Is P&W 2E Jig Borer hopelessly obsolete?

I think you know the answers here, Ig. Yes, it is obsolete. Yes, there are some of them still in use. No, we don't know whether there's someone out there who wants one or what they'd pay.

Those big old jig borers, from DeVlieg and P&W, are something like big VBMs: from Bullard, etc. -- there is no real commerce in them, but there are some in use, including some that have been converted to CNC or at least updated with scales and DROs. I've seen a couple.

But the traffic is almost nonexistent because they're not going to be used for a new project and an expansion. Those that are in use -- and this applies to a lot of old machine tools, like shapers and many pre-CNC machine tools -- are generally being used in long-running projects, and there hasn't been a good reason to replace them with something more productive. Yet.

I think you'd have a hard time selling it.

Sadly, this is how I see it also, I will not even take it off the trailer. Might take the T slotted table from it.

Without getting into the details of the old-machine markets, I think the easiest way to evaluate such machines is to subscribe to some of the used-machine-trader newspapers -- there are quite a few of them, and they're regional -- and see if there is any action in the machine types you're dealing with. I just get one of them today, _Machine Tools West_, to keep an occassional eye on it.

Another way, a lot more complicated, is to find out what they are, or were, used for, to judge if there is still any work for them. You really have to be into it to do that.

For example, the "jig" in the machine type refers to drill jigs. In this case, really big ones. Before CNC, drill jigs were the #1 product of the tool-and-die industry. We made millions of them in the US. Today, that business is completely dead.

Jig borers and jig mills then were re-purposed to precision boring and facing of big castings and housings. A lot of that was truck, off-road, and military work. That work today is being done with CNC horizontal boring mills (HBMs). Jig borers and jig mills can't begin to compete with them.

So, that's what makes them obsolete. Even doing a CNC conversion, which can be very practical on big machines that have some value when converted, just isn't worth it because they're still not going to be competitive.

Thus, machines become obsolete. Let's hope that we don't become obsolete along with our machines.

I'd love the handwheels off that thing.

Right. These are purpose made machines to make tooling that is no longer used.

The smaller ones, like Moore jig borers, are bought by "hobbyists" to be used as glorified drill presses. People buy them, brag about them, repaint them and then they stay forgotten in hobby shops.

CNC converting them makes very little sense, no more than "converting a horse to be a car" by sticking a muffler in the horse's ass.

I ended the three day auction early and I will scrap this machine on Monday.

The precision T-slot table top has been spoken for and committed.

Acu-rite DRO, etc to follow

Handles available (will be asking a lot of $$$ on ebay but cheap to Cydrome Leader)

Here's a picture of the T slot table, laying on top of a frame that I had laying around, it fit it rather nicely. I thought that someone might like the picture.

Oops

I would like to *have* one -- but I would not like to pay for one plus the shiiping and rigging. I've actually got a set of P&W calibrated rods to use with one, FWIW.

Enjoy, DoN.

Thats gonna make a very nice fixturing table. Incase you get another one in the future post it on the group, i would be intrested in a t-sloted table.

Best Regards Tom.

I have two more t-slotted tables from CNC machines. Smaller one and a larger one.

Got any pics? Aprox size? and of course price.

Best Regards Tom.

To say that "a few people still use these" is not the same thing as saying "someone would buy one of these."

As we discussed, machines of this type that are still in use are mostly dedicated to some long-running production job. It's hard to imagine someone buying one of these things today.

A company I worked for bought a old manual Milwaukee horizontal mill for spare parts for the two we had dedicated to a specific job. They paid scrap value for it, it was 40+ years old but had had little use.

What they paid for the mill would have paid for reverse engineering just two of the gears.

David

More it is hard to imagine someone paying very much for one of those things .

There are some Amish that do one off work that like to have machines that c an do things that are only needed once in a while. They are not worried ab out having machines that are not used very much. The museum recently had a boiler for a steam engine retubed. It was done with tools that are not mu ch in demand.

Dan

Yeah, there is some value in parting these things out, perhaps. A common lathe or mill would be much easier to part out and sell than some specialized and obsolete machine.

My guess that the value in this case, except for a few parts that are easy to strip off, like Iggy did with the table (and he has an offer for the handwheels), would involve more in disassembly time and warehousing cost than it would be worth.

But then, I'm not in the old-machine parts business, so I'm not a good judge.

When I used to visit machine shops practically every week, a few decades ago, I soon learned to tell the ones that were viable from those that were just holding on and probably destined for the auction block: If there were old machines gathering dust in a corner, or machines that were used once every couple of months taking up floorspace, the shop was a goner.

A lot of shop owners just can't bear to part with their beloved old dinosaurs.

I think that, realistically, anyone who can afford to pay more than scrap for this machine, rigging, and has a space for it, would not need it. People buy little Moore jig borers for the fun factor because they are small. They would not be able to have a 19,000 lbs machine.

Incidentally, despite the weight, it is not very big, maybe twice the footprint of a moore. It is just very heavy.