Around here (midwest) the scrap price is $200 a ton with deducts for
removing the electronics. Not sure on that one so maybe 2500 pounds??? A
few hundred bucks would be tops.

I have a similar size Acupath (Taiwanese import) from the 80's with a
trashed out X axis ball screw that I have been shopping around. Current
number is $400 without rigging costs.

Prometheus wrote:
Hello all,

I'm thinking about making an offer on an old knee mill at work. I've
been wanting one for at home for a while, and this one is broken and
getting in my way all the time.

What it is is an old Matsuura manual knee mill with a 3 axis digital
readout and no flood coolant. Somebody did something incredibly nasty
to the knee before I started there, and the area that the screw jack
bears on broke away inside, and also snapped the shaft that goes from
the handle to the jack.

They've written the thing off as junk, and I think the plan was to
sell it on ebay, but I've looked at the damage and know I can fix it
more or less as good as new. It's been pretty well used, like every
manual I've seen, the guys in the shop beat it mercilessly because it
isn't a CNC, but aside from the busted knee, it's serviceable. And,
buying it would get the damn thing out of my way at work, and put it
back into service.

There's a good chance the boss will let me have it on a
payroll-deduction plan, but I'm trying to figure out what I can expect
to offer him without simply being offensive. I figure that it will
cost me about $50 and twenty hours or so to make new parts and fix it
up, so I don't think I want to pay more than $300-500- considering I
could get a brand new one for about 2 grand.

So, what do you guys think- I don't mind doing the work to patch it
up, and I've done things like this before with good results, but I
just don't have much idea of what I should offer for the thing. Does
$300 sound way too low? I know I could part the thing out for far
more than that, but even that's a lot of work they're not going to do.