chinese lathe worth it?

S

Strange_Days

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Hi all,

Has anyone bought or tried a central machinery lathe from HF. I am looking at a 13x40 which is essentially brand new and selling for about 2/3's the price of new. I don't have access to much where I live so getting a good used lathe is pretty tough. Just wondering if the cheap price makes it worth it for this type of machine, what do you guys think?

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Displayitem.taf?itemnumber=46951


Thanks,

Matt
 
Harbor Freight Central Machinery lathe

Listen,

My younger brother spent big bucks buying an Enco lathe just like the central Machinery lathe you are looking at with DRO and they are exactly the same lathes (most parts are interchangable.) Here is one I just bought for $1,450 including the guy delivering it to my house. He was only 140 miles from my place where he had it for sale. When I set it up after leveling it it was less than .0002 off on the chuck and the tail stock was dead nuts on. I've seen many other lathes that weren't even close to these tolerances.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=160059239561&sspagename=ADME:B:RTQ:US:1

However, service sucks for HF equipment.

If you are turning cue parts or doing cue repair, or any tapering, then the newer CM lathes are great. The workmanship is better than it used to be.

Hope this helps.
John
 
Harbor Freight is well known for plain junk..be careful what you buy ..
 
jkmarshall_cues said:
Listen,

My younger brother spent big bucks buying an Enco lathe just like the central Machinery lathe you are looking at with DRO and they are exactly the same lathes (most parts are interchangable.) Here is one I just bought for $1,450 including the guy delivering it to my house. He was only 140 miles from my place where he had it for sale. When I set it up after leveling it it was less than .0002 off on the chuck and the tail stock was dead nuts on. I've seen many other lathes that weren't even close to these tolerances.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=160059239561&sspagename=ADME:B:RTQ:US:1

However, service sucks for HF equipment.

If you are turning cue parts or doing cue repair, or any tapering, then the newer CM lathes are great. The workmanship is better than it used to be.

Hope this helps.
John
Click to expand...


Thanks, I've heard of the bad service. The other thing I'm worried about in five years will you be able to get parts for these lathes? but the price is definitely right.
 
I have a 12x36 HF

I bought it as my first large lathe to compliment my 9x28 Southbend. The workmanship is fair. The price was right, esp with a 20% off coupon that I used at the time. I paid about $1450 out the door I think and got a free one year on site warranty thrown in free by the store manager.
Is the machine even close to equal to the SB? No way! The gears are too porous in my opinion. They are cast and then machined. It is easy to break a tooth off if debris gets on them for example. I could order parts from HF, but they have very poor inventory of replacement parts in my opinion. I wanted a gear change shaft and a yoke and was told I would have at least a 5 week wait min with no max time limit. And, once I ordered the parts, could not cancel for any reason without my card still being charged for the amount. I made the replacement parts instead with a friends machine shop to back me up. The parts had to come from China if you had not guessed it!
When I first got the machine the electrical was dead. I called service and they had to email me some clear prints to use to troubleshoot as the web site pics and the supplied manual were so fuzzy that they were useless. The very friendly USA tech had one set of nice prints that she sent to me over the email. She even could not read the print in her maual until she went into the main archives and found the set that we shared. The problem was a contactor, and they sent me a new one quickly, they had this in stock! Yes I have the free warranty, but if I can learn and fix it myself I will choose knowledge any day.
Since then I bought a used Belt driven Jet. It is made way better than the HF, IMHO. The gears look like machined steel. It is a belt drive but that beats having to bump the motor and gently, read nervously, grind the gears into place.
If I were to have a do-over, I would have never bought the HF. I see enough used lathes in my area of Suburban Cleveland. About every other month a super deal pops up on a used classic machine that at worst has a three phase motor that I would have to replace or add a phase device to in order to use in my residential system. At the time I bought my HF I had looked for 4 months and there was a dry spell with nothing in sight to buy used. A week after I got the HF, a larger South Bend came on the market complete with tooling for $500, go figure.
Sorry for the windy answer, but I am trying to help you out, be patient and expand your search of used machines maybe? Wanna buy a used HF? lol
 
Matt,

I too have the belt driven 12x36 lathe from Harbor Freight.

