# It is the best of times, it is the worst of times...



## maker of things (Sep 3, 2014)

I placed my order today for a PM1440E- LB with DRO.  I'm trying to make it fun, like an 8 year old expecting lots of toys on a special holiday.  But delayed gratification in the Amazon age is sooo hard.  
  In the meantime there is an empty spot in my shop.


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## drs23 (Sep 3, 2014)

If there is a bright side, at least you have a lathe in the mean time. Pity us poor saps that were latheless until our hunks showed up.


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## zmotorsports (Sep 3, 2014)

Awesome.  Congrats on the order.  Keep us posted with follow up pictures when you get it.

Mike.


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## okent (Sep 4, 2014)

Such a sad little 9X20 on the back wall....I have it's brother.
Congrats on the bigger lathe!  Keep us posted.


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## Falcon67 (Sep 4, 2014)

Waddayamean no overnight free shipping!  :lol:  Good fun, "PM" marks the spot.  The only issue I see with having two lathes is that people think you know what you're doing.


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## maker of things (Sep 4, 2014)

Falcon67 said:


> "PM" marks the spot.


I had to carefully layout the spot to find a big enough piece of concrete so it would sit all on one chunk.




Falcon67 said:


> The only issue I see with having two lathes is that people think you know what you're doing.


I hope I don't get in trouble for false advertising! I'm certainly a long way from that.


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## maker of things (Sep 10, 2014)

Yesterday Matt gave me around a 10 day window till ship.  Hoping to ship by 9-19.  Guess I have a little time to get that oil.


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## maker of things (Sep 27, 2014)

Last night Matt said the lathe was picked up by the carrier.  Hopefully I will have it by next weekend!


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## Chip (Sep 27, 2014)

That is awesome! I am strongly considering that up against the Grizzly G4003G. Although not quite apples to apples, each has its own pro's and con's.

My big hangup on the PM1440E-LB is the lack of reviews and high resolution pictures to judge the construction and workmanship. The price is also considerably higher, but with the DRO and included shipping on the PM it balances things out a bit.

You would do folks like myself a HUGE FAVOR if you could help rectify that some by taking a few minutes with a cell phone camera to take some high resolution pictures of the bells and whistles of your pride and joy once it is up and running.

I'm not gonna lie, Matt seems like a super guy and all, but his public website needs a little help. I'm having a hard time making a $5000 leap of faith based on this lack of good quality pictures and descriptions.


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## qualitymachinetools (Sep 28, 2014)

Oh trust me, I know the web site needs help. Big help. One thing when comparing to Grizzly though, any photos that you see on our site are NOT edited. You can't see anything they have close up, because the pics are all completely edited for a web site.
   I have met with at least 10 web designers, and end up in the same boat every time. No one can do anything near what I think looks good at all. I am not a web designer, I am a machine guy. I just met with another person today about doing a site, who sounds promising again, but we will see. Always the same story!

 There are all these web sites out there, and I can never find anyone to make one that I like. And its not like I am offering them $2500 to do it, the last one quoted $15,000, and still I thought what they were doing was horrible.

 There should be reviews on that machine though, there are a lot of them out there. Give me a call if you have any questions about it too. I know all of the machines very well, inside and out.


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## qualitymachinetools (Sep 28, 2014)

And yes Jon, if you are only in Michigan, you will have your machine this week!


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## wrmiller (Sep 28, 2014)

:thumbzup3:


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## GA Gyro (Sep 28, 2014)

qualitymachinetools said:


> Oh trust me, I know the web site needs help. Big help. One thing when comparing to Grizzly though, any photos that you see on our site are NOT edited. You can't see anything they have close up, because the pics are all completely edited for a web site.
> I have met with at least 10 web designers, and end up in the same boat every time. No one can do anything near what I think looks good at all. I am not a web designer, I am a machine guy. I just met with another person today about doing a site, who sounds promising again, but we will see. Always the same story!
> 
> There are all these web sites out there, and I can never find anyone to make one that I like. And its not like I am offering them $2500 to do it, the last one quoted $15,000, and still I thought what they were doing was horrible.
> ...



Personally, I like your website... albeit I would like more pictures, information, and a few videos on each machine.  Just an expanded page.  
A few of your machines (the 1340GT comes to mind) have a link to a downloadable PDF... seems it would be easy to keep that up to date.  
The more information one can see online, the more comfortable they probably are gonna be pulling out that CC...  

Keeping a website up to date is a taxing job... it is a lot easier if there is a geek on staff... or at least someone who can do it as a sideline.


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## Chip (Sep 29, 2014)

GA said:


> Personally, I like your website... albeit I would like more pictures, information, and a few videos on each machine.  Just an expanded page.
> A few of your machines (the 1340GT comes to mind) have a link to a downloadable PDF... seems it would be easy to keep that up to date.
> The more information one can see online, the more comfortable they probably are gonna be pulling out that CC...
> 
> Keeping a website up to date is a taxing job... it is a lot easier if there is a geek on staff... or at least someone who can do it as a sideline.



