My D1-3 Spindle is on the way and the bearings should be. Things are looking up for the 8K. Out of work sick today and that should make me feel better but it doesn't. Been working on a setup to check bearing runout off the lathe. Just curious to know and these P5's better be better. 329009 bearings with a P5 suffix are special order with a 65 week lead time! These 72 bearings must have been a special order that never got paid for and went on the surplus block. Time will tell.
South Bend 8K photos
- Thread starter mikbul
- Start date
Help Support Home Model Engine Machinist Forum:
Here's a photo of the boring bars, he has bigger. I forgot to mention about the end mills, if I get them I won't need them all if your interested in some.
gambit_mb
Grasshopper
- Joined
- Jan 27, 2014
- Messages
- 36
- Reaction score
- 9
I would be interested in some boring bars and some end mills under 3/4in. Let me know when you get them and we can work something out. A 2.5 - 3 in. 45 degree facemill would be nice too. LOL......
I'll try and get ahold of him. I know he had macular surgery or whatever on his eyes so I've left him alone for a couple weeks. I see his ad's off of craigslist so that could mean he doesn't want to bother right now, he sold everything, or he's still got everything, a phone call won't hurt.
Well I just talked to George and he said "I can see" which is good news! Said he's going to the library tomorrow so I think it's been awhile since he can read. He really is a great guy and a wealth of machining knowledge! He still has the end mills and boring bars. I'm going to buy them all which made him happy, and there will be plenty to set you up. The end mills are 3/8", 1/2", and 5'8". He wasn't sure how many and there's about 50 boring bars left.
I'm going down there tomorrow morning so later on in the day I'll let you know how many/how much etc.
BTW all the boring bars are Bokum made in Detroit, good stuff.
rtp_burnsville
Active Member
- Joined
- Mar 2, 2009
- Messages
- 38
- Reaction score
- 2
Hi,
I just read your entire thread..... Great job!
I have looked at this lathe for sometime, I may just have to order one. The spindle bore is much larger than my SB9 which would be very handy.
Thanks,
Robert
I just read your entire thread..... Great job!
I have looked at this lathe for sometime, I may just have to order one. The spindle bore is much larger than my SB9 which would be very handy.
Thanks,
Robert
Sshire
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jun 29, 2011
- Messages
- 936
- Reaction score
- 259
I really have to admire your restraint. If I had purchased, what I believed to be, a first-rate lathe, and had the spindle and bearing issues, I would have either returned it, or insisted that they send a tech to make it right. I understand that with most Chinese machinery, it is to be expected that it's not a finished product and some work and/ or mods will be necessary. This was the case with my Grizzly G0602. It worked fine out of the box but I've done some work to make it smoother, more rigid, etc.
With a "South Bend" ( quotes intentional) I would expect that it was a finished product. I do understand that things can go wrong, but if the issue is a factory defect ( witness grease on the bearings) , the factory ( in this case Grizzly) has to make it right without the owner doing the repair.
Let's say we purchase a new automobile and there is a wheel bearing problem. I take it to the dealer and they repair it under warranty. They certainly don't ship me the replacement bearings and say "have at it."
You can't just drive the lathe to Grizzly if you are a thousand miles away and even if youre close, moving a lathe out of the shop, into a truck or onto a trailer is not a trivial task.
It seems that we are now expected, after spending thousands of dollars (or whatever you unit of currency happens to be) on a tool, to repair an in-warrenty problem. This is not acceptable.
I don't know what the solution is. Grizzly is not a small Mom and Pop distributor. They have major resources, but it appears that these resources are directed more toward sales than toward customer service.
While anytime I had an issue with my lathe, Grizzly was very good about sending parts, this is what we should expect. That's only a part of the solution.
Suppose you have never replaced a bearing or removed a spindle. I would be quite uncomfortable tearing down a new, multi- thousand dollar lathe.
Forgive the rant and rambling and I don't have an answer.
Just saying.
With a "South Bend" ( quotes intentional) I would expect that it was a finished product. I do understand that things can go wrong, but if the issue is a factory defect ( witness grease on the bearings) , the factory ( in this case Grizzly) has to make it right without the owner doing the repair.
Let's say we purchase a new automobile and there is a wheel bearing problem. I take it to the dealer and they repair it under warranty. They certainly don't ship me the replacement bearings and say "have at it."
You can't just drive the lathe to Grizzly if you are a thousand miles away and even if youre close, moving a lathe out of the shop, into a truck or onto a trailer is not a trivial task.
It seems that we are now expected, after spending thousands of dollars (or whatever you unit of currency happens to be) on a tool, to repair an in-warrenty problem. This is not acceptable.
I don't know what the solution is. Grizzly is not a small Mom and Pop distributor. They have major resources, but it appears that these resources are directed more toward sales than toward customer service.
While anytime I had an issue with my lathe, Grizzly was very good about sending parts, this is what we should expect. That's only a part of the solution.
Suppose you have never replaced a bearing or removed a spindle. I would be quite uncomfortable tearing down a new, multi- thousand dollar lathe.
Forgive the rant and rambling and I don't have an answer.
Just saying.
