Question on Cueman's deluxe lathe.....

J&D CUSTOMS

J&D CUSTOMS

JL Cues
Silver Member
Ok fellow cue makers here we go,

Less than a year ago I purchased a 2nd cueman deluxe lathe with every goody you could get. I originally purchased my first one 9years ago from cueman and has worked great ever since.
No here is my problem.
I have this newer one and use it for most of my work , or TRY to. 3 months after I got it , the feed motor went out. I emailed Cueman and told him what happened . He had me send it back , and a week or so , he sent it back to me. I cut 3 butts with it the day I got it back , and it went out again.
Emailed back , and was told that it couldn't be the motor , must be me being new to the machine and the setup was wrong. Remember , I have had one for 9 years.
I followed the advise and went to radio shack and purchased a new ac adaptor , at my expense. No help. It's the motor.
Emailed back , no help but ways to check it and was told the setup was wrong. The whole time I waited for replacement , asked for one and was told if you buy a car , do they replace the whole car if 1 part goes bad. I would say NO , but they will make sure it's fixed no matter what though.
Since all this which was months ago , I took the old feed from my old lathe off and swiched it to the newer one and all seem to be good.
Seemed to be ! I have went thru 6 gears in my feed in a matter of 3 months running time due to my shop moving and relocating it to my home. So several months have gone by.
Last couple of weeks , I started up my shop and began cutting handlesagain where I left off. When cueman and I talked during the first issues of the gearing problem I purchased addition gears for the then NEW 3 month old lathe.
As I have been cutting here lately the feed and gear nightmare came back full force. The lathe feed has eaten 6 gears total and now I am down with busines to do , and can not get any help BUT you have it set up wrong , to high , to low , my fault.
I am not here to make cueman look bad , feel bad , or start a fight.
Just would like to know , has any of you had similar problems like mine ? Any problems with the gears in the feed eating and bending teeth to the point of not working?
If so , how or what means have you gone to fix this issue.
I cannot spend the money for parts like this all the time with no remedy from the maker of such product.
Very disappointed at cueman for this. I have cueman products all thru out my shop and have trusted cueman with my cuebuilding needs for about 10 years now and have spent an excess of 8 plus grand with cueman.
I have been without a feed since 3 months after purchase , 2nd one went out in a day , with no remedy.
I am going thru gears like water and can't complete 1 project with out a teardown and rework of the machine.
Would like some help if you have any ideas. The way it's going now I am getting upset and frustrated with the constant repairs and replacement parts at my expence.
What would you do at this point?
Thanx for your time and possible help,
Jim
 
Put it on Ebay & then ask Chris to sell you a new one without the curse.:D
Seriously...I recently got a new one from him as well...zero problems.
 
If the carriage is getting into a bind it will mess up the pinion. You might try removing the pinion and making sure the carriage slides up and down the bed freely. If the carriage slides okay, the next thing I would do is check the rack to make sure there isn't anything on it. After that I would check the bushing the pinion goes through. If it's set where it's holding the pinion into the rack too tight, it will put a strain on the feed motor all the time and will bind up easily. If the bushing is not holding the pinion into the rack tight enough, the pinion will strip out or the splines will get deformed easily.

I have adjusted the bushing or sleeve that the pinion runs through so that if a wood chip gets in the rack it doesn't lock up the drive.

I have some trouble with the pinions, but mine is mostly operator error. Usually it's forgetting to loosen the carriage brake or I'll accidently push the pinion into the rack while sliding the carriage.

I have everything set so I can usually have two mishaps per pinion. After the pinion gets messed up, I remove the pinion and usually cut about 3/16" off the end using a cut off wheel in a dremel. Then I file off the burrs and put the pinion back. When I put the pinion back, the set screw that holds the pinion in place is right at the end.

I hope I've been of some help.
 
I think I must hold the record for number of replacement pins ordered, but I've never had one get damaged on the power feeder. It's always been because I've turned the hand wheel when I've had it locked down out of the way while I do something else.

I would think it has to do with the collar that it slides through. May just need to be rotated a bit. I wouldn't think it would happen with the power feed and not the hand wheel though. Seems you'd have the same problems with both and not one or the other.
 
