13x40 grizzly lathe?

[oldred]

If you have time to look, sometimes you get a decent deal on excellent older machines.

Yes you certainly can, sometimes, however those of us who have searched in vain for the "right" machine know the frustration of trying to do so, after all there are only a limited number of those old beasts out there and no one is building older used machinery anymore! It all depends on a person's wants and needs but just because someone demands industrial quality for himself does not give him the right to talk down to those who don't need that level and would rather have a clean ready to run machine that is perfectly capable of doing everything they want it to. It's the "holier than thou, buy industrial quality or just do without" attitude that is the problem here. Why can't some people accept the fact there is more than one way to accomplish an end? It's a fact that these import machines, at least the 12" and up versions, are quite capable of doing anything that the vast majority of the people here want from them and they are readily available in about any size and configuration to fit any need. These machines are new, ready to run and don't break the bank buying one, this is opposed to obtaining an older industrial machine that may or may not have the wanted features and is usually dirty and at least somewhat worn and/or very expensive for a clean solid example. While it can certainly be argued that these old machines will clean up and often can be used as they are the fact is it just isn't worth it to some who would much rather have a new clean modern ready to run tool in their shop. There is a place for both of these choices and either might be the right one depending on a person's wants and needs and it's just out of line to INSIST either is wrong in their decision, BOTH choices are right depending on the person and what he wants!

[bangerjim]

If I needed (another) lathe today, I would definitely buy a top end Asian one. Waiting for the "clouds to part" to find that olde gem will just delay your pleasure of operating a lathe!!!!!! Life is short. Buy a new one if you cannot find an old one. Now.

I have gone the route of buying an old school lathe and spent many MANY hours degreasing, painting, and tweaking it. Bought it for a song and included TONS of extras including milling attachment, steady and follow rests, and 4 chucks. Box of carbide inset cutting tool holders. And Aloris post. But.........I was not actively looking for a lathe........just "tripped" over it at a local reseller one day.

OP........buy a new GOOD high-end Asian lathe today. Tomorrow may NEVER come!!!!!!!

[M-Tecs]

Some more good discussion here http://benchrest.com/showthread.php?...Gunsmith-Lathe

[oldred]

Thanks M-Tecs I just spent the last 20 minutes reading that thread and a good read it was! Lots of good points there and it pretty much covered the field as to how these discussions usually go and as usual there were the owner/user supporters and a couple of non-owner/user bashers of the imports, in this case almost all were about the lathe the OP was asking about. One comment in particular is something I have said several times about my lathe, while given the choice if money was no object then something like a SB heavy 10 would be a better choice than my import the fact is mine, as well as many others for other folks, has already paid for itself several times over and made a lot of farmers and loggers happy in the process! To quote one of the posters at that link,

"If my Grizzly G9730 completely self destructed tomorrow it has already paid for itself. I would not hesitate in buying another Grizzly Lathe. For the money it has been a great investment".


If my nearly seven year old lathe fell apart in a big heap tomorrow it wouldn't owe me a darn thing and all it has been so far is there for me for everything I have needed it for and it has done so reliably and without so much as a whimper! At seven years old it still is holding up just fine and is showing little to no noticeable wear but to be perfectly honest I doubt that would still be the case twenty years from now if it is continuously subjected to the type and amount of use I use it for today while that new SB would still be solid maybe even fifty years from now but at my age why would that matter in the least? What does matter is that I have had my lathe to use during that time and I wasn't out $25,000 or more for it. For the vast majority of the non-professional users here their lathes would probably never see the type of use nor the hours per week that mine does so that twenty year figure for a life expectancy is not at all unreasonable for them. There is a world of difference between doing Gunsmithing and rebuilding farm and mining equipment which can be hard on machinery, I think that what my lathe has been subjected to and the fact that it is holding up well is a testament to what these things are capable of.

