Received my G0765 lathe yesterday with freight damage....why am I not surprised?

[AndyH44]

Control box and gear cover both damaged...Grizzly will replace. Did some initial testing and found the low range RPMs won't reach spec, and the high range goes over spec. Hmmmm....some pot adjusting in order here. Did a facing test and found an out of squareness issue of about .006 on a 1" diameter work piece! WHOA! No adjustments for this either. Maybe I'll just be sending this one back.

 

[Sitting on Blocks Racing]

Did you break it in per the manual? My speeds normalized once it was run in as the instruction manual stated.

 

[AndyH44]

Did you break it in per the manual? My speeds normalized once it was run in as the instruction manual stated.

Yes! Followed it to the letter. The tech rep said to adjust the pots, but he couldn't tell me which pot controls what. Going to contact Grizzly again Monday and get "issues" resolved.

 

[RJSakowski]

Control box and gear cover both damaged...Grizzly will replace. Did some initial testing and found the low range RPMs won't reach spec, and the high range goes over spec. Hmmmm....some pot adjusting in order here. Did a facing test and found an out of squareness issue of about .006 on a 1" diameter work piece! WHOA! No adjustments for this either. Maybe I'll just be sending this one back.

I assume that by out of squareness, you are referring to turning a slightly tapered face rather than a perfectly flat face. I also assume that you are controlling cutting conditions so that cutting pressure is not deflecting your tool and creating a taper.

I bought a G0602 lathe a little over a year ago and had similar issues. I turned a diameter on a rigid cylinder at two different distances from the chuck. The measurements showed an inward taper of several thousandths as I moved away from the chuck, indicating a non-parallelism between the spindle axis and the bed ways. The headstock on my lathe is bolted to the bed with four studs. Loosening them and adjusting slightly vastly improved things. On my lathe, the rear studs are under the motor and the front studs are inside control housing, requiring removal of the front panel. You can see the location of the mounting holes on your lathe in the parts diagram.

If your ways and spindle axis are parallel and you still have tapered facings, you have bigger problem as the cross feed ways are ground to be perpendicular to the bed ways and there is no way of changing that other than a regrind.

I assume that these lathes are shipped over on container ships and that they could be severely jostled around in heavy seas. It is possible that they could have gone out of alignment during shipping. I believe that Grizzly claims to inspect each machine stateside but, having bought four large machines in the past five years, I have seen no evidence that the machines had been uncrated stateside. Certainly not to the extent of checking alignment.

I have generally found Grizzly machines to be well designed and built considering their cost. That said, I have not had any that I could not and did not improve with careful alignment and modifications. If you are indeed considering returning the lathe for another, remember that the next one may have similar problems; kind of like Russian roulette.

I have generally found Grizzly customer service to be willing and helpful. It helps to go into the conversation with clear explanation of the problem. Good luck with your new lathe!

Best,

Bob

 

[great white]

Just an observation: could not the inpacts that caused damages to the covers not have also "jostled" the headstock/ways alignment?

Seems like a logical scenario to me.....

 

[AndyH44]

Just an observation: could not the inpacts that caused damages to the covers not have also "jostled" the headstock/ways alignment?

Seems like a logical scenario to me.....

Don't think so as the covers are just cheap plastic and it doesn't take much to hurt them. The headstock seems to be aligned to the bed ways as I can turn a 3" long piece and get no taper. I believe the saddle is at fault as I get a .005 convex face on a 1" diameter piece! That is unacceptable!

 

[AndyH44]

I assume that by out of squareness, you are referring to turning a slightly tapered face rather than a perfectly flat face. I also assume that you are controlling cutting conditions so that cutting pressure is not deflecting your tool and creating a taper.

I bought a G0602 lathe a little over a year ago and had similar issues. I turned a diameter on a rigid cylinder at two different distances from the chuck. The measurements showed an inward taper of several thousandths as I moved away from the chuck, indicating a non-parallelism between the spindle axis and the bed ways. The headstock on my lathe is bolted to the bed with four studs. Loosening them and adjusting slightly vastly improved things. On my lathe, the rear studs are under the motor and the front studs are inside control housing, requiring removal of the front panel. You can see the location of the mounting holes on your lathe in the parts diagram.

If your ways and spindle axis are parallel and you still have tapered facings, you have bigger problem as the cross feed ways are ground to be perpendicular to the bed ways and there is no way of changing that other than a regrind.

I assume that these lathes are shipped over on container ships and that they could be severely jostled around in heavy seas. It is possible that they could have gone out of alignment during shipping. I believe that Grizzly claims to inspect each machine stateside but, having bought four large machines in the past five years, I have seen no evidence that the machines had been uncrated stateside. Certainly not to the extent of checking alignment.

I have generally found Grizzly machines to be well designed and built considering their cost. That said, I have not had any that I could not and did not improve with careful alignment and modifications. If you are indeed considering returning the lathe for another, remember that the next one may have similar problems; kind of like Russian roulette.

I have generally found Grizzly customer service to be willing and helpful. It helps to go into the conversation with clear explanation of the problem. Good luck with your new lathe!

Best,

Bob

Yes, it appears the saddle is out of square as I get a .005 convex error when facing a 1" diameter piece! There is no way this machine was inspected in the U.S.; at least by a person with 20-20 uncorrected vision! I will be contacting them today with what I've found. Maybe I can just swap out the saddle.........ondering:

 

[AndyH44]

The Good News......

Grizzly agreed to send a new replacement saddle........but I will have to do the replacing. No problem with that but I really believe that these lathes should not have to be QC'd by the customer. Minor issues....OK, but having to replace a major component due to the manufacturer's failure to inspect a critical function is really a sore point with me.
I did request that the squareness of the replacement saddle be verified prior to sending. Hopefully, that isn't asking too much. ondering:

 

[qualitymachinetools]

That is not going to work. The saddles are scraped and fit by hand to the ways. And then the height of the bottom, where the apron connects, will also probably be a lot different.

The saddle is going to have a part where it sits on top of the ways, and its going to be nearly impossible to fit it yourself.

That is just not going to work out for you.

If its really .005" Off on facing just a 1" part, that should be so crooked that you can see it!

 

[qualitymachinetools]

Are you sure the carriage is not pushing away from the part as you are facing it off? I am just asking, I have no idea how much experience you have or anything, but I have had that happen more than a few times. So just wanted to ask that.

Grizzly is our competition, but I've never seen anything like that or even close to that bad, on any machine.