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Asian lathe manufacturer cross reference.

CougarMountain

Hot Rolled
Joined
Jan 28, 2010
Location
Oregon
Let me know if this has already been done, and where to find the info.....

I have been wanting to put together a spreadsheet of Asian lathe manufacturers, and the brands they are sold under. Example, my Sharp 2060c is built by Shen Jey Industrial, Kinston HJ series by Chin Hung, ect. So many of the Tawain built brands are the same machine, just rebadged. And now there are Chinese copies that are hard to tell apart.

What I would like if you own an Asian manual lathe, 14" swing or larger, is to tell us the make and model, approximate age, and the builder (not the importer) A pic would also be helpful, but not required. I will work on corralating this info onto a spreadsheet, and repost. Hopefully this would make comparing these lathes "apples to apples" when looking to buy a machine, or find parts. I think the format I will use, is to list the manufacturer, with the brands/models they build or built. Mainly trying to focus on the Taiwan and Chinese builders, as these are the ones that are the hardest to tell apart, and are becoming a larger part of whats for sale.

Some of the more common brands I see are:

Kingston, Victor/Fortune, Sharp, Cadillac, Acer, Summit, Acra, Eisen, Jet, Kent, Birmingham, Baileigh, GMC

If this works out, I would like to do the same with knee mills.

Thanks!
 
Uh boy...I suppose if you keep this to decent quality machines that might be used in manufacturing or professional engineering shops it's ok to proceed.
 
I think all the HLV-H copies and machines of that style are all made by Cyclematic in tw.

Sharp mills are made by First/Long Chang. Probably sold under a few other names too.

Dalian(DMTG) makes machines for quite a few names and private labels of single smaller sellers. I've got suspicions about a few of those names, but since they won't admit to it, its hard to say it is what it is, even if it is and they try to get 2-3X the price because of their label on it.

Problem is a lot of the imported machines, mostly in the US, don't get the badge of the actual manufacturer **, some of them don't even get the real country where most of it was made...
Thankfully in Canada quite a few brands are imported right from the builder and not even renamed.

Best is to ask them who makes the model you have interest in and if they can't tell, buy something else. ** Mind you some of them will also lie and say they make them all themselves at their personal plant in tw. I know a few names have been switching manufacturing around and dropped a fair bit in quality the last 5 years. Trying to compile a list would be extra tough, and most will still deny it when you ask, stick to the brands with nothing to hide.
 
SND; it was one of your earlier posts when you were in the process of getting you Kingston, about the quality differences of different builders, and the factories they use, that help open my eyes.

Was the Alliant knee mill the predesser to the Sharp mill, and from the same factory?

My first experience with common machines, was with an Acer 1740 lathe I had. Eisen machinery carries the same lathe under their name, and of less cost. I had bought parts from their parts list from their lathe, and fit the Acer just fine. I bought from them because of the good service they gave me in the past.

A lot of the Tawain builders rarely make changes to a model once it's out. Makes it easier to source parts for older machines. My Chevalier EDM, of 25 years old, made by SureFirst, is still made, and parts are still available. Same with my Sharp lathe. My Italian lathe, of much better quality, is an ophan, I'm on my own for parts. The same with K.O.Lee. The part that troubles me now that China is in the picture, is knowing who builds what. They may look the same as an earlier TW machine, but are not. Part of the reason I'm wanting to put together a list of the builders. Maybe we all can be better educated on who builds what to make a better purchasing decision. As much as I like domestic iron, when you're in business, you have to work with what's commercially available to make money, and sadly, most of what's being sold today is from Tawain and China.
 
I believe the Harrison 14x40 (M300) was first made in england then made in China then back to england. When it was made in China it was being sold as Harison, Clausing, colchester,Wilton, Doall.

Bill D.
 
We just recently acquired a Dalian CDS6232 for our small jobbing shop. It is, in fact listed as a 13 x 40 but it's a lot more lathe than your average Chinese 14-40. It has a D1-6 spindle mount, a 2-1/8 spindle bore, a MT4 tailstock taper and weighs about 3500 lbs. Motor is 2 stage (3-4.5 HP) 3ph. According to the paperwork I have it was inspected at the factory in January of 2007 and imported directly into Canada under its own name...
 

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If it helps, I have noticed a lot of new machines have a cast in letter "M" somewhere on them. With lathes it is at the tail end of the bed. This I have seen on Sharpes and older Jets. With mills it usually appears right under the turret on the column. I have seen this on Vectrax, Jet, and Acer mills. Same script and sizing about (2"X2") on both machine types. I assume the M is for Meehanite. All were Taiwanese built though, at least marked as such.
 
My Force FRV30 GH1440B is a geared head, gap bed lathe and came with
an optional taper attachment. It has a 3 HP 230V/1PH motor, D1-4 mount
with a 1-1/2" spindle bore, 8" 3-jaw and 4-jaw chucks, MT-3 tailstock,
12 speeds (40-1800 RPM), foot brake, coolant system.

This machine appears to be similar to Jet's GH-1440W-1 Geared Head Lathe
1Ph 230V (#321830), but with the addition of the taper attachment and a
chuck guard. My machine was purchased in 2009 and I did not have any of
the cosmetic & apparent rework troubles as described in Jet GH-1440W
Lathe - Problems and Remedies
.

If anyone happens to look up the machine on Jet's site, I have noted that
specifications for this model sometimes vary according to which option
packages are included. I believe this occurs because of typos - it appears
they mix up certain GH-1440W-1 specifications with those of the lighter
duty GH-1340W-1 model.

I am interested to know who the actual manufacturer of the Jet and Force
lathes is.

