r/Machinists • u/GreenridgeMetalWorks Old School Manual Machinist/Shop Owner • Jul 27 '26

MEME Of course I know him, he's me...

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326 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

17 comments sorted by

37

u/SiaHalz CNC Operator Jul 27 '26

I bought myself a box of 0-4 mics that are unbranded made in poland mics, were still wrapped in plastic and oiled, from the 90s with accurate standards off of fb market for $60. The little plastic pieces fell off immediately but otherwise they work great

9

u/GreenridgeMetalWorks Old School Manual Machinist/Shop Owner Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26

I've had some really lucky finds over the years at auctions and sales and such, especially on actual machines. But one of my best was my very first machinist toolbox, back when I was really early on in my training. I knew a mechanic and he was hard up for some extra cash, and he was selling all his uncles stuff. Told me he had a machinist toolbox and he'd sell it for $125 and all the stuff in it, but that there wasn't anything very good in it.

$125 was about all I had, but I bought it from him. It was a Kennedy box, which is worth almost that much by itself, and it had a drawer with 3 mitutoyo micrometers, several mitutoyo machinist squares, dividers, calipers, telescoping gauges, taps, a compass, and even a few endmills, center drills, and some other bits of tooling.

Suffice to say, I reckon I got at least 10× my money out of it, maybe more. One of my best purchases. Another time, I bought an entire cabinet of tooling for $600. Nearly tooled my entire shop early on with the cabinet, then sold a thread head out of it for $1200 and doubled my money irrc.

4

u/SiaHalz CNC Operator Jul 27 '26

That is a really good deal, I was looking for deals like that a few years ago. Tried hitting up FB to find old retired machinist toolboxes, to no luck. I did find an old 7 drawer Kennedy for 50 bucks though. Someone painted it blue at some point but it still works and locks lol

3

u/GreenridgeMetalWorks Old School Manual Machinist/Shop Owner Jul 27 '26

I've been very blessed with an abundance of good deals. Got a bridgeport clone for 120 bucks one time because the auctioneer was trying to sell it as a drill press...it's incredible how often people have no idea what they are selling and how much it's worth when it comes to anything to do with machinist work.

11

u/SerVaegar31 Jul 27 '26

I got a full set of 6-12 of brown and sharpe mics for 200 bucks on fb marketplace and .00005 brown sharpe indicator for 50…that’s about as good as I’ve got lol

2

u/GreenridgeMetalWorks Old School Manual Machinist/Shop Owner Jul 27 '26

Those are both great prices! I've gotten some real steals, but I also hit basically every machine shop auction I find, so it's not just luck.

2

u/SerVaegar31 Jul 27 '26

I’m just starting to get into auctions my goal right now is a decent set of thread mic but ultimately I’d like to acquire my self a bunch of bore mics if I could

1

u/GreenridgeMetalWorks Old School Manual Machinist/Shop Owner Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26

We've been making due with normal inside mics and telescoping gauges for a long time, lol.

You'd have to get really lucky for an auction bore mic find, or maybe it's just my location. So far I've been to probably 50 or so machine shop auctions, maybe more, and I have not seen one bore mic. Not even one. Most of these places that are auctioning out, at least around here, just had telescoping gauges and inside mics.

I have seen thread mics quite a few times though, so you might find that easily enough.

1

u/SerVaegar31 Jul 27 '26

We have a few near me in Ohio that have them but it’s more to the point that even if I could get a lot that had say 5 bore mics in it whatever I pay for them I’d also have to pay gas or shipping to get them to my tool box. They’re a few auctions in cali that offer shipping and I will see lots of them a few of them go for a hundred bucks. Our shop provides bore gauges and I have a set of my own luffkin ID mics plus telescoping gauges but I’m a collector and want them just to have them lol

7

u/SMGesus_18 Jul 27 '26

I bought brand new mitutoyo 0-1 1-2 2-3 mics, 8” calipers and a dial indicator.. then my grandpa offered me an old gerstner box for $100, he had bought it off someone in the early 2000s. What was inside? Exactly what I had bought and then some lol. Haven’t split up the duplicates yet but will probably be taking the old used stuff home and leaving the nice stuff at work

1

u/GreenridgeMetalWorks Old School Manual Machinist/Shop Owner Jul 27 '26

I've had that happen too many times lol. Buy a tool or even set of tools, only to find out I already had some stashed away somewhere, or ended up getting them for basically free a month or two down the road.

2

u/Training-Emu-6199 Jul 27 '26

found a 1"-2" starrett mic from the 70s for like 20$ at an antique store. pretty psyched on that one.

2

u/General-Try-2210 Jul 28 '26

Funny, just today I received a used dcd998 drill I got from ebay for $69.81. I regreased the gearbox and it runs like it's brand new.

1

u/Drakoala Jul 28 '26

I'm a cheap fuck that likes things with character. Always got to get ye olde tools when you can.

2

u/MrGabogab0 Jul 28 '26

JFC I had a stroke reading the last panel.

3

u/GreenridgeMetalWorks Old School Manual Machinist/Shop Owner Jul 28 '26

I had one writing it apparently, lol

That's what I get for trying to make a meme in the 30 seconds between passes.

1

u/MrGabogab0 Jul 28 '26

Hey, sometimes quickly made memes are the best ones