A while back a friend of mine called up and asked if I wanted to go
look at something with him. He is retired and usually finds some
interesting things to look at or drool over. It turned out that a
semi-retired custom golf club maker had passed away and his wife wanted
his shop cleaned out.
When we got there we found wall-to-wall stuff. I spent enough time
going through the two car garage and small workshop to get some kind of
idea of what was there. When she said she wanted $500 for every thing,
my hand went up rather quickly to keep my jaw from hitting the floor.
Then the kicker - she said she didn't want to see anything but concrete
floors when we were through. It was a done deal.
My buddy asked if he could have the old Delta model floor lenght drill
press if he helped me move everything. Sure, I said. I already had a
nice one and really needed the help.
The take:
In addition to the Delta drill press there was an ancient Aurora
overhead shaft drill press. Heavy, about 6 ft. tall. 1900's?
An older really nice Buffalo #15 table top drill press.
A heavy duty Buffalo #22 table top shear.
An old Delta 12" disc sander that runs smooth as silk.
A really nice unnamed belt sander.
Three huge buffers - two with factory stands, one with a homemade
stand.
Two almost new 1hp Leyland Faraday 115/230v motors, one hooked up
to a squirrel cage that must have been used to remove sawdust.
Another 17-18 assorted electric motors from 1/4 to 1 hp. I started
about half of them and they all look like they run.
About 2000 brand new (most still with factory paper on them) taper
shaft golf club shafts. About half steel and half aluminum.
Half dozen golf club bags filled with finished/partly finished
golf clubs.
Several hundred other golf clubs in various stages of repair.
Several dozen brand new (in wrappers) stainless steel club heads,
made in Scotland, I believe.
A couple of 5 gal. pails of unfinished brass putter heads.
A couple of boxes of unfinished wooden club heads and several
hundred brass plates to go on them.
A couple of boxes of huge rolls of various grades of steel wool.
A couple of boxes of assorted sanding belts.
A half dozen boxes of assorted stuff - cut up brass pieces, golf
club screws, ect.
And to top it all off, in the corner, covered up was a Burke #4
(126A) horizontal mill. It had been cannibalized and re-
rigged to do some kind of wood work. It has a lot of potential
though. Just haven't gotten around to it.
Probably a trailer load of junk wound up at the dump. Believe me,
it was junk. I rarely throw anything away.
I checked with about every golf shop aroud me and all said that the
taper shafts were no longer used and nobody was interested in them.
Quite a few are now being utilized by my mother-in-law to stake up her
garden plants.
Anyone have any suggestions for them?
Strangely enough, I found only a few hand tools and nothing precision,
not even a vice. The guy was mostly retired, as I understood it.
Bill.