The auction was a bust - too many people had zero idea of what they were bidding on and the prices were way higher than they should have been. I stayed through the whole thing as the items I wanted were at the end of the lot numbers.
Some poor fool bid $400 on one of these:
This photo is of a new one from Harbor Freight which retails for $550 - it has an electronic variable speed drive and a number of safety features and guards all of which were missing from the unit being auctioned off today. No tooling, horrible backlash on all axes and copious amounts of surface rust throughout.
To get a sense of scale, the longest piece you can work with is only 10" - this is for use on a tabletop and when you are done, you pick it up and shake it over a wastebasket to clean off the chips and shavings.
I went looking for a belt grinder - new ones sell for around $3K on up - the one I wanted was beat-to-shit and sold for $1,800. I stopped bidding at $800. Like I said earlier, this stuff is being sold as-is where-is and if it needs new bearings or an expensive repair to be functional, this is no bargain.
All in all, a good breakfast and a nice drive. Nothing more.
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