Advice on my First Mill Purchase

logsleeve · Apr 6, 2021

Last week I won a Beaver NC5 milling machine in an online auction. The auction house was based out of California and was selling collectible instruments from the Gretsch family archives to raise money for the Gretsch Foundation. The machine was located at the Gretsch factory in Ridgeland, SC which is less than a 3hr drive from me. There was not a lot of details listed in the auction posting, and with only two hours left, I placed a bid. I thought that it was going to go for a good price since it was listed in a collectible guitar auction and it wasn't really well advertised as a milling machine.

I ended up winning the machine at what I felt was a decent price. The auction listing stated that the buyer is responsible for shipping. I planned on riding over there and picking it up and thought that would be it. Either they have someone put it on the trailer with a fork lift, or they let me roll it out on pipes or get it onto a pallet jack and pull it out.

Well that was not the case. After I purchased it and finally got in contact with someone from Gretsch, they informed me that a licensed and bonded rigging company would be required to get it out of the factory. I was a little upset about that but started calling around to get quotes.

At that time they also decided to tell me that the machine has not been turned on in 25yrs. I think that would have been nice to know up front, along with the mandatory rigging company, but this information was not disclosed until after the fact. The pictures that were in the auction listing make it look like this machine was just used the day before. There are metal chips on the table and in the chips/coolant shield. It even looked like there was coolant on the end of the end mill. I would have never guessed that it hasn't been used in 25 years.

Well a few days went by, and I finally got to speak with the owner on the phone. After speaking with him, I learned that they got the machine when they bought out another company's product line. It sounds like the machine came with the programs loaded on it and set up by the company they bought out. After Gretsch discontinued that product line, they stopped using the machine. It sounds like they didn't have anyone who knew how to program the machine so they quit using it.

It wasn't until that phone call that they told me that they forgot to mention that they built a partition wall around the machine so they could have AC in that area. He couldn't tell me anything about the wall other than it had studs and plaster board. He told me to "inform the rigging company to be prepared to move a section of it."

Well I followed back up with some of the rigging companies after I got more information, and they said the whole situation seems a little sketchy to them and they didn't want to touch it. The were also concerned about moving a section of the partition wall and a few said that they won't do it.

I am new to the hobby and this would be my first machine purchase. I bought this machine to use at home and I understand that the controller is old. I planned to run it in manual for the time being and later down the road, swap the controller out for a Centroid All in one DC or something similar.

I wasn't expecting to be required to have an insured rigger move the machine and had no idea it hasn't been turned on in 25yrs.

Since I am pretty new to this, I would like to hear what you guys would do if you were in my situation. After auction fees the machine would come out to $1280. The only way to get out of this would be to dispute the charges claiming false advertisement or that the item was not as described.

I attached the few pictures that I have of the machine. Please let me know what you all think about it and if you have any recommendations on what I should do.