New lathe...now what?

I didn't want to say this right off but I think you will be better off returning the one you got & getting something that permits you to experiment with far more things. The extremely short bed, lack of a compound & the inability to turn threads will likely make for frustrations. If you have to wait a bit longer to get the $ together for a more complete lathe it will be well worth it. Many times you get enough additional items in a package deal to more than off set the slightly higher price. Most of those items are things you will likely want to add to any basic lathe and will cost more bought separately. Even with a nice package deal there are still going to be plenty of additional things you are going to want/need fairly soon. I'm a retired old guy with a reasonable income so I was able to buy a more substantial machine complete with a good set of accessories. But I've spent a fair amount buying tooling, measuring devices, etc. I bought some "too cheap" things at first and have since up graded to better. There are add-ons that you can make or buy that will allow some milling operations to be done on a lathe, w/o the cost of buying a mill. That will extend you options, a lot. There is a substantial learning curve! That's part of the fun.
 
Sorry for the silence.
Micro is packed and will be shipped back to Grizzly tomorrow. They've said they will look the lathe over, charge a 10% re stocking fee (total bs imo)
I'm guessing they'll give store credit and I'll end up picking up a bigger model.

Will report back with an update after all is said and done. :)
 
Hell if they are charging a 10% restocking fee you should get the rest of your money credited back to how you paid and not some bs store credit! Cash =cash back, credit card=credit card credit. Id then tell Customer service if they refunded the restocking fee you would buy the new machine from them but if they would rather have the 10% fee instead of a happy and satisfied customer you will take your money elsewhere! Thats how id try to arrange. I realize you have little control over how they handle that transactions however they cant control the power of Customer Reviews upon multiple related social forums and such. Thats my 2 cents!
 
Last edited:
I'm actually excited for you. I only started a year ago myself. Knew absolutely nothing about machining before then.
 
Troptics said:
Sorry for the silence.
Micro is packed and will be shipped back to Grizzly tomorrow. They've said they will look the lathe over, charge a 10% re stocking fee (total bs imo)
I'm guessing they'll give store credit and I'll end up picking up a bigger model.

Will report back with an update after all is said and done. :)
Click to expand...

Restocking fee is pretty normal, did you ask if they would refund it towards the purchase of a larger lathe?

Spending your money again, o_O but it is my opinion that 8x16 lathes are of better quality than the 7x12, 7x14 etc. The 7" lathes seem to be built to very a tight budget so they cut corners, the 8x16 lathes seem to be built more to the size rather than price, so not as many corners cut. Simply based on knob fiddling on the shelf, I've never used either one to make anything.

Of course the 8x16 is nearly 2x the price, but you are getting more functions and tooling with it (again, not being so tied to meeting a very low price).

Assuming you buy from Grizzly, otherwise I'll go back to pimping Sherline. :)
 
Looks like they got the 10x22 on sale right now for the same price as a the 8x16
 
Yep, definitely get that 10x22. Save up for a year if you have to
 
Get that 10x22! I also started in the past year, went the vintage route with a 10x24 Logan 820. I have had a huge learning curve, part of which was repairing/restoring, but just love the machine. I'm also an apartment dweller, and that 500+ lb machine is in my 11x11 shop, which used to be our daughters' bedroom in Greenwich Village. Thankfully they're both in their thirties now and long gone. The lathe on its base gets half the width and most of the length, and yes, I now have a oil streak around 6" wide on the wall behind, the splatter shield not having risen high enough on my ToDo list. When it does, I'll clean it off, and if not, not. The lathe is on a very heavy restaurant floor mat, and frankly makes less noise than my wife's Kitchenaid. The bench grinder is a diffferent story, when it's grinding, but I only use the grinder during daylight and rarely use the lathe in the evening. The neighbors aren't even aware I have a shop in there, and the directly downstairs neighbor, a professional trombonist, and I have a mutual nonaggression pact so I'm not worried about them.
Good luck! Welcome to this wonderful board!

Tim
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top