Johnford CNC Lathe

It is time for me to expand to the next level in my cnc dept. and I am considering the johnford cnc lathe. I'm not sure which size I am going to get at this time, but I plan on going to Ga. to look at them. Does anyone have any experience with these machines as far as operation and maintenance issues that can help steer me to concerns I might have? I did have my heart set on a Hardinge, but the last experience I had with their service has completely turned me off to that possibility. The things I do know I need are at least a 10" chuck and a programmable tailstock. I would like 20" between centers and at least 2" through the spindle. One thing I will mention about the tailstock is that I do not want a programmable quill but the whole tailstock.

Did you check the search function on this site? I think it'll answer some of your questions.

I wouldn't touch one, mostly considering how many high quality name brands are out there now with good prices.

edthecncman said:

I did have my heart set on a Hardinge, but the last experience I had with their service has completely turned me off to that possibility.

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That's too bad. Although Hardinge doesn't service me directly, I had no problems with them when my SV-200 blew a Fanuc drive. (Under warranty thank goodness.) They overnighted a drive and the cnc tech. installed it and had the machine running the next day.

One of my buddies has a Johnford lathe with live tools and tailstock; not as big as the one you're looking for, but he seems to like it. Although last time I talked with him he mumbled something about Nakamura-Tome.

What in particular grabs you about the Johnford? Are you looking at any other "budget" machines like Haas, Daewoo, Yama Seiki, Hwacheon, YCM, etc?

Take a look at a Hwacheon.

I looked at a Hwacheon about 6-8 months ago and liked what I saw. Unfortunately I wanted a robodrill first to do a long running aluminum job. I ran into one problem after another while trying to finance the thing. It took so long for me to figure out that methods was not willing to do what it took to get the deal done that When I finally ended up buying a used robodrill from an outfit in long island, I was 6 weeks late with the first shipment and lost the job. This was 20-30,000 a month in gravy for me. By the way, I could'nt be happier with the robodrill. It is fast and accurate. I just wish that I could run it more than 3 days a week.

OUCH!


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Bet'n he wished he didn't ask that!
Ox


I bet for a $100 bri .... donation to the site - the moderator could make this thread dissappear.

There is more to that story that meets the eye, and I am not going to go into it here.

"STAY AWAY' Johnford is a POS. read my other post. the service sucks, the installers use a 6" torpedo level, the service is pathetic at best. our SDMC-6000 had to be repaired every week. everything from a new drive belt to a new spindle in less than a month. the wires johnford use in the looms are single strand wires (like a Phone wire) our machine could only funtion at one end of the bed until they totaly had to rewire the intire loom). they pour way oil out faster than the exon valdeeze. yougi and johnford are the two biggest pieces of $h!t there is. there was one installed in Agusta awhile back and the gantry broke during setup. the customer told them to take it back so Absolute/Flint had the casting welded back up and sold it as a new one to some other sucker. they use a spindle bearing that is propriatary to them and there is only a few available. I asked how long it would take to get a replacement and they said around 4 months. the acuracies are gonna be maybe .0005 in 6" at best on ours we had a .017 taper in 30". on our mill it came out faster to change tools by hand. and even then we had to beat them out with a thore hammer. read my post about ripping tools out of the spindle. you'll get a kick out of it. If your looking for economical go with a viper. for the same money you'll get a geared head, 21t control, probably live tools and a heavier machine.

G-coder...

Would you stop beating around the bush and tell us exatcly how you feel about Johnford machines?

straight shooter right there that g-coder

"our SDMC-6000 had to be repaired every week." G-coder, Is that the only Johnford you have used? I have had good experiece with Johnford vmc`s and Dmc´s. Our Dmc-2600 is about year old and we haven´t had any big issues with it. The accuracy in our machine is 0.0005 at 12" which I think is quite good. The toolchange is slow but we are a job shop, so it is not a big problem for us. I wouldn´t have a problem buying Johnford lathes also.