You have to remember that it is definitely an Import machine, but I have had tremendous service from this thing. I have used it since I bought it new in 1991, and it is still going strong today! Yes, I have had to wait for parts once, but again, that was expected.

If I were to buy another lathe today, I would buy an import lathe, and I would buy it from Grizzly. All the import lathes are pretty much the same, what makes the difference is the service, and Grizzly has great service.

Royce Bunnell
www.obcues.com
 
I agree. My 1st choice for lathes and price would be the Grizzly 12" X 37" belt drive also. They are wonderful with service and you really get more than what you pay for. Their delivery prices are reasonable to a loading dock also. Check them out.
Thanks,
 
jkmarshall_cues said:
I agree. My 1st choice for lathes and price would be the Grizzly 12" X 37" belt drive also. They are wonderful with service and you really get more than what you pay for. Their delivery prices are reasonable to a loading dock also. Check them out.
Thanks,
Click to expand...

Hey JK. I have had my eye on that lathe also. The carriage travel on that machine is 31 1/2. I know everyone recommends 40", but 31 1/2 actual travel seems long enough. Do you own one of these? It looks to be a lot of machine for the price.

Some I have asked who owned a gear head said they sort of wish they went for the smoother belt drive..some who have the belt drive wished for easy speed change of the gear head. Any thoughts on this ANYONE?

Kelly
 
Kelly_Guy said:
Hey JK. I have had my eye on that lathe also. The carriage travel on that machine is 31 1/2. I know everyone recommends 40", but 31 1/2 actual travel seems long enough. Do you own one of these? It looks to be a lot of machine for the price.

Some I have asked who owned a gear head said they sort of wish they went for the smoother belt drive..some who have the belt drive wished for easy speed change of the gear head. Any thoughts on this ANYONE?

Kelly
Click to expand...

I strongly believe that all of these import lathes are made in the same plant. I also believe that the importers are on a pecking order, meaning, the distributor who pays the most gets the best castings and so forth. Jet pays the most and picks the cream of the crop, then comes Enco or Grizzly or Birmingham and so forth down to Harbour freight or such places.

Ive got 3 foreign lathes, an 13X36 Enco that I bought new that gave me a lot of trouble the first year but I think it was mostly my fault. I bought it in 1991 and it has run many hundreds of hours since that first year absolutely trouble free. Ive also a 12X40 Jet that has never cost me a minute of downtime.

If buying a new import lathe I would definitely would try to find a belt drive. A gear head is convenient on a high dollar lathe but not on a cheap one. The high dollar lathes have the gear head sealed and full of oil. Not so in the lower end. The gear train wears quickly, makes a lot of racket and there is more vibration in the low end ones.
It only takes two or three seconds to change spindle speeds with a belt system anyway.

One other thing. Its not just the travel you need to worry about on a 13X36 lathe but the "usable" travel. There is a difference. The lathe is measured for length and travel between centers without a chuck installed. It doesn't help much if the travel is up under the chuck.

Dick
 
Dick is right, all of the import lathes are made in the same place. The Jet and grizzly are better castings, but most imprtantly, they have customer service and can get you parts if something breaks.
15 or so years ago, industrial jet lathes were made in Japan, that quickly changed and went to China. The quality is getting much better now. The price difference between US iron and import is vast, import quality is not as good, but you can still do quality work on a Chinese import.
Gear drive is nice till you shear the teeth off of a clutch and have to take half the headstock apart to replace parts. Belt drive is smoother unless you are in the high end of lathes. Belt drive has allot fewer moving parts and is cheaper to maintain. No difference in precision of the lathes. But you know boys and their toys.
Safe turning,
Kenny
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top