# Grizzly G0765 Saddle Surface, General Quality Woes (despite Low Expectations)



## whiskylogic

I recently took delivery of my G0765 7x14 mini lathe, and it's somehow exceeding expectations - in a bad way.

Now, before I get into the issues, I just want to say that I wasn't expecting a showroom fresh Hardinge when I bought this thing - I was expecting an import-quality, poorly pre-assembled, atrociously filthy lathe.  And that's what I got.  But somehow it was a bit worse than I anticipated (and I did *a lot* of research on customer experiences with these lathes).

I didn't even run it before tearing it down, knowing full well the amount of grit and gutter-oil this thing was 'rust-proofed' with (I think they wipe these down with sump-sludge before they ship them).  The teardown and cleaning took forever, and after 2 boxes of Q-tips and a couple gallons of isopropanol, I think it's clean enough to start reassembly.

A lot of the 'fit and finish' stuff I expected I'd work through as I went along, but there are a handful of issues I need to address now - if for no other reason than I feel like I might actually damage the lathe by running these parts as they are.

I would be extremely grateful if anyone intimately familiar with these import mini lathes could chime in with their experiences.  I'm particularly curious if my lathe is 'standard fare' for these things, or if I managed to get a particularly bad example (in which case I might take it up with Grizzly).

As of right now, I don't know if these are defects or just the usual "you get what you pay for".

Now, my brother is a CNC machinist, and he's happy to help, so I'll be leaning on him a lot as I go through this, but I can't just hand off parts and say "here, make this not suck, please".  So any direction on what operations make sense to correct these issues, would also be *greatly* appreciated.

Well then, on with the show:








The two images above are of the saddle (seats?  faces?  unsure of the nomenclature, but they're intended to ride on the bed's ways).  The majority of those tool marks look to be about 10 thou deep.  I just can't run these as-is.  I was going to ask my brother to clean these up, but I don't even know what that entails.

There's no real reference surface I can see (save for maybe the cross slide dovetail, but I'm pretty sure its 'scraped' surface is purely cosmetic), and cutting the vee's depth such that its hypotenuse is the level with the other seat (after also being cut) - while maintaining planar-parallelism and orthogonality with the cross slide dovetail - seems like an awfully tall order, especially as a favor to ask of my brother using machines 'between setups'.

These next images are of the cross slide gib, however all the dovetail gibs on this machine are nearly identical (merely shorter).







The burrs are obvious to see, but easy enough to take care of I suppose.  What concerns me more is the severe lack of straightness (seen against a Starrett straight edge resting on a pair of 123 blocks) , as well as the completely wonky gib-screw engagement (which likely wasn't helped by the fact that they used socket-head-caps-screws in lieu of cone-point set screws).

I'm not sure what to do here either.  I feel like attempting to straighten them will only make matters worse, and those screw engagement points leave me worried that they'll be inclined to pivot and bind somehow.  I'm also less-than-certain that the gib screw holes are drilled entirely straight.

Next, the half nuts:










Err, yeah.  Casting voids, extremely roughly machined - or whittled with a chisel?  Can this possibly be 'normal' for these things?

I'm not exactly sure what to do here.

Lastly (of immediate concern, anyway), there's the ways.  These look pretty good, actually, though the only actual measurement I've taken is thickness, of which there was less than .020 mm variance over the length of the bed (only 10 or so points checked).  Parallelism and surface irregularity are unknown at this point.  There are, however, a couple issues which appear to be purely cosmetic, but I thought I would let those more knowledgeable than I weigh in.







The first picture is some casting voids in the 'rear' way, which I don't believe anything rides on (hence my assumption that it's cosmetic).  The second is the vee way under the headstock.  Is this normal?  Either way, can I call it 'cosmetic' since nothing should sit on the crest of the vee way anyway?  Some of those serrations are better than 10 thou deep.

And that's it for this first post.  The headstock and tailstock both concern me immensely, as I imagine I'll find a lot of issues with bed alignment, concentricity, and general parallelism (especially given their mating surfaces are almost as bad as the saddle's) - but I thought it best to get it back together and take some actual measurements, before just assuming they'll be garbage out of the box.

I'd also like to apologize for such a novelesque post, and thank anyone who responds in advance for taking the time to share their wisdom.  I've had this thing torn down for nearly a week, chewing on (and researching) what to do about the above items the whole while.  I'm still stumped.  I'm also anxious to get it back together and start turning.  Any and all help is immensely appreciated.