[dg31872]

Everyone has to make his own choice.
In my case, I had more time than money, and could wait. I bought my lathe close to twenty years ago and it suits my needs perfectly.

[M-Tecs]

More opinions on the Grizzly lathes here http://www.longrangehunting.com/foru...g-lathe-31586/

NesikaChad is always a good read. He is now Long Rifles Inc. http://www.longriflesinc.com/barrelpolishing.html

Alan Warner http://www.warner-tool.com/ and Chad Dixon (NesikaChad) used to post frequently on Bench Rest Central. Both of them are considered to be some of the best long range smiths. Both of the have been the smith's for the US Palma teams.

I have been running carbide chamber reamers exclusively for 20 plus years. Chad is one of the few that share my love for carbide chamber reamers. I believe the throat is the most important aspect for accuracy. Carbide reamers excel at cutting smooth throats.

[Red River Rick]

Interesting:

https://www.grizzly.com/outlet/13-x-...le-Phase/G9730

"Please note that this item is discontinued and no longer available for sale."


RRR

[oldred]

They change models sometimes what's so odd about that? There are several models around that are no longer available and they have made various changes over the years.

Replaced by this one perhaps or maybe this was just a better seller?


http://www.grizzly.com/products/14-x...al-Lathe/G0740

[M-Tecs]

This is the one that the President of Grizzly, Shiraz Balolia set up has their "Gunsmith lathe" He is an avid F-Class shooter and is himself a hobby gunsmith.

http://www.grizzly.com/products/16-x...l-Lathe/G0509G

[Big Rack]

It just happens I've been looking at lathes, I have a South Bend 10L aka Heavy Ten once redone I'll have a $3000 lathe which will still have worn ways and require $200 worth of gears to cut metric threads, of course this 70 year old lathe will be running until spares aren't available. For the same money I can get a 12 x 36 chinese lathe with a lot of accesories. Specifically a Grizzly G4003G which holes for a spider and uses NSK bearings 1 year parts only warranty.
A note here their may only be 1 place making castings but their at least 2 places building them, additionally you go to china tell them what you want and they'll build it.
Through this I ran across Precision-Matthews at first I was interested in a 1127 variable speed large bore but I didn't like the spindle then I saw the have a new 12 x 27 with a D1-4 spindle but once you tool it up your at the price of a G4003G. Matt the owner suggested I look at his 12 x 36 looks like the Grizzly style casting with the gap has a threaded outboard spindle so you can make your own spider, has class 3 spindle bearings 5 toolholders instead of 1 has a micrometer carriage stop, adjustable clutch on the feed rod, coolant pump and a foot brake and 3 year parts warranty cost is $4.00 more than the G4003G and cheaper to ship. I think that's the one I'm going with.
Another word about industrial lathes in the CNC world of most shops a manual lathe is a second op. or fix it lathe and they flat get abused.
My 2 cents anyway.

[smokeywolf]

I've spent thousands of hours running Hardinge toolroom lathes; both second op and HLVs. They're a joy to run. Here's the Hardinge HLVH-EM that I procured for my last employer.
I checked and ran it while it was still at the machine shop that was being liquidated. This lathe had less than 10,000 hours on it and quite possibly less than 7,000.
$24,000 and that was with a fair collection of standard and metric collets, 3 jaw and 6 jaw chucks, delivered with a brand new Acu-Rite DRO installed.

The asian made Hardinge clones are good for maybe 20,000 hours, then need a rebuild.

Others that were wonderful machines were Hendey, Lodge & Shipley, LeBlond and the larger Southbend "Turnado". Never cared for the apron layout on the Southbend toolroom lathes, the Graziano or the Takisawa.

Monarch is still in business. I spoke with the owner on the phone last Summer. The 10EE X 30 is the alpha and omega of toolroom lathes. $77,000 for a factory refurb and $117,000 for a new one. NASA is still using a 1958 model that Monarch did a refurb on about 3 years ago and returned to NASA.

