Lathes Asian ?????

[Shiraz]

Redneck - I will not get into a public pissing match with you, but your information is wrong. I DID check, and your buddy has never bought the G9731 from us!

 

[Clark]

So you sold me a pile of crap?

 

[dennisinaz]

Wow, this is getting petty. Say what you want about Grizzly, but a their Chinese lathes are as good as anyones and the fact that they have some gunsmith specific lathes is a big plus for most of us. What they do have that many places don't have is a big inventory of parts and good customer service.

I have yet to buy a lathe from them but I have purchased 3 bandsaws and several other machine tools and all were as advertised. None of the motors on my bandsaws have quit yet and I have pushed them pretty hard re-sawing ironwood.

I have NEVER seen a pretty Chinese lathe. Maybe they exist, but I haven't seen one yet and I look around a lot.

Their cheap lathes, are well, cheap lathes. They appeal to those who have a certain budget and otherwise wouldn't be able to buy a new lathe.

Too many of us have a classical case of champagne taste and beer budget!

If you spend $299 on a new lathe- you got what you paid for. If you are running a production shop, get a heavy lathe with a heavy duty motor and it will probably hold up-it will cost a king's ransom new however.

This thread got out of hand quickly!!!

 

[Clark]

This thread got out of hand quickly!!!

I disagree.

This is a thread about Asian lathes.

The deal with Asian lathes, is that they are affordable, but have lower quality.

The main choice is between an old American worn out lathe with hard go find parts and or cheap piece of Chinese junk.

Those are not good choices, but If you have less than the cost of a new car to spend on a lathe to put in your garage, those are the only two choices you have.

A guy only buys a few lathes in his life, and so he is going to have to rely on public mythology, not personal experience.

There are 100 other gun forums besides this one that have a gunsmith section, where some posters can discuss Asian brands vs old used American brands. But the big forum is on newsgroups: rec.crafts.metalworking.

On that forum, stored by Google archives, there are thousands of posts that discuss Asian lathes.

Take a few hours and read a few hundred of the posts on lathes over the last 15 years:
1) Go to Google
2) click on more
3) click on groups
4) click on advanced group search
5) type in "rec.crafts.metalworking" in the group box
6) type in "lathe" in the subject box
7) click on sort by "date"

You will be better able to establish things to look for in a used lathe and Asian brands to avoid.

You can also do a search the 25,000 posts here, but you will find out the same things:
http://bbs.homeshopmachinist.net/index.php

 

[ArtinNC]

Not trying to keep this going, but my comment,,--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Clark,
Don't think a Enco is any better either.
Art ))

Is not a slam on Grizzly, if I was going to buy another lathe it would probley be their Gunsmith lathe.
Art

 

[dennisinaz]

Clark- I tried to follow your google groups bashing, but I wasn't able to find anything bad about Grizzly in the search I did. Sure, Grizzly imports some real cheap stuff that many of us would call junk. My neighbor just bought a mill/lathe combo and it doesn't even have quick change gears. I'm not sure what he intended to do with it, but he said he didn't realize it didn't have them when he ordered it. I'm sure it was pretty cheap.

The bigger Gunsmith lathe I looked at didn't look like a piece of junk to me. It doesn't have a Pratt&Burnerd chuck nor a Baldor motor, but it does have good bearings and will hold good tolerances. It's not advertised as a job shop lathe. I think it is nipping on the heals of the Taiwanese stuff. The Chinese are catching up with the rest of the imports from what I can see.

 

[competitiongunsmithing]

On the topic of lathe don't buy a chinese lathe of any type there pretty much junk. On the other hand Taiwan lathes are much higher quality, you pay for what you get.Purchase a high precision heavy duty machine if you can afford it,the heavier machines last longer, run smoother and don't vibrate and also hold tolerances longer.If your going to do precision gunsmithing buy a good machine. Look at it as a investment if later on you decide to sell it and you take care of it you should recoupe alot of your investment. If you buy a $3500.00 chinese lathe you do good to get $1000.00 10 yrs later and it will probably so signs of heavy wear,But if your on a low budget and are planning on doing general Gunsmithing not high precision work a cheaper lathe will work but buy taiwan and alway purchase machines with meehanite castings its a finer grain casting that wear and look much better .Most machine with meehanite casting have a big M casted in them I've never seen chinese machines with meehanite castings.Grizzly has some good taiwan made meehanite machines it,s not going to be their cheapest machine,but it will be there best, Also Eisen Machinery imports some great taiwan machine that are very high quality. I hope this might of helped, choose taiwan with meehanite you won,t be sorry. Scott

 

[tmbryant]

If you are interested in a Taiwan made lathe, you might take a look at the Kent TRL or RML series of lathes. The TRL and RML's are made in Taiwan. Their KLS series is made in China. I have a TRL-1340V which is their frequency drive model and have been using it for three or four years. It works well and is capable of doing quality work. It came with a Baldor motor and is a smooth running lathe.