Nailed it.

Matt, you don't need to slicken things up with java and flash and all that other high maintenance...all show, no-go fluff. It just slows things down in my opinion. Just give me reasonable content for a $5000 purchase. I understand you're a busy man. Hand the neighbor kid a decent camera and a hundred bucks or two and tell him/her to have at it. Thumbnails that open up into detailed pictures of the areas YOU would want to look over if you were buying it for yourself would be a terrific start.

Take that PM1440E-LB. I want to see how robust the stand is. I want to see the carriage and handwheels. The gear controls. I want an image of the spindle, motor, and pulley setup. Show me a close up of the steady, follow, tail stock and chucks. It took me a long time to scrape up five grand. If I'm going to consider buying one I want to see what I'm going to be getting.

The G4003G has considerably more content out there for a customer to review, but not necessarily coming from the Grizzly Industrial website. Rather, from the larger number of users that shared their experiences and photos online. You could readily address at least half of that difference yourself.


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## maker of things (Sep 29, 2014)

Chip said:


> You would do folks like myself a HUGE FAVOR if you could help rectify that some by taking a few minutes with a cell phone camera to take some high resolution pictures of the bells and whistles of your pride and joy once it is up and running.



Will do, in fact I will even break out the Rebel so you can really zoom in.  FWIW I found a few more pics on the quality machine tools ebay listing for this lathe that might get you started.


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## GA Gyro (Sep 29, 2014)

Chip said:


> Nailed it.
> 
> *Matt, you don't need to slicken things up with java and flash and all that other high maintenance...all show, no-go fluff. It just slows things down in my opinion. Just give me reasonable content for a $5000 purchase. I understand you're a busy man. Hand the neighbor kid a decent camera and a hundred bucks or two and tell him/her to have at it. Thumbnails that open up into detailed pictures of the areas YOU would want to look over if you were buying it for yourself would be a terrific start.*
> 
> ...



Indeed!

IMO this idea folks need a fancy website with lots of animation... well that is how one sells fashion to folks who are interested in fashion...
Hmmm... I wonder how many 'designer lathes' are out there... :roflmao::roflmao::roflmao:

The part underlined, about getting the neighbors kid and paying him cash to go at it (on a Saturday when there is minimal chance of him getting hurt because of regular activity at the shop), would go a HUGE distance towards the information us hobby enthusiasts want on the website.  :allgood:

Oh, and if the website and Ebay site were kept current (and current with each other)... I know I would appreciate that.


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## John Hasler (Sep 29, 2014)

What he said.  Provide lots of high-resolution still photos that can be expanded to full screen.  Videos are ok but good photos are more important.  Detailed design drawings would also be nice.  Javascript and Flash are just irritations.


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## Chip (Sep 29, 2014)

Actually, the sales page for the PM1340GT is pretty darn good.


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## John Hasler (Sep 29, 2014)

Yes, it is, except for all the text in the lower right being folded over on my screen.


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## GA Gyro (Sep 29, 2014)

John Hasler said:


> Yes, it is, except for all the text in the lower right being folded over on my screen.



Yeah... some pages seem to load better than others...

The page for the 1236 Lathe, when I load it, has some of the text for the accessories overlaid on top of one picture at the bottom, while under another.  
Yet the page for the 1340GT comes out correct...  Go figure.

BTW: I like the page for the 1340GT also... lots of good pics at the bottom, lots of information, and the attached PDF is helpful!


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## Falcon67 (Sep 29, 2014)

qualitymachinetools said:


> Oh trust me, I know the web site needs help. Big help. One thing when comparing to Grizzly though, any photos that you see on our site are NOT edited. You can't see anything they have close up, because the pics are all completely edited for a web site.
> I have met with at least 10 web designers, and end up in the same boat every time. No one can do anything near what I think looks good at all. I am not a web designer, I am a machine guy. I just met with another person today about doing a site, who sounds promising again, but we will see. Always the same story!
> 
> There are all these web sites out there, and I can never find anyone to make one that I like. And its not like I am offering them $2500 to do it, the last one quoted $15,000, and still I thought what they were doing was horrible.
> ...



Here's a sample of the kind of work I do.  Not so good you're far off but could be done.  And not for $15,000!  Seriously?
http://www.bigcountryraceway.com/


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## John Hasler (Sep 29, 2014)

GA said:


> Yeah... some pages seem to load better than others...
> 
> The page for the 1236 Lathe, when I load it, has some of the text for the accessories overlaid on top of one picture at the bottom, while under another.
> Yet the page for the 1340GT comes out correct...  Go figure.



I run into this a lot.  Web site designers all assume that everyone is comfortable reading 12 point type.  I'm not and so I have Firefox configured for 18 point minimum.  Web site designers are also all apparently unaware that proper HTML allows the text to "reflow" in such a way as to accomodate the user's browser configuration.