Unfortunately, unless the machine can pay for itself within 2 years, you can't justify such a capital expenditure.

smokeywolf

[Clark]

I have been through two American lathes, and now I have an Asian lathes.

I have two American mills.

I think US industry is selling enough mills to make them a bargain.

The market for used old American lathes is very different from the market for used old American mills.

There are not enough American lathes in good enough condition for the numbers of amateur gunsmiths.

[MtGun44]

Threading on my friend's Hardinge has just about ruined me for any
other lathe.

[BigEyeBob]

I just ordered one of these lathes for my workshop .
It has all the bells and whistles and only needs a taper turning attachment ($600.00AU)to be added to complete my set up.
This particular lathe is a package put together for the tech colleges for teaching students metal turning and lathe operation
http://www.machineryhouse.com.au/L682D ( 300MM x 900MM )
I believe this model is the same as the grizzly gunsmith lathe

This brand is made in Taiwan and marketed here by Hare and Forbes ( Machinery House /Metal master)
For the money I think it's a good machine ,nothing more really needs to be spent a apart for some tooling which I already have most of what I need. Hare and Forbes have their own inspectors based at the factory in Taiwan to make sure that the machines are kept to a high standard .H&F are the biggest industrial machinery suppliers in Australia and have contracts to supply machinery to the Australian Defence Force and other Govt agencies for their workshops.

I seen and heard bad reports about the earlier Taiwanese machines , like casting sand and metal swarf left in the gear boxes etc . But I think they are now up to the mark and are just as good if not better than some of the older so called "quality" machines of yesteryear.

[oldred]

There are not enough American lathes in good enough condition for the numbers of amateur gunsmiths.

Exactly! That's one of the most important points and the one that seems to elude those who insist that others "stay away" from import machinery, the stuff is simply not out there in sufficient numbers to even come close to satisfying the market. Twenty years ago, or even ten years ago, there was a better selection than now but even then it was a matter of luck for a person to find the "right" machine that had all the features, the size capability and price to make it a bargain. Mostly these machines were/are old usually with many thousands of hours on them in a production environment, otherwise they simply wouldn't be on the market at a hobbyist price in the first place! Now since the home shop hobby has grown at such a rapid pace the last few years even the supply of industrial machines that were available has about dried up and good solid examples are much harder to find and expensive when you do.

Still some folks will argue that the imports will be underpowered, crude and inaccurate and will simply fall apart in a short time and while I will be the first to admit that's true for the table-top "hobby" machines that is not the case at all for the larger (12"+) machines that seem to be built to an entirely different standard. At one of the sites that M-Tecs posted there was one poster who was a proponent of "old iron" who gave some realistic advice about buying these old machines, a short quote from his post about sums up most of them,


"Guys ask me all the time what lathe to put in their garage, and if they are just doing barrel work I tell them to either look around for the Monarch or a Southbend with flame hardened ways. If the lathe is used you might need to scrape the compound and cross slide back in, pretty much any lathe that's been used will develop wear here. Next thing to check out is the condition of the half nut and lead screws, especially the cross slide"

Scrape the compound and cross slide back in????

Like that's a simple and easy job to do, people take classes to learn scraping! The fact is most of us, by FAR most of us, buy a lathe to work WITH and not to work ON! Buying and restoring an old lathe is like buying and restoring a classic car, if you love what you are doing and love the idea of driving a classic then that's for you but if decent transportation is the only goal then maybe a new mid-priced family type car is a better choice. The point being that restoring one of these old beasts is a hobby itself and an undertaking most of us would rather not bother with, pointing to the FEW "ready to run" low time machines at new import prices that folks sometimes stumble across is no help because they are so far and few between that for most of us they are simply non-existent!