Lathe

I've had mine for about 3 years now and haven't had any problems. I've had to do some adjusting here and there but the only gear I've wrecked was my fault. Is there anyone in your area that can lend you a second set of eyes? Sometimes it can be something obvious but you just can't see it. It happens to me all the time at work.
 
Does the carriage move easily when using the handwheel? The only problems I have had, were remedied with small adjustments, and some non-detergent oil.
 
I've had a Deluxe for a couple of years---stripped out one pinion shaft, but it was my fault for binding up the carriage. Make sure the carriage clearances are adjusted properly and slides freely. I use 30w oil to ensure that everything slides smoothly.
Chris has been very helpful and supportive to me. This must be an unusual situation??
best regards
John
 
I am not sure if I should respond to this or not. But I am being put in a pretty bad light here. I have always told Jim I think something is out of line and we need to figure out what it is by him calling me while standing at the lathe. Power feed went out. I repaired it, by putting a new gear motor on it. The old motor was totally locked up. He gets the one with brand new motor in and and says it happened again right away. I tell him to send it back and I will fix it, but I want him to call me from the lathe so we can figure out what is out of line. He refuses to send the powerfeed back for me to repair. He insists I give him a new one while he still has the used one. Now he is stripping pinion gears and I asked to be called from the machine to help him get everything adjusted correctly. That call has not come. I will still warranty the powerfeed and repair it if he sends it to me and he promises to call me from the lathe so we can try to figure out what the problem is. Jim insists everything is aligned and adjusted perfectly, but does he really know every adjustment as well as I do? A phone call from the lathe with calipers and flashlight in hand, might have resolved the problems many months ago. And as far as I can see that is still probably the only way it is going to get resolved with my help. You guys may can help him figure it out also.
 
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Maybe needs a complete overhaul???

cueman said:
I am not sure if I should respond to this or not. But I am being put in a pretty bad light here. I have always told Jim I think something is out of line and we need to figure out what it is by him calling me while standing at the lathe. Power feed went out. I repaired it, by putting a new gear motor on it. The old motor was totally locked up. He gets the one with brand new motor in and and says it happened again right away. I tell him to send it back and I will fix it, but I want him to call me from the lathe so we can figure out what is out of line. He refuses to send the powerfeed back for me to repair. He insists I give him a new one while he still has the used one. Now he is stripping pinion gears and I asked to be called from the machine to help him get everything adjusted correctly. That call has not come. I will still warranty the powerfeed and repair it if he sends it to me and he promises to call me from the lathe so we can try to figure out what the problem is. Jim insists everything is aligned and adjusted perfectly, but does he really know every adjustment as well as I do? A phone call from the lathe with calipers and flashlight in hand, might have resolved the problems many months ago. And as far as I can see that is still probably the only way it is going to get resolved with my help. You guys may can help him figure it out also.
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Hi Chris,
In the situation do you think he should just send you the complete lathe back so that you can give it a complete check up and look over see what it needs? Adjustment? Something out of alignment ect? Would that be easier? After all you are the desingner of this lathe, if anything you would know much more than anyone on this forum:D . That is just a question Chris.
Kenny
 
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that's alot of money in shipping right there....especially if something happens during shipping....

the phone call would be a good thing to start with....that should fix it

Chris has excellent customer service and can talk you through most anything!

John
 
I met Chris this past year at the billiards Expo.. I was interested in a repair lathe. After talking to Chris, I wondered over to Barry Cameron's booth next to Chris and I asked him about Chris's equipment. Mr. Cameron said you can count on Chris if you had any problems and that you can always trust whatever he tells you.

George H.
 
FLYINGSNAIL said:
Hi Chris,
In the situation do you think he should just send you the complete lathe back so that you can give it a complete check up and look over see what it needs? Adjustment? Something out of alignment ect? Would that be easier? After all you are the desingner of this lathe, if anything you would know much more than anyone on this forum:D . That is just a question Chris.
Kenny
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On the phone I can get someone to check all measurements and settings. Once they do this once I almost never hear from them again as they then know what to do if something was to ever need adjusting. Sending a machine back is a big expense and big risk on damage. If I get it back find for instance the eccentric slipped slightly. Then I set it right send it back and sometime in the future it happens again. Here we go again. There is a problem, no doubt. But the right way to fix it is for Jim to make the adjustment or let me help him find the problem if something is indeed broken. Email won't do it. A phone call from the machine with calipers and flashlight in hand is what is needed.
 