Thanks!

Edit - I didn't realize the images would be so heavily resized.  A  lot of the detail was lost, which makes some things (the saddle in particular) look less severe.  If anyone would like more detailed photos, I can find alternate hosting.

Edit 2 - Realized I forgot to add some pictures that were discussed in the text.  Editing again to rectify that.


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## tomh

I assume you bought this new? if so I would send the pictures to grizzly and see what they say!
Yes, you have a reason to be unhappy with it, even for $500. +- ??  
This is going to haunt you and never give much more than marginal results at best.  
Also keeping in mind  that's going to be a lot more work than it may seem at this point.


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## whiskylogic

tomh said:


> I assume you bought this new? if so I would send the pictures to grizzly and see what they say!
> Yes, you have a reason to be unhappy with it, even for $500. +- ??
> This is going to haunt you and never give much more than marginal results at best.
> Also keeping in mind  that's going to be a lot more work than it may seem at this point.



Yes sir, G0765 (manufactured 05/2016) - purchased new on 9/24/2016 for the sum of $599 shipped (freight center pickup).

There are a lot of issues with this lathe out of the box, but I expected the majority of them based on my research.

What I've seen *so far* (still haven't checked out headstock/tailstock alignment/truth):

Approximately 25% of screws/bolts were severely galled when removed (thank goodness they're made of cheese-grade steel - so while the hardware is shot, the holes appear okay after chasing)

Burrs on every machined edge (beyond burrs, really; most are more like full chips that didn't leave the edge)

Deep tool marks in everything (I think the 'scraped' surfaces are done cosmetically, they're only on the faces a casual showroom-viewer would see - and you can still see tool marks underneath/at the edges if you look close.  I'll do my best to verify this on the surface plate at work when I have time.) 

Gibs are warped and have extreme burrs
Gib screw holes in the cross slide and compound look 'eyeballed' (do not appear straight nor colinear)

SHCS in place of set screws for gibs (parts diagram/table shows set screws)

Exploded-view drawing in manual shows incorrect tailstock

The compound angle setting arrow looks like it was haphazardly whacked-in with a cold chisel (off center and angled on two axes)

Long pan head screws cut and ground down (head and shank) for use as short flat head countersunk screws
Detent springs made from cut-down longer springs
General filth (I was expecting it to be horrifically filthy, and I was still shocked at how much black sooty grit I scrubbed from every nook and cranny)
Thick black paint used as some kind of pseudo-black-oxide on hardware
Saddle plate screws mixed-and-matched (5 of 6 were long set screws with lock nuts, the final 1 of 6 was half length and missing a lock nut)
Nauseating surface finish on saddle seats
Saddle seat oil passage seems incorrectly cut
Half nuts appear hand-whittled with a claw hammer
Ball oilers literally fall out of their bores when turned upside-down

Lathe ways have curious voids and tool marks - even if only cosmetic
Apron handwheel gear has malformed teeth and shaft that was brought down diametrically with what looks like an angle grinder
Headstock and tailstock seats appear rough-milled only (though not as bad as the half nuts), making their ultimate truth the the bed's ways questionable.
EMO button was somehow covered in filth from the factory

Mains wires draped over power resistor in motor controller housing
And this was only a basic disassembly/cleaning.  Who knows what I'll discover once I have it reassembled and start poking around with an indicator.

Now - again - I **stress** that I was fully expecting a '_Horrible Fright_' quality lathe.  I went with Grizzly because of the great things I heard about their customer service.

I live in a 1 bedroom 4th floor apartment in the city, else I'd have scooped up one of the Atlas/South Bend/Hardinge/LeBlond/ect. lathes floating around on Craigslist.

I've been champing at the bit for a few decades to get involved in hobby machining, and despite being a cheap import lathe, this was me 'taking the plunge', rather than waiting another decade until I could afford/accommodate more serious iron.

Someday I'll have a place with a basement/garage and I'll populate it with something of more distinguished lineage.  Until then, an import mini lathe must suffice.

What I was expecting was something I could tweak and finesse and make some halfway decent parts on, and learn proper technique with.

The majority of the things mentioned in this post fall in line with that intent, and are relatively easily overcome.

The issues in the first post, however, I'm quite unsure how to handle.  I've contacted Grizzly (with pictures), and currently await a response.

