Dan L. writes:

I received their brochure
and read as they claimed, "Smithy's are the highest-quality multi-use
benchtop machine tools in the world." "Smithy Lathe-Mill-Drill
machines offer the professional-quality precision and performance of
three machines in one." "When we say theses machines are versatile,
we mean it!" "You get the best machine: finest quality and high
accuracy." And finally they promised, "These machines are what we do
and we will take care of you. You have our promise."

The technical term in the sales biz for this type of talk is "puffing".
It means *nothing*, as no specific warranty is made. You should be
suspicious of any product, especially in a field like metalworking which
provides quantitative-measurable-verifiable specifications for every
aspect of a tool, that is sold primarily on puffery.

You said "T.S." asked you, "What do you propose?" That was actually a
good sign. This is the question that is asked by customer satisfaction
personnel in a business decent enough to want to actually correct your
problem. The mistake there was that you didn't ask enough or for the
right thing. You should have insisted they trade you for a comparable
machine (that worked more or less as the ads suggested) at their
expense, including shipping. They no doubt had already eaten dirt on
the lemon line you bought.

If that didn't work, I would have considered having my lawyer send them
a love letter.

Perhaps it is not too late for such action.

It is a service to many others that you post your experience here in a
well-written essay.