The owner of Grizzly himself was posting on one of those sites and while attempting to explain why some of these machines had a waiting period for shipment he explained that,

"The demand for these lathes is much greater than the rate at which the factory can produce them, we have orders for hundreds of them and shipments are leaving every week from the factory"


And that was seven years ago back in 2008! That's just one dealer, although the largest dealer, of these machines and with that kind of demand going back that far and these things STILL back-ordered due to demand just where in the dickens are all those "old iron" machines supposed to come from to fill this need? How many "good deals" are there out there to find in a market such as that? If one of these industrial lathes is on the market for anywhere near the price of a comparable import there's usually a good reason for it!

[Clark]

This is my brother. He hates anything Asian. But after 14 years, he still says his Jet lathe has never let him down. He still has an American mill, welder, car, truck, etc.

[Messy bear]

Thx for the responses guys!

[smokeywolf]

Clark, your machines are way too clean and pretty to use.

[ProfGAB101]

I was searching for a good lathe for 6 years and could not find a decent one I would want under $10K.

I finally ordered a new Grizzly G0602 to get some projects completed - but that lathe was a project in its self. I have fixed most of the design flaws but there is still more to be done before I can call it a good running lathe. This was just a temporary stop gap until I could find a "real" lathe.

2 years later I found a new - open box Grizzly G4003G that had never been taken off the shipping pallet within 100miles on Craigslist. The owner was just setting up his hobby shop when he found out he was going to have to move for medical treatment. This lathe also had initial quality problems.

Once I had it mounted on the stand and properly leveled I pulled the headstock top cover. Sure enough that gearbox was full of cast iron machining chips waiting to destroy those nice Japanese NSK bearings. I flushed the gear box with about 10 gal kerosene and used both rare earth magnets and vacuum to clean all foreign **** out of the gear box. Initial spindle break in had me kinda scared as it was really howling up a ruckus. By the time it had run the prescribed break in it had settled down to normal noise levels.

I replaced the Grizzly supplied piston type BXA tool post with a wedge type and its been good to go. It parts off like a dream come true. (don't try that on the G0602) It cuts to the numbers. The apron gear box does leak a few drops a week, I just use that oil to wipe down the ways to head off any rust.

Mori Seiki, Okuma and the other high end Japanese tool manufactures faced the fact that building manual machines in Japan did not generate enough revenue to justify the factory floor space required. Mori Seiki licensed its Engine lathe to Hwacheon Machine Tool LTD of Korea and it is still built there to the original specs. Early on these were imported under the WEBB brand name (and a few others).

If I can find one of these I would still love to buy it, would have to dump an existing machine or 2 as I can't run 5 lathes effectively by my self. The next machine which I have committed to buy is a full sized CNC lathe. Thankfully the CNC will just work, as it is a machine I used to run at a former employer which is down sizing.

[HotGuns]

I just retired from Machining. I made tools for the local nuclear plant, tools unlike anything most people had ever seen. I ran some good strong American Iron, heavy duty stuff. Never had an issue with anyone of them although I had two lathes rebuilt.

With that being said, I started gun smithing years ago. After a long search and looking at wore out trash, I ended up with the Griz 13x40 lathe and the 9x49 Mill.

Both have made me 10's of thousands of dollars and both had performed well. I ended up making a 15" taper attachment and a 5c Collet attachment for the lathe and I put a DRO on each machine.

The thing is, these machines are not even in the same league as the Lodge and Shipleys that I ran for 3 decades. Not even close.

On the other hand, gun smithing is relatively light duty machining. You can build every part of a gun on a fairly light lathe and do it well if you have the skills. There are a bunch of knuckle draggin machinists that will argue that any thing not American is worthless and incapable of doing anything, but they are stuck in their own little world. Sure, American steel is better, but to dismiss something that will do the job just because it wasnt made in America is pretty stupid if you think about it.

No different than shooting...its not the gun, its the man behind the gun that makes it happen. Machining is no different. If you have the skill, you can make an accurate product in spite of the limitations of a machine.

I say go for it and dont look back.