Back from the auction and it was really interesting.
The auction started at 10AM and the preview started at 8AM.
Considering that I was planing to drop upwards of a couple thousand on a large piece of machinery, boy howdy was I there at 8.00AM My registration number for the auction was 1101 -- first person there to register. I asked if it was alright to turn the machines on (and turn on the air compressor -- needed) and was told to go ahead.
These sales are as-is/where-is so the more educated the buyer is, the happier the experience is for everyone. Around 8:30, a couple other people came in -- there were about five of us that were interested in the three CNC mills up for auction. We started talking and we agreed that one person was interested in the small Haas mill (they had a few of them in their shop already); two people were interested in the large Fadal and myself and another person were interested in the small Fadal.
Until I started running it through it's paces. Fire up the spindle. Fine. 7,500 RPM max, perfect for ferrous metals but not for aluminum. The bigger Fadal had a 10K spindle so the other person interested in my machine drifted over to the larger 10K Fadal.
I started to jog the various axes. Z-Axis -- fine. Smooth as a baby's bottom. Up and down she goes... Y-Axis -- fine. Smooth as a baby's bottom. Front and back she goes... X-Axis -- Seriously WTF. It sounds like someone dumped a box of pea gravel into the bearings.
The X-Axis will require a ball-screw rebuild and we are looking at about $3K for that. Machines like this, from a reputable dealer, completely rebuilt with a warranty cost about $15K. An as-is/where-is machine generally goes for about $3K to $6K. Considering that I knew that I was looking at a couple $K rebuild, I pulled out of the bidding at $1.5K. The reason for the: Caveat Emptor Dooooods!!! title is that the auction started at 10:00AM so, for noise reasons, the air compressor and the machines were shut off.
Just before 10:00AM, a couple of dudes walked in, looked around (it took about 45 minutes to get to the mills as they were lot #50 and up) and proceeded to bid up to a final price of $4.7K for my mill (the bastards!). It will be bitter knowledge for them to realize that there was a profound and specific reason that most of the bidders were dropping out at the $1K - $2K level (a few more people came in after 8:30) Oh well, other auctions, other mills... Here are a few photos:
A good omen???
The machines in question
MINE!!!
