Anybody go to the Boeing Auction last Wednesday?

Yeah, I went.

Good thing I know the area. The auctioneer's driving instructions to the site were totally wrong. Got there with an hour to spare, then find the published 9:30 start time had been changed to 10:30.

You'd think with these guys coming clear across the country to do the auction, at least they would have spent a few bucks on a decent sound system. It was impossible to understand them with those lousy speakers.

So things didn't get off to a smooth start for me.

Looked like about 400 in the crowd. I noticed a couple of dealers from Los Angeles, wonder what brought them all the way up?

In the first few items, they had a nice Lista cabinet on wheels, maybe

5 feet high. Each drawer had a few pounds of what appeared to be mostly mill tooling, the usual stuff a guy would have next to his mill. Basically, a nice cabinet with contents any shop guy could use. $3500 + 10% buyers premium. Not a good sign of things to come.

I watched for about an hour and a half. Decided I should get back to work. Left my bidder number with a friend along with a wish list and my max prices. Everything I wanted went for a minimum of 50% more than I was willing to pay even though I felt I was very generous in my pricing.

The friend was looking for one of the large disk sanders. Like the bandsaws you were interested in, there were a bunch of them. Quantity available didn't seem to make a difference, they still went high. I assume the same is true of the bandsaws.

All told, it was worth the trip just to see the facility. I doubt many buyers left feeling they'd gotten super bargains. IMO, prices were on the high side auction-wise.

Fairly well mirrors my experience at the recent Longview Aluminum auction.

Im thinking some big ebay dealers might be doing some heavy speculating at auctions these days.

Doug, thnaks for the report. I rellly appreciate it.

Ivan Vegvary

With luck some decent machinery will start showing up at Surplus again soon. I assume much of the recent stream was sent to that auction.

About that $3500 Lista cabinet. Last year I bought a decent 10 drawer Vidmar at Surplus for $160, (with a friend's 20% discount). Marked down because it's ugly but the drawers work great. I took them out and forced moly grease into the roller bearings.

Under the bottom drawer of this one was a bunch of Boeing paperwork dated

1972. If the drawers aren't bent, relubing the bearings is all these old cabinets need to operate smoothly again.

Bob

Love my Vidmars, I gots 4 em and also a pair of bench height Lista--always on the lookout for more.

Light wetsanding and some laquer thinner is usually all it takes to prep for fresh paint--if you are careful you can usually get them to look almost good as new.

Kinda like that John Deere paint scheme, eh ???