Busy Bee Tools Canada

[Downwindtracker2]

Chinese quality varies from factory to factory. A few years back my son and I went together and bought a stripped down CQ6125 250mm x 550mm from KMS. It was deeply discounted close-out. On line I looked for the accessories, reviews, and who made it. It turned out a couple of factories were making the copy of an Austrian lathe. At least the Chinese were using metal gears. The XIMA version tested true, the SIEG version needed some fitting. BusyBee, and King both sell the SIEG version. You can see the difference across the showroom. We got the XIMA version but had to buy separately the steady rest,4jaw, fellow rest, faceplate, stand, and thread dial . Lathemaster sold a planetary geared pulley that cut the speed in half. Making it a useful lathe.
When my son moved out, I suggested that I buy him out, "No ,Dad, I'll buy you out." Now, I have a Taiwanese BusyBee DF1224g with electrical problems and no accessories.

 

[bmw rider]

I feel like I must be one of the lucky ones. I bought one of the first bunch of the CX701 lathes Busy Bee just after they introduced the line; mine was actually the first one sold out of Calgary and I had to wait for it to come in as all they had was the demo model in stock. I've done quite a lot of work on it and so far have had no problems with it. I can't say how the customer service is for repairs as I've not needed to go there. In fact, my lathe is now past warranty anyway. I do hope it continues to work for me without problems. I wonder if at some point they switched to a poorer supplier to build them.

 

[jaycan]

Hi
I have owned a B2227L with the mill attachment for 10 years. While it is not built to the weight and precision of a Southbend, it has been an adequate lathe and the only part I have had to replace is the Fwd-Off-Rev switch. You have to remember it is a gear head lathe which will be noisier than a belt drive but way more convenient. I run it with a 5" 3 jaw and a 6" 4 jaw chuck so it has not been babied. I have replaced the milling portion with a Grizzly G0755 mill as Busy Bee had nothing in its class. Also setting up a replacement lathe, new to me Standard Modern 1334 for increased capacity and precision.

 

[David S]

I feel like I must be one of the lucky ones. I bought one of the first bunch of the CX701 lathes Busy Bee just after they introduced the line; mine was actually the first one sold out of Calgary and I had to wait for it to come in as all they had was the demo model in stock. I've done quite a lot of work on it and so far have had no problems with it. I can't say how the customer service is for repairs as I've not needed to go there. In fact, my lathe is now past warranty anyway. I do hope it continues to work for me without problems. I wonder if at some point they switched to a poorer supplier to build them.

Regarding your last statement. There could be some truth in that. However there is also another dimension to this. When I was working for a large consumer company our purchasing department was brutal and ruthless with our Chinese suppliers. They just kept beating them down on price.

When I had to go to China and visit some of our supplier it was embarrassing to have to face them since they were really trying to do a great job. I visited first tier suppliers and third tier with dirt floors. While the best were capable of fantastic quality, some of the third tier ..not so much.

Someone recommended a book "Poorly made in China" to me. It was a good read since I had experienced many of the examples in the book.

David

 

[tigercat4519]

I feel like I must be one of the lucky ones. I bought one of the first bunch of the CX701 lathes Busy Bee just after they introduced the line; mine was actually the first one sold out of Calgary and I had to wait for it to come in as all they had was the demo model in stock. I've done quite a lot of work on it and so far have had no problems with it. I can't say how the customer service is for repairs as I've not needed to go there. In fact, my lathe is now past warranty anyway. I do hope it continues to work for me without problems. I wonder if at some point they switched to a poorer supplier to build them.

Hi I don't know if they switched suppliers, how is yours for viberation in the higher RPM's also when you are using it is there any leakage of oil from the aporn gear box? Thanks

 

[Starlight Tools]

Nels, you are correct. One brother started in Bellingham, the other in Burnaby,(Vancouver). about an hour apart. Their wood working machinery generally gets OK reviews. They're a little cheaper than Grizzly on the small stuff, and until the CDN$ dropped, more expensive on the machinery. They handle more made-in-India Groz.

