Giday
Trying to get in touch with PapaGrizzly! Tried a PM but his mailbox is full and the system won't send him the message.
I've got a number of Grizzly machines, from belt sanders to molder/planers and table saws, they make some of the best machines around and I'm looking for some help buying a new Gunsmith's Lathe, please!!
Thanks,
Nick
[email protected]
Almost to the exact same day last year (Nov 25, 2013, Nov 30, 2013) you posted this same question about a gunsmith lathe, and Grizzly. Those threads were locked.
So why haven't you purchased it within the last year?
If you look back at the many years of Grizzly, they would show (and advertise) in their catalog that they had a complete machine shop for remachining and grinding their wood working tools. Why do you think that is. It saves money not destressing cast iron castings.
So I have a grizzly 14" table saw, very happy with it, and an oscillating drum sander, also happy, as well their polar bear 17" bandsaw. I have their 18x40 metal lathe. Which was a special sale (and not a catalog item). What I found was many parts were made from incorrectly machined parts. The China manufacture didn't want to scrap almost good enough parts. The D1-8 cam locks on the spindle, none of them have the detent in the 0 degree, they are all off by 5-10 degrees, making chuck removal a pain as they catch on the studs of the chuck backplate. The tailstock had the quill with an incorrect MT4 machining error (tang would hang up), and as it was heat treated I had them send me the one from their 'parts' lathe (when their gone, there's no support). This (quill) was 0.003 inches larger in diameter then mine, so I had to grind it down, lucky a center would fit in the existing quill, so I could grind this on the machine, as my other lathe is a baby 10x20 bench lathe. The 4 hole pattern on the tailstock lead screw nut assembly, was not 90 degree angle located, I can't imaging how it was made. So much for interchangeable parts.
When I powered it up, using a RFC, one of the main motor contactors developed a short between phases. What kind of cheap plastics did they use that could fail this way, but it was a permanent short. Sure grizzly sent me parts, and have an excellent support department, ....but they need it.
The front panel electric switches have all been replaced. The emergency off button was damaged in shipping. But looking at them, their quality is substandard. Plastics are brittle.
I have no idea what else may be wrong with it. Headstock gear box seems OK. Same with feed gears. I do have a problem with apron leaking oil, and false tripping of overload clutch (I've adjusted it, but a pain as the cover plate removal also dumps the oil).
But it was a great deal at $7500 (2004). And as it weighed 5600lbs, I kept it as I paid a rigging company $1200 (and $750 to grizzly shipping) to take it from a local loading dock, and place it in my shop. It's ridged, but if I knew of the issues before purchasing and delivery, I would have looked elsewhere.
Now look at their parts department. They are not stocking parts, so when something needs replacing, they may or may not be able to order it.
They could not do anything about getting me a taper attachment, but I got lucky and got one from a 20" lathe (they had on sale as the lathe was no longer available), and I was able to make it fit with out too much issue. But you have to have other machine tools so you can fix or make parts for your grizzly.
The compound slide, gib adjustment bottomed out, so it had play in it. I had to make a new adjustment screw to extend the range. The cross slide way surface was not ground. You can see the rough swirls of the machine cutter. OK this may be an improvement to hold oil better over scrape frosting
.
The one thing China can do is get the lathe headstock spindle parallel to the ways (I've never heard of any complaints but your results may vary). Their castings may be questionable, and are typically referred to as pre-assembled kits, which need the sand removed from them. If they copied an existing design, then you can expect a pretty good machine, if they tried inventing some value engineering cost reduction, you may not be happy with the product.
For lathes, the one problem I had seen for years was the cross feed and compound screws were 1/8", not 1/10 or 1/5. My guess is that they looked at a SAE tape measure and saw fractional 1/8", and determined that was the US measuring system. My 18x40 uses 5mm lead screws. So for inch, you have to watch it. But a DRO fixed that problem.
Lastly, you will need to replace the 3 jaw chuck with a good one. As the one for my lathe exceeded 18 thou runout. I've not tried to grind the jaw, but I would suspect the scroll is not accurate enough. So another $800 (from memory) for a Bison 12" and backplate set tru.
It can hog cuts, I did find a limitation to a quick change Phase II version of the Aloris, If your trepanning in steel, the wedge lock is not enough holding strength to hold the tool bit. And the holder stop, is not strong enough as it just bent out of the way. Probably my ignorance of this cutting operation, but I know now.
