To all,
I am a hobby machinist. I own 3 lathes, 2 mills, 1 shaper and a Mill/ Drill
in my metal shop. My 1st lathe, an SB 10L long, I bought new '81. It is as
tight now as it was then. Absolutely no wear. I have a late model 13 x 40
SB, made in '90 (ex USAF) I bought it when it fell from a fork lift and
repaired it. It was made in Taiwan, again no wear to speak of. I recently
bought a Lodge & Shipley 18 x 54 from the US Army, made in '79, absolutely
the finest lathe I have ever used. It can do anything, quiet, accurate and
very powerful. I bought the mill drill new in '83. It is incredibly useful.
It didn't cost much. It came from mainland China and I have used it up. It
is now junk. I loved it. I have a new one arriving is 4 weeks. My Horizontal
mill is a British Adcock & Shipley 1ES and the Shaper is an 18" Elliot also
British, both machines are ex British Army and have no wear. They are as
accurate as any new machine and both were made in the 60s.

Now the real story. I ordered from Shanghai directly my 2003 Christmas
present. I figured if Harbor Freight, Enco and J&L can do it, so can I. I
located a company Hangzou Milling Machine Manufacturing Co., LTD just
outside of Shanghai and ordered a new Radial Mill model X5325C it weighs
about 3000 lbs It is 6' 8" tall and it has a 250mm x 1120mm table, 2 hp
motor, 16 spindle speeds, central knee power feed 7 speeds in all
directions, rapid traverse in all directions, central lubrication, integral
oil cooling, 3 axis DRO (Goangzhou Sino Digital LTD) and all safety features
installed. I paid $4,400 FOB. This machine is really fantastic. It is of
excellant quality, but there are problems. The control labels were mounted
reversed for transverse and vertical, the sight glass level label was
mounted upside down. The sliding ram had 2 lbs of iron chips inside. The
high speed selection switch for the spindle motor runs the motor in the
wrong direction. This machine has just arrived, so I anticipate more
difficulties. But what this means to me, is that I just bought a $14 to $16k
mill for $4,400 and a little agravation, the Chinese worker can't speak
english and they don't have a clue about clean. I can live with that for
$10,000 savings, because I couldn't afford to own a $16,000 mill for a hobby
otherwise.
Steve
"Pete & sheri" wrote in message
...
Hi, Ken

Take a look at this link.

http://livesteaming.com/articles/finding.html

Pete Stanaitis