Why Is South Bend On Sale?

[frostheave]

I see most South Bend Lathes and several Milling Machines are on sale at Grizzly. A quick look showed some lathes are over $7,000 dollars off! I wonder what that means...

Bob

 

[chips&more]

Why not ask Grizzly directly? That might be your best answer?

 

[woodtickgreg]

Either they are getting realistic with the pricing (not likely) Or southbends are going bye bye again, or someone else will be distributing them. Happens all the time.

 

[Bob Korves]

Maybe they found out that Asian lathes with an old school U.S. name don't really fool anybody. The original prices were also WAY out of line for what they are... IMO...

 

[4GSR]

The US machine tool sales market is slow right now. Sales are down. They are trying to get sales to create revenue for the month or quarter.

 

[Eddyde]

Yeah they're on sale and I still can't afford them

 

[ARKnack]

It means Chinese junk is still Chinese junks regardless of the name you slap on it. More than likely they milked the name and it will now be sold.

 

[Bob Korves]

Grizzly seems to work really hard to give their customers a feeling that their machines are better than others that look pretty much the same except for the color. And maybe they are, though talk is cheaper and easier than getting better products from a Chinese factory. Not to say it can't be done, and perhaps their stuff is actually better quality than the competition. Grizzly also has seemed to have done well by adding additional features to the generic Chinese machines, making for good advertising and higher pricing by adding "gunsmith", "toolroom" and other buzzwords to their products to distinguish them from the pack. Buying the South Bend name carried that approach to the next level. Whether the advertised extra quality is actually true or not is another question altogether. The market will decide...
Disclaimer: I do not own any Grizzly machines, and only have a few of their tools. My perception of their quality has been mixed.

 

[Steve Shannon]

It means Chinese junk is still Chinese junks regardless of the name you slap on it. More than likely they milked the name and it will now be sold.

My understanding was that the South Bend line was Taiwanese. Although the ethnicity is Chinese, I can tell you that the standards are not necessarily the same. I worked there years ago and the engineers I worked with appreciated German, American, and Japanese tool quality and at least at that time detested Chinese tools. They should not be lumped into the same characterization.


Steve Shannon, P.E.

 

[Andre]

Unless you have experience with "Chinese junk" please don't dismiss it. I know a few people personally who have had very good luck with larger grizzly lathes.