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Tim Haendle was pleased with himself when I talked to him Wednesday. He had bought 100 carbide inserts – used of course – for a hundred bucks at a Hoff Online Auctions Internet sale of a screw machine shop in St. Paul, Minnesota. He’ll regrind them for use on one of the 22 National Acmes he runs in his shop, buried in a forest in Mendocino County, 100 miles north of San Francisco.
I love the used machinery business because it is a competitive treasure hunt every day. It asks us for impossible calculations about realizable values for illiquid, flawed, sometimes rickety, filthy objects that often have little tangible worth when we are asked to buy them.
Here’s an example of the type of situation we consider at my company Graff-Pinkert every day. A firm has a 25-year-old screw machine or rotary transfer machine that it does not need at the moment. It has long been written off the financial statements, yet the potential seller feels it still has value but doesn’t know how much. He calls dealers for comps, checks eBay for similar machines, and considers whether he may use it again soon himself. He advertises it or calls us and probes for an offer. We feel the piece may have enough potential value that would make it a worthwhile addition to our stock, but we need to determine whether it is badly worn and will require substantial expensive refurbishing, or if it can be sold in its present state, which usually means full of oily chips, a nasty appearance, and out of production.
If by chance the machine shows well and is still running good parts, it becomes inviting for our broker competition, which hopes to turn it quickly for a modest but quick profit, without doing any of the difficult work of returning it to its original state of productivity.
I bought out my brother Jim’s interest in Graff-Pinkert six months ago. I promised him that I would not write about the breakup, but I want to take a few lines to describe how the post breakup is going for me.
The day after our deal closed I was vacationing with my wife, my sister and brother-in-law at the Chautauqua Institution near Jamestown, New York. (We had planned this trip a while before with my sister. That the breakup with Jim culminated at the same time was an odd coincidence.) The four of us were having lunch on the grounds when my iPhone rang and Jim’s name came up. I gulped, walked outside and took the call.
Jim quickly got to the point. There was a deal available with Wickmans and Hydromats. He had already looked at it. He wanted to know if I was interested in buying it. My head spun. Was this déjà vu? Was it 2012 or 2011? We had just broken up a 40-year relationship and now he was calling me to work on a deal?
“Well, uh, yes,” I stammered back. “Sure.” It was a pretty short conversation. This was not exactly how I expected my first day of solo ownership of the family business to go.
Three part video on the process of changing the pins and bushings of the lower quadrants of a 1-3/4" 6-spindle Wickman screw machine.
Part 1: Removal Of The Lower Quadrants.
Part 2: Replacing The Pins and Bushings
Part 3: Reinstalling The Lower Quadrants
In addition to CNC lathes, Hydromats and newer European multi-spindles such as Schutte, INDEX, and Euroturn, Graff-Pinkert historically has specialized in mechanical multi-spindles such as Wickmans, Acmes, and New Britains.
The following is a basic guide to help you choose the best mechanical multi-spindle for you.
The first question to ask when deciding which machine to buy is who is going to run the machine. If the operator is an Acme-man or a New Britain veteran who has only run those machines for decades, it's usually best to stick to the equipment which that operator knows best. However, if an operator is open to using any multi-spindle and they can run the job on a 6-spindle machine, Graff-Pinkert generally recommends using a Wickman.
The main reason Graff-Pinkert recommends Wickmans is that it's a much lower cost to tool the machines. There aren’t any cams to change on Wickmans, just lever ratios. You loosen up some bolts, you slide it into the throw that you want and your done. Setting up an Acme or New Britain requires. ...