Chris,

Ok. I will call you and let you walk me thru the set up YOUR way. Also , I will send you out the power feed to see it and repair it.
I can also send you the a/c adaptor I purchased if you would like it and maybe exchange it for the gears to equal the value just in good faith.
What time would you be available in the next couple of days? Would Saturday be good?
Let me know as I would like to see if all this works out.
Thanx,
Jim
 
keep working with Chris until you guys get it worked out. As long as he's willing to send you the powerfeeds I say go with it. it is expensive to send the whole lathe back unless you know for sure that where the problem is and no ajustments can be made. If the carraige is binding then that would be a good bit of info for him to have. it should be easy to see what it is if it's burning powerfeeds out. I've crashed Mine into the riser of My tailstock many of times and it just strips the pinion. I'm still on My first powerfeed though. I've put some stress on it too. Sounds like yours is under constant stress. Something needs ajusting more then likely. the Powerfeed can bind though If not set right and pitched at good square. it can also strip pinions if the gear doesn't go up in the rack far enough.If you go too far then you can cock the gear and also create more drag. You might only need to bend the tang on the mount to get the correct height or angle, without seeing first hand, who knows. Chris knows what to do, and believe me he will help ya. he's helped Me with stuff of My own that I didn't even get from him, so I dought seriously He would leave you hanging on something of his. JMO.:) about the only issues I hate dealing with is keeping the rack clean, but that needs to be done also, or it can cause problems down the road. I use a tooth brush to keep mine clean.;) Anyway I have trashed a few pinons, but most times it was My fault, and was even under manual power, or when under power I crashed into the riser as I mentioned.:o it's important to keep the ways clean and the gibs set perfectly too. I always do a cleaning, spring slide, the ways, gear rack, anything involved like that, And make ajustments right before I run any tapers out, to make sure the powerfeed runs smoothly through the whole session.

Not everyone may aggree with Me here, but I don't like to use anything oily on the bed ways. It just seems to get mucked up, and just cause problems sooner then later. What I use Is a dri-film lubricant. when I'm running tapers I just blow the bed off every couple of passes, then give the ways a shot of the stuff, and I never pick up any chatter or anything. Unlike alot of lubricants it doesn't seem to cause grime & dust to stick to the ways like some I have used. it doesn'y have the stay power though, so I use different stuff for the carraige and cross slide parts, but that stuff works good on the ways for me.:) Greg
 
J&D CUSTOMS said:
Chris,

Ok. I will call you and let you walk me thru the set up YOUR way.
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sometimes we must be humble to acheive the result we want. He built it....he knows the way.............
 
J&D CUSTOMS said:
Chris,

Ok. I will call you and let you walk me thru the set up YOUR way. Also , I will send you out the power feed to see it and repair it.
I can also send you the a/c adaptor I purchased if you would like it and maybe exchange it for the gears to equal the value just in good faith.
What time would you be available in the next couple of days? Would Saturday be good?
Let me know as I would like to see if all this works out.
Thanx,
Jim
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It is hit or miss on Saturday. I am near the phone most weekdays from 2 to 6pm. Any other time it is hit or miss. Leave your number and I will try to call you back if we miss each other on Saturday. Send the powerfeed and we will credit the adapter toward pinions. Hopefully we can get it all figured out.
 
cueman said:
On the phone I can get someone to check all measurements and settings. Once they do this once I almost never hear from them again as they then know what to do if something was to ever need adjusting. Sending a machine back is a big expense and big risk on damage. If I get it back find for instance the eccentric slipped slightly. Then I set it right send it back and sometime in the future it happens again. Here we go again. There is a problem, no doubt. But the right way to fix it is for Jim to make the adjustment or let me help him find the problem if something is indeed broken. Email won't do it. A phone call from the machine with calipers and flashlight in hand is what is needed.
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Chris,
I know you are great guy to deal with , great customer service, I have bought woods and other products from you either on the phone or at the expo. I never have any problem. I thought that was a better idea to shipped back the pro to inspect and retune:D . I know shipping cost alot. But sometime that's what it takes.:o . That was just my thought, dont mean to harm either one of you.:)
Kenny
 
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