Pros and cons of the PM-1340GT lathe

What other lathes are at the same price range with no change gears and with no oil drip system? I just hate changing gears.
 
Pcmaker said:
What other lathes are at the same price range with no change gears and with no oil drip system? I just hate changing gears.
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I am unaware of any new lathe that supports the complete set of imperial and metric thread pitch without having to change at least one gear and also costs less than $10K. They may exist, but I'm not aware of any that meet that spec. The PM1440-GS comes close at $6K, but still requires one gear swap for metric, and it is built in China, not in Taiwan. Mark Jacobs might know of other alternatives.
 
Pcmaker said:
What other lathes are at the same price range with no change gears and with no oil drip system? I just hate changing gears.
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Grizzly G4003G: I am yet to change an end gear, the spindle controlls and the Norton gearbox is doing every thread I have yet encountered.

Note: take face plate off Norton Gearbox and lightly grease the gear teeth, then the oil is only used to lube the bearings.

As to: Oil dripping from gearbox--what kind of seepage are you getting from the ways !! lathes (and mills) are designed to have various surfaces glide on flat, stright sections with an oil film--there is no way to prevent these things from leaking--it is their nature !!
 
7milesup said:
Yep, I have been educated in the last 24 hours on that type of gearbox. I am pleased that folks pointed this out to me. I would not like oil dripping out of the bottom only to end up on the chip tray or having to fabricate a catch pan. Not a real big deal maybe, but I am glad I know now. It does seem rather archaic to have a gearbox like that on a lathe such as the 1340. I am sure that they were working towards a price point.
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I fold a blue paper towel, lay it under the gear box, and replace it once in a while. Not a big deal.
 
The benefit of the Norton Gearbox is that there are no change gears for imperial threads, so one reason why it has been around for a very long time, You still need change gears to do metric threads and additional change gears to cover all the metric threads. I am not aware of any new lathes that cover both imperial and metric w/o change gears under 10K. It is a cost point of affordability, essentially you become the selector mechanism for the gears and you do not need to worry about oil seals. When you get into the light industrial lathes, or those with an ELS type system, there are no change gears other than for Mod/DP threads. The manual Sun Master lathes (ERL, RML, RC) that are sold under different names in the US do have true universal gearboxes with no change gears for both imperial and metric. Very nice if you do a lot of metric threading. Many of the lathes over 10K do have universal gearboxes.

Specific to the Pros/Cons on the 1340GT, it is one of the lowest cost Taiwanese lathes and a very comfortable size. It is very nicely built and overall quality is very good. It is a bit of a light weight machine so a little more prone to vibration and resonant points when using a VFD. The cross slide/carriage could be a bit heavier and there have been some cases where the cross slide nut has failed. They may need some head-stock alignment tweaking, in this price level it is almost a common procedure. Norton gearbox, it works, you need to address the dripping oil and a number of people have added a pump oiler system to distribute the oil more evenly and put a tray under it and be done with it. Proabably beats leaky gearboxes and changing out seals. The factory base was improved a long time ago so now is more rigid, or you can build your own if you have the means. The lathe otherwise is very smooth and can easily do sub 0.001" work. At the price point and the quality level, not a lot of other choices around at this quality level. Eisen has similar lathes, but they all come out at pretty much you get what you pay for. Although I have used my mill and lathe without a DRO at first, they both benefit significantly from a DRO, they reduce mistakes and you focus on the work as opposed to the dials. The lathe marking on the carriage travel dial are almost useless, it was some quirky number per rev.

I had mine for about 7 years, was my first lathe and a great all around lathe. There also an extensive amount of information written about it and also posted elsewhere, and very good support/warranty. The lathe is a starting point, how you set it up and equipment also has a bearing on how well it will perform. Expect to spend close to the price of lathe chucks, tooling, DRO, etc. it adds up.
 
7milesup said:
Oh yes, one caveat about aircraft. If it has a radial engine in it and it does not have oil drips underneath it, then that means there is no oil in the engine!
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Same thing we used to say about the CH-47 Chinook helicopter.
 
7milesup said:
Yep, I have been educated in the last 24 hours on that type of gearbox. I am pleased that folks pointed this out to me. I would not like oil dripping out of the bottom only to end up on the chip tray or having to fabricate a catch pan. Not a real big deal maybe, but I am glad I know now. It does seem rather archaic to have a gearbox like that on a lathe such as the 1340. I am sure that they were working towards a price point.
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I have an Enco 12x36 lathe and this isn't as big of a deal as you'd think. I don't go so nuts with the oil as to have a puddle. That oil cup under it a few posts back would be nifty but isn't required.

The Enco service manual recommends removing the front gearbox cover daily to oil the gears in addition to the drip oilers fed from above. I have done this once in my 3 years of ownership, but I am not putting production hours on it.

I think you need to spend more than you would on a 13x40 to get a fully enclosed gearbox.
 
Regarding the 1440GS gearbox. Seems to me it requires a gear change between fine <=16 TPI and course threads >16TPI, and when switching to, and between metrics as well, with the common TPIs covered by the fine gear set-up. For me those of interest are 16,18, 20, 22, 24 and 28. However, those Fine (F, SLOW) and course ( G, FAST) gear sets also control slow and fast feed rates. In practical usage I don't understand the full implications of this. So, I thread something using the FAST gear then have to change a gearset to get a suitable feed rate for the next operation? Seems that would annoy and I'd be prone to using other-than-ideal rates to avoid changing gears. I have reference that say it's a perfectly accurate machine. I don't know. I like ROC more than PRC for sure. I find little fault in the 1440GT, it's just money. LOL
 
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