com daily to see what pops up. And remember that old iron is like a city bus..... wait five minutes and the next one will be along. So go shopping in the postings on the OWWM mother ship to see what these machines are and what some of the restorations actually look like. Down load the PDF manuals if available and peruse them. DO YOUR HOMEWORK. There were over 300 companies in north america that made woodworking machines. Most of these are junk. But a handful are total cream! Way superior to new stuff today. And these relics can run circles around new machines with two arms and a leg tied behind their backs! To find new machines of comparable function, you need to sell one or both of your cars to pay for one of these!

Also check out the auctions in your area. There are always auctions selling off pattern shops or woodworking shops going out of business. So it pays to know who the woodworking machinery auctioneers in your local area are. Then you have the government auction sites and you have sites like IRS who clears out entire furniture factories.

And remember that condition is everything. You try to avoid machines that are completely whooped but any machine can be rebuilt and restored. The degree of whooping is proportional to your technical skill or knowlege of Un-Whoop-Olgy. The worst thing you can run into is cracked castings. These can be repaired however you really need to have someone with machine building and machinst skills to do this. And farming this out to a shop can cost so much as to make the project unapproachable.

Hope this helps..