Price Point or Size for Better Quality?

[pontiac428]

As far as Taiwan machines go, I've always thought the Victors look solid. Congratulations on your purchase. Take pics, and be really, really careful moving it into its final home. Buying an extra pizza for a few additional hands is a lot easier to manage than a topple; I learned my lesson the hard way along with several others in the goofs and blunders thread.

 

[David2011]

Pontiac, thanks and I appreciate your advice. When I bought the Index 645 mill recently I made some imitation machinery movers from HF car dollies and 2x8 lumber. They’re about 3‘ wide per set and they were adequate for the mill. The lathe is about 1000 pounds lighter. I’ll rent a drop bed trailer from Sunbelt Rentals which is worth every penny. It lets me roll the machine directly from the trailer into the shop. I expect a really easy move. The seller is a commercial machinery buyer/reseller and he will load it for me. All I have to do is get the lathe onto the dollies and roll it into the shop.

Another happy note. The QCTP is an AXA rather than a BXA. Great! I have a bunch of AXA tool holders already. This is going to be a nice upgrade from my Grizzly 11x26. Going from belt changes for spindle speeds to a gearhead, back to a full quick change gear box like my Jet lathe had, carriage cross feeds, left hand threading (needed that a couple of weeks ago) and jumping from 1 HP to 3 HP. As Dudley Moore said, “It doesn’t suck.”

 

[rwdenney]

I think I saw that machine online (since you mentioned it was commercial seller) and it looked really good. Congratulations!

Rick “echoing the advice about toppling—they don’t seem top heavy until they are on their side” Denney

 

[David2011]

Here's a seller's picture of the machine and a picture of the mill on the dollies.

 

[verbotenwhisky]

Is there a price point or size at which Grizzly lathes start getting better? The used market in my area (250 mile radius of Houston) is pitiful for lathes in the 14 inch and under range. The few I have seen in recent months are missing important things like the tailstock and steady rest, electrical panels are off and other red flags. The G9972Z that I am currently using has too many shortcomings for the work I'm doing to be efficient and the cross feed is not true to the dial dimensions. (Yes, I could put a dial indicator on it but my mill is an Index that is dead on and I love its accuracy.) I would love nothing better than to find a good, not worn out 12"-14" gear head lathe or would even entertain a belt driven head with a full quick change gearbox, back gears or otherwise 75 rpm minimum spindle speed, left hand threading, power cross feed in and out and no less than 1-3/8" bore. I would buy a good used Monarch 10EE but the 20" centers is just too small. Is there a Grizzly that approaches the quality of a moderately used American/Taiwanese/European machine in the 12"-14" range? I'm getting too old to spend 5 years searching and don't trust buying over the Internet.

Just throwing it out there, I very much like my PM1236, PM orders them with imperial lead screws which I like and it hasn't failed to do what I have asked of it. The gear box is a bit chunky but since I do not shift on the fly and its not a synchronized box I have no issues with that.

 

[verbotenwhisky]

I understand that it's a 4 hour drive from Houston to Ft. Worth where HGR's TX warehouse is, but I bet you'd get a lot more machine for your money if you made the trip. Their machines are under power for hands-on to suit your needs. I hear they've got shelves of chucks and accessories to pick through... Rent a trailer there for a one-way haul. Use the trip as an excuse to treat your partner to a night out. Just putting it out there since you aren't getting a warm fuzzy out of your import machine catalog shopping.

Depends upon which part of Houston your in, on a good day it will take you an hour to go from the south side to the north side on the interstate, with traffic it can easily double. If your going to rent a trailer in Texas you'll want to pick it up round trip, u-haul has gotten stupid about it.

 

[David2011]

Just throwing it out there, I very much like my PM1236, PM orders them with imperial lead screws which I like and it hasn't failed to do what I have asked of it. The gear box is a bit chunky but since I do not shift on the fly and its not a synchronized box I have no issues with that.

The guy that sold me the Grizzly 11x26 that I have now purchased a PM1236. I looked very hard at that model with the premium package that included a foot brake and other niceties but didn't care for the requirement to use change gears right in the middle of the range of threading I typically cut so that was a disqualifier. I didn't want to be changing gears to change threads or feeds.

 

[David2011]

Depends upon which part of Houston your in, on a good day it will take you an hour to go from the south side to the north side on the interstate, with traffic it can easily double. If your going to rent a trailer in Texas you'll want to pick it up round trip, u-haul has gotten stupid about it.

I'll second that. From my house to the seller who is off of 59 North and E. Mount Houston was an hour and that's pretty much all the same side of town. I rented a drop bed trailer earlier today for the move tomorrow. The people at Sunbelt are friendly to the home user unlike some companies that only want to deal with commercial customers. This is my second rental from them recently. Picture of the trailer from moving my mill below.

 

[David2011]

I understand that it's a 4 hour drive from Houston to Ft. Worth where HGR's TX warehouse is, but I bet you'd get a lot more machine for your money if you made the trip. Their machines are under power for hands-on to suit your needs. I hear they've got shelves of chucks and accessories to pick through... Rent a trailer there for a one-way haul. Use the trip as an excuse to treat your partner to a night out. Just putting it out there since you aren't getting a warm fuzzy out of your import machine catalog shopping.

Just wanted to update. I have been watching the HGR website; they just didn't have anything in FW that fit what I wanted. They have a good selection but most were physically larger than my shop will accommodate. I will keep them in mind for accessories. I have a cousin that lives just south of FW so more than one reason to visit the area.

 

[David2011]

. . . And just when things seemed to be falling in place so well, I went to Sunbelt Rentals to pick up the trailer and it turns out that they didn't have one like the one in the photo above and hadn't had one for maybe 2 months. This was after the agent confirmed the price. Not a happy camper. The seller didn't seem to be unhappy when I called him and we'll continue next week after the commercial places like United Rentals are open.