Training school auction

KITS auction

An independant industrial training school near me has ceased trading & is auctioning off everything.

Lots include 19 Colchester Student 2500 lathes (extra chucks & faceplates as separate lots) and a dozen or so small Asian Turret mills, Haas Toolroom mills & lathe and some Boxford CNC training lathes. Also lots of measuring equipment + garage & sheet metal stuff + computers. The premises they used are only a mile or so from J25 M62.

Always sad to see auctions for companies closing, but the closure of the largest engineering training establishment in the area can not be good long term for engineering apprenticeships locally.

Nigel B.

Nigel B.

Incredibly bad timing to close a training place just when we shoud be re-skilling some people. Lots of thihgs to appear on ebay shortly then. I notice one chuck backplace miss-described as a faceplate.

Gosh! There's a hell of a lot of stuff there. With so many identical bit-too-big for the average model engineer lathes for sale, I can imagine they'll go for peanuts and then be shipped overseas. I do wonder about some of those cupboards plus contents, though; if you bid and won one, how much of the contents would you actually get?

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It's sad! Generally speaking ... Apparently (injury/negligence/etc.) insurance for metalwork training schools is very expensive, and the consumables are also expensive (whoops - someone forgot to turn off the argon on a welder and the college's entire tank leaked out overnight ... happened at CNWL the year I was there ... oops!) ... far easier and more profitable to teach courses in "digital marketing" etc.

There was a similar auction 2018 in Rotherham with 5 similar lathes and 5 Bridgeport’s

the lathes all went for about £500 each

all the tooling was in big cabinets sold as one lot

so in one cabinet was all the tooling required for 5 lathes

'We' have just wasted more money on one order buying useless face masks than it would cost to keep that training facility open for posterity.

Best not to worry our little heads on what direction we're going.

Sad to see, a bucket of mics in one lot. Thought only Chicken came in buckets.

Regards Ian

If true the Yoof are doing remarkably well. Today the Service Sector delivers 80% of UK National Income. They're paying our pensions, not traditional manufacturing.

I'm all for celebrating the past but we live in a very different world and future generations will see even more change. Teaching youngsters to drive machine tools isn't going to make anybody rich. Ostlers, mantle cutters and Fossetmakers aren't in demand either.

Challenge for wise forum members: how should wealth be generated in future? Extra marks for showing figures and workings. Marks subtracted for unjustified optimism and empty promises - keep it real please. Zero for yearning after Industrial methods failed repeatedly since 1955. The Good Old Ways are dead and gone, what next?

Dave

Nevertheless Dave, we cannot all wash each others windows.

S.O.D's view is, unfortunately correct - not because there is no requirement for engineering skills, but because, as a nation, we prize money-making in the here and now over investment in long-term projects. It's the mentality which left the motor industry and similar hanging onto obsolete machine tools 'cos it was cheaper, rather than invest in up-to-date technology. We leave foresight to others and wonder why we end up in a mess.

rgds

ill

Thank you for the link. I'll be having a few bids on things.

Jim

When and where is this auction taking place ?

Dont see any mention of lathes ect in that link.

Interestingly there are a number of "virtual reality welding simulators" amongst the lots presumably no gas required and n burns received!

Robert G8RPI..

Start from about lot 200 for lathes

Try clicking "auction info" for dates

Some nice looking Boxford cnc lathes there, search for Boxford cnc Milling machine to find them !!!!!

Emgee

With you word for word PW but don't hold your breath waiting for action on any of those fronts.

The only consolation, we few will be amongst the last survivors of any catastrophe.