Rising machine tool prices

cdt22 · 2017-01-16T01:51:21+00:00

Hi folks, I was just looking at some old Sears, Roebuck & Co. catalogues from the early 1900s. Here's an example of a page: That 20" bandsaw costs $31.65. If you figure out a current equivalent price (multiplier of 27), it comes to around $855. Seems cheap for a 300 lb cast iron machine to me, as do the other machine tools. A Jet 20" bandsaw now costs $3556.00: Equivalents to the other manufactured products in the catalogue are mostly cheaper today (this guy has some interesting examples from the 1970s: But what about machine tools? If they are more expensive, what's the cause? A rise in the cost of skilled labour, or less local competition among small foundries and machine shops? What do you think? Chris

Jan 16, 2017 42 Replies

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Larry Jaques 9 years ago

Jig or recip saw?

Yeah, if the piece is small enough that you can get it into the machine.

Huh? How in the heck do you salvage PEM nuts? Do you reuse pop rivets, too? I'm thinking Type F, which was used in the aluminum cases at Southcom, Intl's manpack radio accessories.

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Are we on the same page here? I can't figure out how you'd unclinch one.

Yeah, the body guys primarily used them for removal of material. The new quarterpanel was often cut to fit with the air/elec shears. I liked watching them flange, spotweld, and lead-in the welded area.

Isn't rust/hole removal easily enough handled with a 4-1/2" grinder? Oh, and a blue sharpie to do the layout. ;)

Press flat or hammer and dolly. As long as the distortion isn't excessive that the hammer/press-die marks would show. Masking tape takes a lot of the danger out of that, though.

Often good enough, especially if the scrap side is small.

Cool! Well done. Ash dust is nastyass stuff, both to clean up and to breathe.

I have yet to take the old carpet and make a sound dampening enclosure for my compressor. That's a woodworking, not a metalworking project, though. Ply and carpet make a damned good sound deadener for most frequencies. Wood stops the low/mids and carpet absorbs the mid/highs.

I need to deepen the shelf density in my shop so I can get enough floor space to fit a small mill. I'm tired of deer paths and stepping

-over- stuff.

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Jim Wilkins 9 years ago

On the left side there's about 2-1/2" clearance to the frame, plenty of allowance for a rough cut with a grinder or torch. On the right I support the sheet with a hydraulic lift table so my hands are only guiding the cut and I can let go to shut off the power.

The metal I buy new is within the capacity of my equipment, 6" for the saw and 30" for the shear.

Insert a screw part way from the back, place the PEM/Southco insert over a hole in a bench block and tap the screw head with a hammer. The taller round ones remove easily, the hex flush Type F ones are a little more difficult but they don't interfere as much with repurposing the metal for something else.

I usually fix rust before it gets big enough for a flanged patch, although I do have the flanging tool and a set of Clecos. I trace around the patch, trim the hole to the line, then hold the patch in place with magnets while tack-welding.

My workmanship was good enough to show to a customer, which helped get me promoted into engineering over techs who beat out their sheet metal mistakes with a hammer.

We used carpet scraps to quiet the sound of walking on raised theatre set platforms. If the "Bus Stop" lunch counter could hold a row of burly carpenters making like Rockettes, it was safe for the actress with the Marilyn Monroe part to dance on.

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