2009.05.07_TRV-GH1440B.jpg


2009.05.09_TRV-GH1440B_01.jpg

Force was a brand represented in Canada by House of Tools. HoT was a
chain that started by Max Bercovitch in Trochu, Alberta in 1962 and
later it became affilated with a US chain called Western Tool Supply of
Salem, OR. founded by Kevin Kiker in 1982. Western Tool filed for Ch 11
in June of 2009
. House of Tools declared bankruptcy May of 2009 (article 1
and article 2. If memory serves, Bank of America was the principal creditor.

.
 
My dad's 1974 (approximately) vintage Victor 1640 was built by Taichung Machinery Works of Taiwan. Here's the tag on the machine:

ser-no_460805-1.jpg


Looks like this:

IMG_0284-r.jpg
 
If it helps, I have noticed a lot of new machines have a cast in letter "M" somewhere on them. With lathes it is at the tail end of the bed. This I have seen on Sharpes and older Jets. With mills it usually appears right under the turret on the column. I have seen this on Vectrax, Jet, and Acer mills. Same script and sizing about (2"X2") on both machine types. I assume the M is for Meehanite. All were Taiwanese built though, at least marked as such.

These were made by King Rich in Taiwan. I have one of their mills and love it.
 
There are 21 legally licensed Meehanite foundries in Taiwan.
here is a list, unfortunately in chinese.
however, by clicking on each foundry, there is a link to a mostly english description of each.
±ÂÅv¼t°ÓMAP


So those machines with the big black M on them could have come from quite a few different companies.
And I dont think the foundries have much compunction about selling the same casting to a variety of "assembly" companies.

Taiwan is full of family run small manufacturers. If a tool is selling, a lot of them will make it- and they may look very similar, but actually be coming from many different factories.

At one time, there were probably at least a dozen or two companies there making mill drills, or 4x6 bandsaws- now, most of that low end stuff has moved to the mainland, and most Taiwan companies are moving into CNC.

I am pretty sure there were at one time, for example, several plants were making HLVH copies- but Cyclematic seems to be the main one still at it.
Fair Friend, known here as Feeler, used to make them too, although now they mainly make CNC-
Fair Friend Ent. Co., Ltd. - Feeler, CNC Machine Tool Manufacturer, Vertical Machine Center, Turning Center, CNC Lathe

Anyway, there are so many different companies there, which change their product line so quickly, that it will be really hard for this list to be very comprehensive, without an actual Taiwan correspondent, who speaks the language, chiming in.
 
That GH1440B is identical to the Grizzly G0554Z
Very close. The headstock, bed and tailstock look the same but the bases
are different. Pictures of the G0554Z in the Owner's Manual show a rear-clear
chip tray and an access panel (for the c-pump?) in the t-stock pedestal. The
GH1440B has a front pull-out tray and no access panel. The O.M. is dated
2009 with a '10 revision so I presume that the images are current.

.
 
I picked this up when the maintanence dept. at work traded up....Does anyone know any history on DARSIN machines? They are taiwanese, and I've got a DSL1340GH. Its a 3 phase, 2 hp variable speed. I've got no idea who imported/distributed these, or if they share parts with any of the other imports. I imagine this one is about 20 or 30 years old. There is some hand scraping, but alot of the fixed mating surfaces are finish with an angle grinder.

eed0edf8.jpg
 
We had 6 of those darsin lathes I combined them to make 2 good ones. Not one single part was interchangeable. They were all the same lathe just made in different shops, all the castings were the same, it was just machined differently and the bolt holes drilled a little bit off or a different thread. I have found that with lots of the asian machines. A BP part will fit a BP. If you buy an Acra or an Acer chances are the next repair part you buy wont fit.
 
There are 21 legally licensed Meehanite foundries in Taiwan.
here is a list, unfortunately in chinese.
So those machines with the big black M on them could have come from quite a few different companies.
And I dont think the foundries have much compunction about selling the same casting to a variety of "assembly" companies.

Taiwan is full of family run small manufacturers. If a tool is selling, a lot of them will make it- and they may look very similar, but actually be coming from many different factories.

Anyway, there are so many different companies there, which change their product line so quickly, that it will be really hard for this list to be very comprehensive, without an actual Taiwan correspondent, who speaks the language, chiming in.

I'm sure you are more than correct. I was just saying there was one thing I did notice among the Taiwan makes. As another poster has stated,and as you have eluded to as well, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if there aren't a number of machine builders with everyone doing something just a bit different at every place. One common thing I did notice was the cast-in letter M was on number of machines (add ACRA to that list too.) Every Taiwanese machine I had ever seen has an M on it, well except for Victor and Cadillac. The M wasn't painted black either.

Thats just kind of the way things are these days, with everyone squeezing the last cent out of production costs by even moving whole production lines every couple of years to entirely new locations. Which of course maximizes yields for the share holders, but doesn't do much for people who depend on steady inome by doing machine work.

You are actually starting to see that with most every industry too. Toyota just a few weeks before the tsunami hit, had remarked to the world how they more or less plan on having "mobile plants". This way they can reset-up any place manufacturing their goods with relatively low costs and of course chasing that last cent. When the tsunami hit, they have even greater reason now to be flexible. They have even been floating (no pun intended) the idea of moving their world headquarters to the USA because of the problems with the yen vs the dollar.

My real question is, how imperative is it that a company be #1 versus say #3? Or more directly, why is earning a living so much worse than making a killing? Sure anyone given a standard to manufacture to will most of the time try to live to that setting. Even Chinese components have come a long ways in quality and I have no doubts will be better as they get the hang of things. There is no reason to not believe this.

But who are they going to sell to, once they have driven the markets for labor into the ground? In a consumer driven economy, labor is you consumer. If you kill off your labor base, even you competitors labor base, who will buy anything? How will anyone buy anything?

I am done ranting now. Let's get back to our Scooby Doo mystery already in progress.
 








 
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