14ft long when lined up!!! Only $650 for $3000 worth of clearance toolboxes. Huge casters for the bottom boxes, I set them on the floor and used the wheels elsewhere (Nichols mill) I coated them inside and out with a "Fluid Film" sort of corrosion inhibitor.
David these were purchased at Walmart of all places.
There is a webstite called "Brickseek" which monitors inventory at stores, specifically recently CLEARANCE'd items.
These boxes had been stored on the top racks and left to sit, mostly (guessing) because they cover too much shelf space.
They were dispersed between 4 stores, and I had to badger employees to find them in 3 stores, then bought them all and made the appropriate number of trips. The bottom box BARELY fits into a CRV! (packing blankets)
The top boxes originally cost aprox $174 ea, and the bottoms aprox $378 ea.
Marked down, the tops were $45 (got 8) and bottoms $69 (got 3)
A pair stands 61" , but I'm mostly stacking them on wheeled keyhole shelving, to be dedicated storage for machine tools.
2 bottoms went under the welding table. (28" x 96" hot roll 1/4" with angle underneath, six 2x4 legs and adjustable feet)
Don't mind the CLUSTER, I'd just placed the boxes, was reorganizing from the cabinets I burned)
20" TSUMURA on that Stihl!
AND the most important tool in the shop is next to the vise LOL
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I've always had shit boxes, loose, rusty, no paint, free!
Now there are enough for a whole matching shop! Oh my OCD rejoices!!!!!! (but I need a labelmaker)
Some of those box wheels went on this piglet, aka Nichols Horizontal Miller, production model.
It cost me $750 w/ 5" British made cam vise, bought in Miami lat year.
1300Lbs+ on the hoof (dolly and vise) it was literally all I could do to slide it across concrete, damn the paint, and with a Jbar and extra man it was still stubborn.
Produced aprox '49-'57, it retains faint flaking.
It features brick sheethouse construction, a 120+Lbs gear reduced 1hp, lever AND screw feed on the X, and the head moxes up and down 4" on it's own ways to provide some approximation of quill travel.
That means vertical tool travel without moving the knee as normal horizontals must do.
Pardon the finish, I'd stripped and converted it, nee pressure washed and aircraft stripper!
It's since been primed with afore pictured epoxy primer.
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Here is the dolly being pressed under my vertical's knee LOL
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Had the Nichols 17" in the air on HF shop crane to set on doly.
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That was super freaky!!!!!!!!!!!
If this thing goes down, do I get crushed between the mil and mill? Or mill and lathe?
NOTICE THE CRANE COUNTERWEIGHTS>? LOL!
How you been Mike?
Maybe the next guy will set it back on the floor, but right now a strong toddler could wrastle it round. Leveling with blocks and wedges under the dolly is easy and fast.
This is all being done on a budget, and I'm salvaging wire, breaker boxes, fuse boxes, and generally using overbuilt components if I can. A lot of it came from the house remodel, or off these machines. (no 3ph in my house lol)
The terminal rings are ALL soldered (I'm afraid of them POKE!) and shrink wrap is cheap.
I had a big mill coming from up North, and needed a solution to power it.
I bought one of these on local CL for $200. This is, IMNSHO, the biggest benefit of living in the city. LOTS OF STUFF in circulation.
$200!
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All the caps on one leg, supposedly Baldor winds this differently to become a generator as opposed to regular motor. Something about flux slip, wish I'd really nailed that part down before moving on.
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Switched fusebox recycled off lathe, why not do 2 machines? This panel will supply a lathe and the Nichols, both are 1hp-ish.
For plugs and receptacles I used the common (dryer) 3 conductor w/ground rated at 30A 240v and there isn't REALLY and easy way to make a RPC meet code in your garage....
I can also remove the "Wild" leg (taped in blue) and run regular split phase 240 for use with VFDs.
These are Fusetron FRN-R delay fuses, they allow 5X current for 8 seconds, cost around $0.75/ea used. Well worth looking for.
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50A welder plug while I'm at it.
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Green box starts and fuses the RPC, just a simple 3 pole blade switch w/fuses, plug bottom right goes to vertical mill. RPC starts with AUTHORITY, no gimmicks.
Bottom left, dryer cord 30A 15ft 4 wire w/plug was $12 on Ebay.
GOOD LUCK getting most industrially appropriate plugs for that money, let alone a cord!
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Don't mind the wires run slightly ugly, I'd never wired anything like this and had it propped up for testing. First time! Woot!
That SPST light switch is for switching caps in and out while balancing.
POW! POW! POW! don't open or close it under load LOL good for about 50 cycles LOL.
I'd also like to apologize for the color in that last pic, nothing is actually that dirty LOL, that spot has lots of shadows and the flash wasn't working, lots of artifacts after enhancement.
There is a pic of RPC caps which accurately represents RPC paint color.
The advice is "Buy the biggest mill you can afford and house" and here is the biggest piece of junk I bought to date.
Built in Spain during the late 70s, 3hp varispeed, 3200Lbs on the hoof.
$1850 through PP, unseen, and the seller delivered it 200 miles North to my father's house.
We then trailered it to NC, where I rented a Uhaul and came back to FL.
Total cost around $2600, as you can see the machine is basically new old stock.
on the left, covered in coolant
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There is no chronicle of this mill's journey from Michigan to FL, the next pictures are at my house in FL and cleaned up.
Ceiling is 8ft, the machine is on a pallet and 1 1/4" pipes.
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WOW!, What a deal on the tool boxes, and really nice set up. Hey, last week at local huge flea market there's always 4-6 guys selling tons of estate tools. One fellow had Taps. I mean big taps like 3/4 - 2 1/2" taps hard tool steel. Bright, shiny, never used by the looks. Being so big I'd say they were Universal to coarse thread. Anyway, wanted $3.00 EACH!!! I was going nuts, like, can my FFL buddy use these in his machine shop for anything or if he decides to build a tank? I'm about to post on flea market here and go this weekend. Jimmy D. "Targets"
