3 in 1 - Anything Worthwhile?

[jbolt]

3-1's have their place. While I owned my Granite 1324 I was happy just to have a machine to do work on.

I went with the 3-1 due to space constraints as most of my garage/shop was full of wood working equipment that I had as part of my construction business. Most of the wood working stuff is gone now and I have moved on to separate lathe & mill which is preferable.

When I sold my Granite it was 14 years old and well maintained. I listed it with what I thought was a high asking price thinking I would get beaten down some. It sold at my asking price within 3 hours of listing and was gone that afternoon. I probably could have gotten more.

Looking at all the variation they now offer, if I were to buy one again, I would go with the 1340 MAX model. It has the extended mill head and tail stock. The extras on the I-Max and Elite are fluff. Their marketing still drives me crazy especially the "Free" starter tooling package. I can understand the chuck, cheap vise and tool bits as optional items by why would you list the compound, draw bar and v-belt kit as part of that?

As with any Chinese machine, adding a DRO makes an okay machine a decent machine to use.

I don't know about your area but it seems like used equipment is becoming more readily available and reasonably priced. That wasn't the case here a few years ago.

 

[FMC1959]

3-1's have their place. While I owned my Granite 1324 I was happy just to have a machine to do work on.

I went with the 3-1 due to space constraints as most of my garage/shop was full of wood working equipment that I had as part of my construction business. Most of the wood working stuff is gone now and I have moved on to separate lathe & mill which is preferable.

When I sold my Granite it was 14 years old and well maintained. I listed it with what I thought was a high asking price thinking I would get beaten down some. It sold at my asking price within 3 hours of listing and was gone that afternoon. I probably could have gotten more.

Looking at all the variation they now offer, if I were to buy one again, I would go with the 1340 MAX model. It has the extended mill head and tail stock. The extras on the I-Max and Elite are fluff. Their marketing still drives me crazy especially the "Free" starter tooling package. I can understand the chuck, cheap vise and tool bits as optional items by why would you list the compound, draw bar and v-belt kit as part of that?

As with any Chinese machine, adding a DRO makes an okay machine a decent machine to use.

I don't know about your area but it seems like used equipment is becoming more readily available and reasonably priced. That wasn't the case here a few years ago.

Jay, thanks for the feedback. I came to the same conclusion as you did. If I were to get a Granite, the Max was the model I would go with. The two more expensive models were nice but did not offer anything I would be willing to pay the extra for. But the Max did offer more powerful motor and capacity over the Classic, which I thought was worth the price.