Machinery Values

[John Morris]

Just a quick little comment here. I love perusing the Facebook Classifieds, I never buy anything, but it's fun, I guess what I'm doing is yard sale hopping from my arm chair, anyway it occupies about a half hour of my day, I like to see old trucks for sale, antique furnishings, and during my perusing I have noticed that woodworking machinery seems to be tanking, the values.

If there is a time to get into woodworking and anyone wants to out fit a shop with second hand, at least here on the left coast, the values are pretty danged low.

I'm seeing quality Delta and Powermatic table saws for 5 or 600 bucks, and other machinery at a 1/2 or less of what they were bought for.

 

This saw is going for 600 bucks, this is a good saw, just a couple years ago this saw would have been no less than 1200 bucks used in my area.

Don't know what's driving this but I found it interesting.

 

 

[Cal]

That does seem like a great deal, but I haven't been keeping up with values.  Are smaller power and hand tools also dropping or holding their own?  How about contractor type table saws, what do you see happening in that market?

 

[JWD]

I can't explain it, but this strikes me as a pretty normal cycle.  Lower prices for used stuff always drives interest in that stuff.  I want to say the cycles are of a pretty long period, like 50 years, but I don't track this stuff well at all.

 

This also reminds me of a friend who built a huge machine shop on the cheap.  He was a jeweler and lost interest in that business because it was overly saturated with competition, yet very expensive to stay in business.  He discovered that conventional machine tools were very cheap where we lived, often considered not worth moving unless they were in the way - machines weighing thousands of pounds are expensive to move and with the CNC machine industry blossoming at the time, the value was right around scrap prices for heavy machines.  So Kevin would sometimes get them for the cost of having them moved.  The irony is that he started making tools for jewelers and other hobbyists, recognizing that the market for professional level tools was shrinking because the jewelry business was shrinking as interest in it's pursuit as a hobby was growing.  So he would sell machined mild steel forming tools rather than forged hardened ones.  Shearing machines with replaceable AR500 jaws as opposed to hardened tool steel jaws, recognizing that hobbyists don't use tools as hard so they don't need to pay for the same level of durability.  He started participating in online hobby groups, teaching people how to make what they wanted to make.  Twenty years in, they guy is a millionaire.  Pretty cool what can grow out of indulging an interest, low barrier to market entry, and having a good head for business!

Edited August 8, 2024 by JWD

[John Morris]

8 minutes ago, Cal said:

That does seem like a great deal, but I haven't been keeping up with values.  Are smaller power and hand tools also dropping or holding their own?  How about contractor type table saws, what do you see happening in that market?

 

It seems like the smaller stuff is doing fine actually, the contractor saws are going for the same price as this table saw above. Hand tools kind of hit and miss, and portable power tools not sure where they are at.

I just had a thought while typing this reply, could it be a part of the housing affordability crisis we are in? Here where I live regular folks cannot afford a home, even with two incomes, average home cost in California is around $900,000, reality is though if you don't mind living inland and in the heat and dust, homes are around 4 to 600 thousand range, and it's hard for even a dual income couple to plop that 15 percent down and afford the mortgage at 6 percent.

So, I'm wondering with that in mind, most of our young folks are renting apartments and such, could it be even though they may want to get into woodworking they can't because no garage to start a shop in? And consequently no reason to buy those bigger machines?

We bought our home in 2001 and it was very affordable, 147,000 bucks, and the first thing I did before the furniture got moved in was purchased a 10" Grizz Table Saw and couldn't wait to get my shop started .

[John Morris]

@JWD that's an very interesting story with a brilliant twist in the plot, looks like your friend adapted, overcame and improvised, that's really neat how he did that.

[DuckSoup]

 That is a Delta fence from the 80's, good fence. The two knobs let you rotate the fence 90 degrees for a tall or short fence.

Edited August 8, 2024 by DuckSoup

[JWD]

2 hours ago, John Morris said:

@JWD that's an very interesting story with a brilliant twist in the plot, looks like your friend adapted, overcame and improvised, that's really neat how he did that.

That's what always impressed me too.  I'm sure he had doubts along the way (doubts are how we evaluate options of course, they go with success if it's anything but decades of dumb luck), so I attribute his success to confidence, good judgement, recognizing opportunity, and a great deal of personal initiative, all of which I find to be very admirable qualities!

[JWD]

1 hour ago, DuckSoup said:

 That is a Delta fence from the 80's, good fence. The two knobs let you rotate the fence 90 degrees for a tall or short fence.

A unifence is a wonderful thing! 

 

You can also slide the fence back to make it a short fence for indexing crosscuts without risk of drop pieces getting caught between the blade and the fence.  Then those two set screws on either side of the locking handle make for easy adjustment of blade parallelism.  If you're doing production work, that fence is easily worth the $500 they are asking for the saw itself, the fence design makes life a lot easier!  They may resell under their value to a production worker, but that's not a bad thing either.

 

I remember these fences were available into the early 2000's (though that one is an early model so I expect 80's or early 90's vintage).  Delta or their parent company either bought out Beisemeyer or the patent expired, and most heavy saws started shipping with Beisemeyer clones, and Delta phased out the unifence.

[Larry Buskirk]

Around here they're going for scrap prices, or just being set out for free. 

Can't save them all. 

[Cal]

23 hours ago, Larry Buskirk said:

Around here they're going for scrap prices, or just being set out for free. 

Can't save them all. 

 

I think you should try Larry!

If'n I could go back and have another chance to buy all those Mustangs, Camaros, Chevelles, Road Runners and such for scrap prices... I wouldn't have to work anymore!!!

[Larry Buskirk]

2 minutes ago, Cal said:

 

I think you should try Larry!

If'n I could go back and have another chance to buy all those Mustangs, Camaros, Chevelles, Road Runners and such for scrap prices... I wouldn't have to work anymore!!!

 

I tried going that route, ran out of room. 

I had a few of those $35-50.00 "Beaters" over the years. 

[JWD]

 Where I grew up, all those cars were rusted out by the late 1980's!

 

I do remember a shop teacher in HS having a restored Mustang II, he must have had a garage or barn to keep it in.