Hopefully someone can fill i the blanks for me here. Likely the EU guys will have some input.


I see Traub in the Index booth at IMTS every [other] yr. Not sure if they are at the PMTS show?

Every time I talk to the fellers at the booth about the machines the price just blows me away! I am to the point now that I ask the price before I take eny more of either of our time. I remember the one time being told that "all decked out as seen" was roughtly 800 LARGE. (USD)

JUMPIN GEEHOSSIFATS! and for a single spindle?

I back away slowly....

Of course we have had quite an issue of costs between the Euro and the US Dollar, but the price has always ben so high that I jist don't see how they could EVER compete in this market. And to that end - I seldom see one here. It jist so happened that one popped up on my Ebay watch today.

So - are these more cost effective "over there"?

Are they better than the competition?


From my perspective - Index makes some super multis these days, but this single spindle market just blows me away!


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

I agree, I priced one a couple of years ago when we neededa new machine. I could not believe the cost! We just went with another Citizen.

It looks like a very nive, high quality machine, but the price makes it out of my reach!

The European machines of that type all seem to be priced high. Think Traub, Index, Gildemeister, Maier and Tornos. They tend to have big floor space requirements for their bar capacity, but in general are built on a much more rigid platform than the common Citizen/Star machines. They tend to have a lot more power at the spindles and live tools, and the heavy bases work well for damping vibration.

For the bulk of the work you'd want to do on a Swiss, the Citizen/Star/Tsugami/NexTurn/Hanwha stuff is fine. If you are often running things like high-temp alloys and using material diameters near the machine's max capacity, the robust build of the Euro machines seem to handle it far better, in my experience. I just can't say of the added expense (1.5x to 3x) is worth it for the average application.

Ox,

Europeans historically have been reluctant to buy Japanese machine tools. Until fairly recently that is. So for a while the market there was split between Tornos, Traub, Gildemeister, and Manhurin K'MX.

None of their machines impress me. They aren't more rigid and they sure aren't more accurate. And they certainly don't have a better reputation for reliability than a Japanese machine tool.

But they are, as a rule, more complex. In some cases with just the right kind of part they can be quite a bit faster than a Japanese machine.

I assume you're looking at a Traub TNL 26. With that machine you can have up to four tools in the cut simultaneously. So with just the right kind of workpiece, it can be smoking fast. But the reality is that for every job where the machine is untouchable speed wise, there are a dozen where it is the same or slower or less accurate than a less expensive, more reliable machine.

Not every part can have four tools cutting simultaneously. And even on those that can, you might have trouble with the cutting forces from one tool screwing up the finishes and dimensions being put in by the other. What looks good on paper often fails once the carbide hits the metal.

To that end all of the Euro builders have lost market share to the Japanese in Europe. It's enough of a problem that Tornos is having Tsugami build private label machines for them. In the US the European Swiss type lathes have next to nothing for market share. So there is the added concern of parts, repair and expertise. Not to mention resale value of a used one.

If they could figure out how to build all of this really cool stuff at competitive prices then the Japanese would have their hands full. But I don't see that happening anytime soon. Especially here in the United States of Wal-Mart where people will jump over dollars to save a penny.