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## Falcon67 (Sep 29, 2014)

Hate an unfinished thread/thought but had to leave work right away.  A machine tool web is not that big a block to mill.  The layout should be profexssional, simple and easy to navigate.  You have to "think like a user" and make sure people can find what they want quickly.  Once they find the category of interest, there should be separate pages with as much information and photos on the item - within reason - as possible.  Thumbnails allow several pictures to reside in a compact space and each can link to a full size picture that has been trimmed to balance load times with detail.  There are still a lot of users on dialup, so graphic density and size is very important.  You don't like to have your users sitting and waiting for a page full of huge pictures to load.  

The format should be consistent (template) through the site which makes it look cohesive and also makes it easy to update.  We host and maintain a web site for a real estate company and it's important for us to be able to get new property up quickly and it's important for the customer to see the new info posted quickly.  Quickly also means "less expensive" since we only charge by the hour to update.  Customer should get a lot done for them at $20/hr.  And a straight forward layout makes it easier to hand the site over to the customer, or transfer it to another support agent.  uncomplex also increases the chance that the site will display the same in all browsers (yet another pain for a designer - who plays by all the rules?).

The designer should also be able to balance their passion for maintaining and designing with the realization that the site belongs to the customer.  

Font types and sizes are important and really should be kept minimal and consistent.  Most browsers now have a "zoom" feature that allows the user to move in on a page to see the fine print.  It's a hard balance -12 pt Ariel is easy to read at 1024x768 for most, 14 is too big, but not too big at 1280x960.  Can't predict the screen resolution of all your site visitors.  The web stats will tell you that later.   

all off topic - show us that new machine


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## j ferguson (Sep 29, 2014)

OK, I'll bite.  What's the other city?


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## maker of things (Sep 30, 2014)

Dayton freight tracking shows an eta of 9/30.  If you are wagering folk, place your bets that it will be precipitating when I get off work tonight.


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## Shadowdog500 (Sep 30, 2014)

maker of things said:


> Dayton freight tracking shows an eta of 9/30.  If you are wagering folk, place your bets that it will be precipitating when I get off work tonight.



Is it there yet?  :ups:

Chris


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## maker of things (Sep 30, 2014)

She is.  I'm sore all over from 3+ hours wrestling the beast into her home.  I'll do a bunch more pics tomorrow, but highlights include:  3 hp motor, pull out chip tray, cast iron base and turning to (many) inch threads without any change gears.  So far it is more than I expected!


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## GA Gyro (Sep 30, 2014)

I wish mine were delivered on 9/30... Gonna have to wait a while longer.

Glad for you... it is like Christmas in Sept...  
Take care of that back after wrestling it into place.


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## Shadowdog500 (Sep 30, 2014)

maker of things said:


> She is.  I'm sore all over from 3+ hours wrestling the beast into her home.  I'll do a bunch more pics tomorrow, but highlights include:  3 hp motor, pull out chip tray, cast iron base and turning to (many) inch threads without any change gears.  So far it is more than I expected!
> View attachment 84716



Looks like it belongs there.  Must have been a heck of a move. 
 "It is a far far better thing than ever you've done before" (I've been dying to put this ending quote from the "tail of two cities" in this thread since I saw you used the opening quote from the same book as the title of this thread.)

Chris


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## wrmiller (Sep 30, 2014)

She's looking good. Just like it belongs there. 

That lathe only has 8 speeds correct? Is that sufficient, or will you eventually go to a two-speed motor or VFD?


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## Falcon67 (Sep 30, 2014)

Ah, lathe sweet home.


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## nightowl499 (Oct 1, 2014)

oh yeah that looks so much better than the bare spot on the floor... !!  no chips yet ????


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## Chip (Oct 1, 2014)

maker of things said:


> She is.  I'm sore all over from 3+ hours wrestling the beast into her home.  I'll do a bunch more pics tomorrow, but highlights include:  3 hp motor, pull out chip tray, cast iron base and turning to (many) inch threads without any change gears.  So far it is more than I expected!


I thought it looked like a chip tray. Congrats!


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## maker of things (Oct 1, 2014)

wrmiller19 said:


> She's looking good. Just like it belongs there.
> 
> That lathe only has 8 speeds correct? Is that sufficient, or will you eventually go to a two-speed motor or VFD?


I am not an experienced enough machinist to say with any certainty if 8 is enough.  Matt said basically the difference between this lathe and the 1440B which has 16 speeds is the b has 2 pulley sizes.  I think I would be more apt to do something like that to get 35 rpm on the bottom end.  I mainly machine steel with HSS cutters so right now I think this setup will work well.

No chips yet, but it is cleaned and powers up fine.  Need to level her out next, then start whittleing down some steel.

I made a new post to put all the uncrating, setup and overview info to make future searches easier for those interested. http://www.hobby-machinist.com/show...-Mathews-PM1440E-LB-lathe?p=232852#post232852


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## zmotorsports (Oct 1, 2014)

Nice.  Congrats on getting her all set up.  Looks great next to your other machines.  They should compliment each other well.


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