Thanks to PM and Mr. Jacobs!

davidpbest said:
Very funny. Yes, I have a business - unrelated to what goes on here. You can find it here.
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Since I retired from a woodworking business, I had to take a look. Nice website.
I was struck by this line "operate a low-overhead, state-of-the-art woodworking shop." Neat trick.
My shop avoided residential. It was pretty well equipped but neither state of the art nor low overhead.
I personally enjoyed solid hardwood working but the shop was a panel processor business, retail, schools, medical.
The lumber side of the shop primarily supported the panel side by all the odds and ends required. Mostly moldings & doors.
If we had a claim to fame it was in making curved work. Moldings, laminated casework, thermoformed solid surface, vacuum pressed forms, stuff that was more interesting than boxes. The panel side was computerized & connected by conveyors.
 
Mark and David have been huge helps to my Smart Brown 1024 conversion and tooling acquisitions. DB's new book is a must have for new to machining people and Mark's conversions are second to none. Dave
 
Jake P said:
I’m a new member here and have ordered a PM1340GT for which I eagerly await. Mid July as of now.

I am posting this to give a shout out to the folks at Quality Machine Tool/Precision Mathews, as well as Mr. Mark Jacobs.

I began with an order for a 1228VF-LB and after more research and consideration decided to upgrade to the 1340GT. The person I seem to have gotten on the phone most often at PM has been John, but of course there have been others I’ve corresponded with as well. John and all of the staff have been very helpful and patient with my many questions as well as many order changes.

I started out with a single phase machine in the 1340GT and once again after more research decided to change my order to a 3 phase and go with a VFD conversion. My decision to change to the VFD was also based on the very generous help of Mark Jacobs, both from his posts here on this site as well as one on one. I am having Mark build me his VFD conversion “kit”. He has given me so much information and time that I just can’t thank him enough. Thanks again Mark :)

In this process I informed John at PM that I would like to get the Micrometer Stop for my machine shipped directly to Mark when it becomes available. At that time John informed me that they were back ordered and I would likely not see that part until I get my machine. No biggie, Mark and I discussed it and there was an easy work around.

This brings me to what inspires todays post. This morning I get an email from PM that informs me that a package is going out to Mark. My first thought was that there was a mistake. I won’t go into all the other details here, but I had just requested a few parts of my order be shipped to me now, so I thought that they had mis-understood my requests and were sending one of those requested parts to Mark instead of myself (remember, there are no stops available, they are back ordered at this time).

Of course I call PM and John answers the phone for sales. I inform him that I got an email and I am concerned that something is being sent to the wrong place (in my mind there are no Micrometer Stops available, so something is amiss).

John informs me that indeed no stops are “available” but that they know for certain that a shipment due out later, for which an allocated stop is on hand, will not need that stop before the machine arrives and that additional stops will arrive in time to fulfill the original order from which they pulled a stop to send to Mark for my account.

Now this may not seem like much to some folks, but I was blown away by PM’s attention to detail and desire to satisfy their customers that I told myself that I have to share this. It would have been so easy for PM to just wait for parts to arrive in sequential order to fulfill existing orders, and not do the extra work of looking at their overall timeline in this more “creative” way.

Again, I know it’s a little thing, but to me this shows just how much they are willing to do above and beyond for their customers.

This forum is not the only source of information that I used in my quest for a metal lathe, but certainly the most influential. There have been many others here praising PM for their customer service. I would like to add to those endorsements and re-iterate that if you think it’s worth saving a couple hundred dollars to order elsewhere I hope you step back and take a look at the bigger picture!

And a big thanks to all the participants here, I am learning so much on Hobby-Machinest.com!

Jake
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Welcome to H-M
 
Jake P said:
I started out with a single phase machine in the 1340GT and once again after more research decided to change my order to a 3 phase and go with a VFD conversion. My decision to change to the VFD was also based on the very generous help of Mark Jacobs, both from his posts here on this site as well as one on one. I am having Mark build me his VFD conversion “kit”. He has given me so much information and time that I just can’t thank him enough. Thanks again Mark :)



Jake
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Hi Jake, congratulations on the lathe purchase! I'm Jealous. I too am in the mind battle of 3Ph vs 1Ph. Would you mind revealing what a Mark Jacobs conversion is setting you back? And maybe other factors that influenced your decision.
 
Hey Steve, the price for Mark's work, at least in my case, is just over $1300. Let me first say that there is very little labor charge in that price and you will still need to buy additional parts to round out the package. You will also need to do work yourself, however Mark has taken care of the more technically intense aspects for you. If you are wanting the proximity stop as well you will need to provide your own micrometer stop or Mark builds it himself for a fee.

It's not a cheap upgrade for sure and others here, as I'm sure you have seen, have doubled that cost by swapping the stock motor for an upgraded motor. And Mark is facing the same thing everyone else is right now, rising costs and reduced inventories. So I most certainly cannot speak to what prices are today.

I really don't want to speak for Mark, and if I am out of line please do say so Mark!

Obviously, I would say contact him if you are really interested and get the real details from the source himself. He's a super nice guy and very patient with neophytes like myself.

1 vs 3 phase? For me it's just another example of going from the 1228 I had on order to begin with, to the 1340. Why swim halfway across the channel and then turn back? One thing that I really did like about the 1228 was the variable speed. I very much like it in my wood turning and I can't see why I would not like it for the same reasons in my metal lathe. That lack in the stock 1340 actually had me hesitant to make the switch until I learned here how it can be done to these machines.

I also have of course read most everything I could find here and elsewhere on the topic and could see that the overwhelming opinion was to cry once.

Edit: I might add that you can do a very basic VFD conversion without spending as much and that can always be built upon on the future, so you don't actually have to swim all the way across yet :)
 
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