I can once again say with some certainty I would recommend this lathe at this price. If you read my thread then you know what you need to do before spindle break in. GAMBIT-MB took care of his and break in temps were good. You may find no grease which would be a bonus. Keep us posted!
Bearing failure is not a certainty if you take the three screws out of the bearing flange and inspect the bearing. No grease, good to go. If I had this information a few months ago I would have looked and figured it out. If you spent some time using this lathe cleaning a couple bearings would not be such an inconvenience, after all, you have to clean out everything else. BTW it's made in Taiwan in a special factory with German and Japanese machine tools along with the 10K etc. I get your drift but at this sale price I'd rather do the work myself, now I know what's in there and can take care of it. I'm working on a couple of mods to the oiling setup to put the bearings in one of the industry standard categories (more on that later). One mod is was already done months ago, pull the grease fittings, drilled out the ball & spring and made brass plugs for them, now you don't have to fight the ball & spring to get oil in there. When I get the rest worked out I'll post it, in fact it'll be a long and informative post.
Thanks Stan,
Well Gambit I haven't got to the end mills yet but here's a photo of the boring bars after a little cleanup, as I said they are all Bokum's except the giant Enco. I need to make an inventory of what I've got and figure out some pricing. If I'm not wrong some of those tiny boring bars would be perfect for model engine making, some of the cutters are so small I need cheaters to see them. Being an R/C Sailplane guy myself I've got a lot of small special tools. Not that a sailplane is an engine by no means.
Sshire
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jun 29, 2011
- Messages
- 936
- Reaction score
- 259
Perhaps I should have addressed this in a more general tone. I love your lathe and the newer price makes it a very good buy.
I think where I was going with this was all home shop machinery, no matter the cost or quality, puts the burden of being the distributor's QC and warranty repair facility on the purchaser.
Very few other mechanical devices require that of the owner. Looking around I see a generator, central heating and A/C, car, kitchen appliances, etc. These all have service guys who come to my house if they need repair.
Just my observations on the difference between what we use to build engines and other categories.
Sent from my iPhone using Model Engines
I think where I was going with this was all home shop machinery, no matter the cost or quality, puts the burden of being the distributor's QC and warranty repair facility on the purchaser.
Very few other mechanical devices require that of the owner. Looking around I see a generator, central heating and A/C, car, kitchen appliances, etc. These all have service guys who come to my house if they need repair.
Just my observations on the difference between what we use to build engines and other categories.
Sent from my iPhone using Model Engines
I don't believe it is Bill, but, the inside of the spindle is quite rough and I believe it could be smoothed a little. Whether that would be enough I don't know. I put a 5" South Bend chuck on and like J.R with the 10k (he did a review on PM) he said "I didn't think it was possible to get repeatability like this with a chuck" That was with a turn flip turn test and with his digital Mitutoto he got 50 Millionths runout. I did the same with mine but don't have a digital mic. so my tenths mic gave me the same reading on turn flip turn.
You're right there, being a certified Generac Generator Tech I don't see too many customers pulling a new engine to change a seal! Lathes or machine tools in this price range are a world unto themselves. A 40-50-60,000 dollar machine I'm sure would see a tech if a warranty issue turned up. It may not be a tech from the company, maybe a licensed machine repair co. under contract for that part of the country.
I definitely wouldn't be hauling the lathe back to PA. or re-crate it and have it trucked, easier to fix it and it's going back together my way. But I'm a strange case anyway!
I should have said back together my way within bounds of the warranty, as I see it preload correct and proper lubrication and spindle bearing break-in.
There are very few machines I've worked on or seen that don't have some kind of warranty issue. My Ducati being one (so far) and the perfect machine, the 200 inch Palomar Telescope. When they made that telescope they had to write the book. Conventional bearings wouldn't work because of the weight, so they float it on a thin film of pumped oil. The tube is so heavy, in the horizontal position both ends sag 3 or six inches! Thing is they found out about a French Engineer named Mark Surrier and the Surrier Truss. The way it's designed both ends sag equally and the ends naturally rotate slightly to keep the mirrors aligned! When Corning glass works finally made a good mirror it sagged under it's own weight, so they made up mechanical weights in each honeycomb to keep the mirror straight in any position. (now its done digitally)
Makes a spindle with two bearings sound kind of simple doesn't it!
BTW read the book "The Perfect Machine"
There are very few machines I've worked on or seen that don't have some kind of warranty issue. My Ducati being one (so far) and the perfect machine, the 200 inch Palomar Telescope. When they made that telescope they had to write the book. Conventional bearings wouldn't work because of the weight, so they float it on a thin film of pumped oil. The tube is so heavy, in the horizontal position both ends sag 3 or six inches! Thing is they found out about a French Engineer named Mark Surrier and the Surrier Truss. The way it's designed both ends sag equally and the ends naturally rotate slightly to keep the mirrors aligned! When Corning glass works finally made a good mirror it sagged under it's own weight, so they made up mechanical weights in each honeycomb to keep the mirror straight in any position. (now its done digitally)
Makes a spindle with two bearings sound kind of simple doesn't it!
BTW read the book "The Perfect Machine"
Here's the end mills, woodruff key cutters, center drills, reamers etc. All the un-sleeved end mills were taped up and will be again after inspection. Some of this stuff I'll keep but the rest will be up for sale.
