Grant Erwin wrote:

You can hear bad bearings, and of course you can see the marks in the work.

Ball ways cost more than flat ways when the machines were new. If the ways
aren't ball ways then take off the table and look closely at the ways. They
should look pretty good even in a '60s machine. I don't know about teflon
ways .. if your ways are bad then if you grind a longish piece and measure
it you will see difference in thickness.

Hydraulic feeds are very desirable indeed. They automate the job of feeding
the table.

I'm not certain you *have* to see the machine do work to get a decent deal.
But I'm with Karl -- I won't ever buy another one without seeing it work.

A machine with an electromagnetic chuck is much more desirable than one
with a plain mag chuck. One with a plain mag chuck is much more desirable
than one with no mag chuck. Finally, a machine with coolant capability is more
desirable than one without it.

If you ever put on a different mag chuck you have to "grind it in". Google.

Look for a machine being sold by someone who used it, not a machinery vendor.

I'll agree with everything you say but I do take exception to this
last sentence.

I deal in machines. I have a reputation to uphold. If you want to say
that I cannot speak first hand about the machines that I'm selling,
then I'll agree that that is partially true. If you are saying that a
dealer will deliberately whitewash a defective tool then I'm going to
say that that is very seldom true.

I believe that the vast majority of machine tool dealers will go out
of their way to make sure that their customer is happy with what he
purchased. If we don't do that, then we won't be in business next
year.

With any machine that I sell, I will take care to ensure that the
machine is functional. If there are any defects that I find, I will
always reveal those to my buyer - always. I don't care if the defect
is obvious or latent. I will always tell the buyer about it.

Let me give you an example. Here's a Harig fixture that I sold on
eBay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=46724&item=3821892 500

The broken tooth in the indexing plate turned something that sells in
the $500 dollar range into something that sold for $152.50. I would
consider that to be a latent defect because you have to disassemble
the thing in order to find it.

If you had bought that fixture at a public auction, it is highly
unlikely that you would have known about the broken tooth. It is even
less likely that you could return it. In all probability, you would
simply have to eat the loss.

Now, it's true that you were taking about buying from a user, not from
a public auction. However, I'm going to say that a machine that comes
from a user is no more likely to be in good condition than the machine
that comes from a dealer. Where do you think I get my machines? I get
them from users. The reasons that those users are selling them to me
is generally the same reasons that they are selling them to other
users: they would rather have the cash than the machine.

Now. There are times when I sell something that has a defect about
which I am not aware. That is true. I'll even give you an example of
such an item that I sold on eBay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=46724&item=3820499 969

That is a Mitutoyo height gage. It binds as it nears the bottom. Best
I can figure, Mitutoyo bored the holes in the base about 0.001" too
far apart. The buyer emailed me. I refunded his money and paid to have
the item shipped back to me. I didn't catch the problem because I
never brought the height gage down below 1". It just never occurred to
me that Mitutoyo would screw up like that.

I can give you a very real reason why the stuff that you buy from a
dealer is actually better than the stuff that you buy from the user.
When I, as a dealer, buy stuff, I check it out as best I can. If I
find a significant defect, then 9 times out of 10 I simply don't buy
it - at any price. My point is that if you buy from a dealer then you
know that a presumably knowledgeable person has looked at it and
determined that it is good and useable. You also know that if he's
wrong in his assessment of the condition of the machine that he is the
one who will eat the error, not you.

And BTW, if anyone is looking for a Boyar Schultz 6-12 here's one:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=3830281410

Blatant shameless plug!

George.



It should be complete, and the spindle and table should travel very smoothly
and solidly throughout their whole range. You should get a machine with a
chuck and a manual and at least one wheel holder and diamond dresser and
hopefully other surface grinder tooling also.

Grant

AL wrote:

I've wanted a used surface grinder for a long time and will be looking at a
35 year old Boyar Schultz model this weekend. Unfortunately I don't know
much about surface grinders. How do I tell if the spindle bearings are
worn? Assuming I'm able to turn it on, what kind of noises should I be
listening for? I imagine a worn spindle will not sound like an ice cube in
a garbage disposal. Is there some other way to measure bearing wear?

I've seen several grinders on ebay with teflon ways. Do they come from the
factory like this? Or is this an indication that the ball bearing or
dovetail ways wore out and were rebuilt with telfon?

Lastly, what is a hydraulic feed?