Even after the issues from the first post are addressed, I'm growing more nervous by the day to see how the headstock/tailstock/bed alignment plays out.

One thing at a time, I suppose...


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## whiskylogic

For anyone curious, Grizzly's response was to tell me that all the machine marks were considered normal production quality (yikes).  They did, however, offer to replace the half-nuts due to the casting voids in the thread area (which, to me, seem like they should be less of a problem than the dovetail surface finish, but I'm clearly no expert).  

Some preliminary measurements on the saddle show just about everything to be pretty bad.  The cross slide dovetail appears tapered, the cross slide flat ways' plane is not parallel to the flat saddle 'seat', the cross slide flat ways are not flat (compared to a Starrett straight edge) - showing considerable bow in the middle, and I can't speak to the saddle's truth with regard to the lathe bed, but I suppose it's somewhat moot considering how far out all the other surfaces are.

I think I'm just going to ask my brother to square up to the apron edge and cut a single surface clean to a establish a datum - bringing the other surfaces back in from there.

If this really is how these things are fresh out of the box, I'm astonished that anyone manages to turn anything even vaguely cylindrical.


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## Ulma Doctor

most of the mainland china lathes will have symptoms similar or worse than yours
the object of the mainland china factories are to fill container ships with product, regardless of the quality.
there are 2 kinds of machines in these factories:

1: if they can assemble it and slap some paint on it, it goes to the pass side of the (rigorous ) inspection process

2:if they can't assemble or paint it, it goes to engineering for re-fitting ( ) and prompt loading into a container for immediate departure.

the fits and finish are deplorable at best, i say that in the most respectful of way.
i owned a HF 7x10 and marveled at how something so poorly quality controlled could be put to market with a straight face.
luckily i got mine second hand from a fellow all too happy to share the experience and joy of a mainland chinese lathe, at half the original cost with tooling!

Taiwanese made machine tools are vastly superior, they take pride in their stuff 
it is economy minded, but the fits, finish and quality are very good.

when i was looking to tweak the 7x10, luckily i found  Varmit Al's website and was able to make vast improvements.
i did not go to the depth to consider scraping my 7x10, but it would have made further improvements.

i'd like to see you go where i did not.
scraping the lathe in will be challenging , but will end with a respectable machine tool.
keep us posted!


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## mikey

Not to be the voice of doom but have you considered sending it back? With that list of issues, I would personally not accept a new machine like that. Just because its Chinese we have gotten used to the idea that those machines are a kit waiting for numerous defects to be fixed so they work the way they should but this is sort of beyond that if you ask me. I know all the arguments about cost vs the machine you get but this list is like, well, its really rather impressive. If it was me, I would be calling Grizzly for an RMA.


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## w6br

Hello Gentlemen,
Approx. a year ago I purchased a Grizzly G8588 7X12 mini-Lathe and found the same exact condition as yours. One thing good that I can say about Grizzly is that they stand behind their products and know the conditions of their equipment - that being said, they happily replaced several items of the Lathe, mainly the split nuts, plastic gears, some metal gears, and other items that I can't remember now - Oldheimers!!  I did do quite a bit of work on the ways, gibs until they became pretty smooth and functional. A friend for warned me about having to do quite a bit of clean up work, but quite frankly, for the price $495.00, I still think that I got a good machine, and I have had many enjoyable hours doing work(playing) on it.

And yes, I also have a Rong Fu Mill that was manufactured in Taiwan, and yes there is a big difference. But then again, it did not cost $500.00.

All in all, we allowed our wonderful manufacturing plants to disappear for the most part and now we suffer the consequences. 

Ron


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## turn2

I just bought a G0765. I didn't disassemble it the way you did, but some of the "defects"" you are concerned about are truly non-issues. The areas of heavy machining marks are typically non-load bearing surfaces and are only for clearance. The machined surfaces that show some voids are pretty much normal for cast iron sand castings. Most of the other issues are typical for the cheaper forms of manufacturing and that's what one should expect when buying these very inexpensive machine tools.

I've only cut some 6061 aluminum with cheap brazed tooling and the stock tool post, which leaves a lot to be desired, but the machine is holding +/- 0.001 on diameter fairly easily. It makes thin cuts (0.002 on dia) cleanly which is testament to it's rigidity. I've used the tail stock to drill and it performs well. All-in-all, I'm pretty happy with this little lathe.


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