Correction, both stores were started by Shiraz. He was shopping for a drill press to do repairs on his rifles and did not like the local pricing, so he contacted a number of factories in Taiwan, until he got a quoted price. He found that if he ordered more than one drill press the price per unit came down, so he went to his shooting buddies and offered to get them each a drill press at a XX price. When the presses came in and were distributed, others came along and wanted one too, along with other tools. Before they knew it they had a thriving business selling tools and machinery. There were three brothers all involved with BB. A number of years later, there was a dispute about Quality Control and Shiraz left the company, moved to Bellingham and started Grizzly, with each having a contract that they would not ship across the border. That contract expired a few years ago, now they are both free to ship.

I give Shiraz a lot of credit for his Quality Control and after sales service, which has made him a major contender in the machine tool market in the US.

Walter

 

[Starlight Tools]

Nels, you are correct. One brother started in Bellingham, the other in Burnaby,(Vancouver). about an hour apart. Their wood working machinery generally gets OK reviews. They're a little cheaper than Grizzly on the small stuff, and until the CDN$ dropped, more expensive on the machinery. They handle more made-in-India Groz.

Groz is a manufacturing factory in India that turns out a lot of very nice machine tool supplies. They were first trained when England Colonized India, and have been doing this kind of work for centuries. The main importer for Groz is located in the Seattle area, and one of his biggest clients was Boeing Aircraft.

He was a friend of the Balolia Family and he supplied them with a lot of his products, So these products can be found in both the BB and Grizzly stores and were also available from the other brother's store while it was open.

Now things may have changed over the years, but when I was in that area, Groz was considered as a decent brand, not a Starrett or Mititoyo, but definitely not that far behind. I have been very happy with any of the Groz products that I have obtained.

Walter

 

[boz]

Hi to all Canadians and any one else on here that may be considering buying from Busy Bee Tools. I purchased a lathe from them in September 2014 the CX701 and on start up the gearbox took out 2 gears and bent one shaft, they said no problem it was under warranty, so from there on in all I got was a runaround, finally I told them I had handed it over to the credit card people and by then I told them that I wanted a new lathe because why should I have to do my own repairs on a lathe that I just paid $3600.00 for, while this was going on the parts arrived but was told by the credit card people to not install them which I got nothing from another joke, Parts are sitting home still not installed.
The Lathe is not something you want to wast your money on it viberates and the Apron gear box leaks oil enought that if I have to keep it I will have to take it apart and try to stop the oil, I have 25 years experience on Lathes and any thing Busy Bee sells you that is made in China forget warranty you are on your own they will not have someone come out and repair it for you or even come out and look at it and the store in Nova Scotia is only about 20 miles from my house.
Just wanted to warn people not to wast your money on any thing Busy Bee sells and I'm not the first one that this has happened to, I'm in Florida for the winter and when I get home I'm hoping to see if I can take them to small claims court.

Just wanted to ad here is the chinese company that makes these Lathes:
http://www.weiss.com.cn/company/&FrontComContent_list01-1323238072385ContId=10&comContentId=10.html I talked to them when this happened and they are of no help because they said I didn't buy it directly from them, not much like the North America companies, Wish I would have purchased even a used North American Lathe.

Phil

 

[boz]

I purchased a craftex701 from busy bee Calgary. Had some minor issues and found the store and busy bee web site customer service helpful . Within a week my issues were resolved. New change gear bushing and additional user manual pages were provided.
Boz

 

[Tozguy]

I bought a CT043N lathe through the BB Ottawa store two years ago. The service from Rock and his son Zachary was excellent. The only waranty issue I had during the first year was negotiated throught the Toronto office. They sent me some new D1-4 cams promptly.

The lathe has served me well and consider that it to be a lot of machinery for what I paid. However no retailler sells an 8000$ new lathe with quality customer support for 3000$. Having a bit of experience with machines it was obvious that the CT043N needed much cleaning, tuning and tweaking from the get-go. But I never expected to get any new machine in such poor condition. I kept reminding myself that it was work I could do and that it had saved me money on the purchase price.

I was lucky to notice and fix stuff on the lathe before it was too late, or things would have turned out much differently. I have no trouble believing the horror stories from other owners. But don't blame the Chinese, the only reason stuff like this is on the market is because we buy it.