Bill,
Please do not get me wrong. I am not prejudiced against Chinese machines.
They are great value for money, but you need to understand what you are
buying. I have had very good luck with some, but I have really seen some
junk. Buyer beware! The good machines are usually made in Taiwan and the
junk made on the mainland, but that rule is very gray now with the much
larger trade between Taiwan and the mainland. I have witnessed extensive
trade volume with China through a close associate. On some lots of
machinery, we have seen 1 in 4 received as failures in some shape or form!
Worst of all, most resellers never carry parts. Do not expect after sales
support!
Steve

"Steve Lusardi" wrote in message
...
Bill,
I personally think the lathe is junk. How many spindle speeds do you have
?(probably 9), you need 12. How fast is the slowest speed in back gear?
You really need around 30 rpm. You probably have around 90 rpm and that is
too fast for a 12" machine. How many threads will it cut? (38). A good
machine will cut 80 in inch alone. An inch machine will have a 4 or 8 TPI
lead screw for the carraige and a 10 TPI for crossfeed and compound. The
good chinese machines have dual graduations on the carraige and compound
both inch and metric. Most metric machines have .02 graduations. Check the
thread dial. You probably have a metric machine. If you elect to keep it,
you MUST completely dissassemble it and clean it. It will be full of
chips, swarf and grit. Assume nothing, check everything including spindle
parrallelism to the bed ways. You get what you pay for. If you ever get a
chance to use a class machine, you will never own the one you just bought.
Steve


"Bill Schwab" wrote in message
m...
Hello all,

It appears that my news server and reader were not happy with each other.
Unless I miss my guess, Earthlink's server screwed up, and Thunderbird
failed to gracefully recover. No doubt Google will help fill the gap.

The machine looks great, but Enco had indeed told me to expect 10 tpi
screws on the cross and compound - in email. I called on Wednesday and
responded in email yesterday; they appear to be chewing on it. They were
upfront in saying that I have 30 days to return the machine, and so far
have claimed that replacement screws are not an option. On the phone the
tech hinted that this might have been and unexpected design change, and
an exchange for an "old one" might be an option, he returned my call
(faster than) as promised and recanted, saying the machine has always had
8 tpi screws. No offense to the tech, I am not completely convinced I
buy that last part.

Note that I am convinced that the tech who sent the original emails did
so in good faith; he was communicating with someone else who appears to
have made the real mistake of confirming the erroneous.

If there are indeed 10 tpi options, I consider that the way to go. Let's
assume that the original data they provided was nonsense and that the
machine has always had 0.125 dials. The question is what to do: return
an otherwise great buy, or live with the dials?

As I told Enco, if this had happened on a mill ("Oh, I KNOW those are
0.1" - sorry, he really did say that, apparently not appreciating the
irony, but I digress) I would be seriously mad. I work manually, and
(thanks to you guys) have gotten pretty good at it. Being able to
dimension from zero and pick off the last two numbers as a dial reading
is not something I will give up: 0.1 or 0.2 dials are a must on a mill.

But what about a lathe? Staring at the thing, the carriage motion
appears to be course (0.02" gradations), so the precision would appear to
happen on the cross and compound. It looks like a world of working
"against the dials" by measuring and removing metal until the part is
(hopefullyg) staring back at me, as opposed to zero and trust the
dials. As Harold and others worked hard to help me understand, there is
another realm of trusting the dials to rough and measure to correct, but
0.1/0.2 dials go a long way on a mill. But back to the lathe, IF I am
correct that most work will be measure and remove, how bad would 0.125
dials really be?

What would you do in my shoes? I realize that Enco has not yet presented
options, but given my newbie status with lathes, I need to get some
advice to make a good decision. It is quite possible that I might have
bought this machine knowing about the dials, but we would have a similar
conversation before I did it.

Another question I should ask: do any of you know of a 12x36 (or so)
cam-lock lathe with 0.1 dials? I did some quick checking on the Grizzly
site, and found what looks like the same basic lathe, but no mention
(that I saw) of the screw pitch. That said, their manual is GREAT and
answers many of my "why is this stuck?" kinds of questions.

BTW, I know at least some responses to this type of question lurk in
posts I have yet to see. I will start digging now that I can post again.

Thanks!

Bill