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Huge Horizontal boring machine

Tom Kitta

Ultra Member
https://regalauctions.com/index.php?a=onlinebidding#/sales/91341/lots/19216546

At 17300 kg it is a bit big. Supposedly in working condition when sent to auction. Worth around $4000 as scrap, all you need is a way to move this thing.

To use it needs about 4m ceiling for its column and I am guessing its footprint is around 3 x 5m plus some accessories and walk around space. Its column still shows some decorative flaking.

It is a bit of a shame that this massive machine may sell for just few hundred $$$ due to the costs of a crane to move it and expected payoff from the scraper. Sometimes I wonder what these machinery owners were thinking? Do they really believed that they get some good money from this on auction, especially this one, not say a large auction that deals with this stuff such as Richie Bros.
 

DavidR8

Scrap maker
Administrator
Moderator
Premium Member
Wow, the scrap business must be radically different in AB.
When I had all those machines, as a backup plan I called every local scrap dealer. All of them said that because the machines were so large they had no way to process them so weren't willing to take them.
 

historicalarms

Ultra Member
Lots of the stuff that goes through Regal isnt consigned by the "owner", more often by a bank just trying to liquidate objects out of a property that has value....and that is really unfortunate.
 

Tom Kitta

Ultra Member
Main issue for the scrap yard would be de-contamination - the machine needs to be free of stuff such as oil. Not sure whatever they would care about cables and such. As for the size - you can part it out a bit with some plasma torch. Main problem with scraping lathe as an example is oil - at least that is what I was told.

I think BC island scrap yards would have similar "processing" problem - de-contamination. Also if they need to load things as "shred" they will have hard time with this as it may be hard to shred some machinery. I saw rather large stuff at local scrap in Calgary so I think chunks the size of small cars are OK.
 

cuslog

Super User
Premium Member
I used to own a construction Co., had a couple of cranes, one of them an old girl, kind of "long in the tooth", 50 ~ 60,000 lbs. 5 or 6 years ago, shutting down the Co., called a couple of "scrap yards", thinking they'd come, cut it up and leave me with a cheque. Nope, not interested in that. If I cut it up into manageable pieces for them, they might haul it away for me for nothing - if they happen to have a truck in the area - never heard from them again.
 

Janger

(John)
Administrator
Vendor
19 ton milling machine. I don't usually think of machines by the ton. Modern tool has a mill of that scale in the back.

@cuslog what did you end up doing with the crane?
 

DavidR8

Scrap maker
Administrator
Moderator
Premium Member
I used to own a construction Co., had a couple of cranes, one of them an old girl, kind of "long in the tooth", 50 ~ 60,000 lbs. 5 or 6 years ago, shutting down the Co., called a couple of "scrap yards", thinking they'd come, cut it up and leave me with a cheque. Nope, not interested in that. If I cut it up into manageable pieces for them, they might haul it away for me for nothing - if they happen to have a truck in the area - never heard from them again.

That was exactly my experience.
I looked online at scrap prices and cast iron was going for .83/lb.
I thought that they’d snap them up. Heck I was prepared to load them up too.
Nada, not even a whisper of interest.
 

historicalarms

Ultra Member
Main issue for the scrap yard would be de-contamination - the machine needs to be free of stuff such as oil. Not sure whatever they would care about cables and such. As for the size - you can part it out a bit with some plasma torch. Main problem with scraping lathe as an example is oil - at least that is what I was told.

I think BC island scrap yards would have similar "processing" problem - de-contamination. Also if they need to load things as "shred" they will have hard time with this as it may be hard to shred some machinery. I saw rather large stuff at local scrap in Calgary so I think chunks the size of small cars are OK.

Buddy of mine hauled scrap to the steel mill at Regina for years. Anything that will fit on a flatdeck trailer will go into the vat. he hauled hundreds of cars and pickups that first went through a crusher but tractors & cats were hauled in-piece, drained of all liquids and the plastic seat & cab sound suppression lining had to be removed, he was told very little plastic will produce enough toxic smoke to cause them to exceed local environment controls they must meet.
Thousands of tons of steel rolls from there go to Red Deer Ipsco plant to be re-formed into welded seam pipe of all sizes.
 

cuslog

Super User
Premium Member
@cuslog what did you end up doing with the crane?

Fixed a few things on it, got it running again - guy down the road from me was building his own log house - gave me $4,500 for it. It was a truck mount, truck was a 1957, would never be road legal again - he hired a lowbed to haul it to his place.
 

Tom Kitta

Ultra Member
Yep sold for price of scrap metal minus crane minus costs to cut it up and minus profit to do so. It could also have been purchased by a scrap yard.
 
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