New mill and lathe.

[froudeg490]

My Taig II is a great little lathe and I plan on keeping it for very small parts. For larger projects I added a bigger lathe and a mill.

I just finished building the benches. I haven't used them yet, but they spin up OK and the DROs work very well.

It took me a very long time to decide what size of machines to buy. So far I'm happy with the fit and finish.

 

[minh-thanh]

Great machines !

 

[trlvn]

AIUI, your Weiss lathe is virtually identical to the machines sold by Precision Matthews, Grizzly, Harbor Freight, Busybee (in Canada), Warco (in the UK), and others. I'm not familiar with Weiss though. Did you buy direct from them? What led you to choose them other the others?

BTW, the Precision Matthews manual was far superior to the one that came with my recently-purchased Busybee (Craftex CX706 model). Do you have a link to the Weiss manual.

Craig

 

[froudeg490]

AIUI, your Weiss lathe is virtually identical to the machines sold by Precision Matthews, Grizzly, Harbor Freight, Busybee (in Canada), Warco (in the UK), and others. I'm not familiar with Weiss though. Did you buy direct from them? What led you to choose them other the others?

BTW, the Precision Matthews manual was far superior to the one that came with my recently-purchased Busybee (Craftex CX706 model). Do you have a link to the Weiss manual.

Craig

Craig,

I originally planned on getting both machines from Precision Matthews, but they were out of stock. I live in Arizona and the shipping would have been $400. I purchased both machines from Toolots. They are in California and shipping was free. I also had a 5% off coupon.

I looked at similar machines from Grizzly and Little Machine Shop, but the Weiss machines were less expensive.

The PM lathe comes with more accessories and it looks like the chuck attachment method is more convenient. I suspect after sales and technical support will be better.

Both machines were shipped about 2 days after placing the order. I received a tracking number and the delivery driver called ahead. I did have to pay $75 for the liftgate service. No damage to either machine.

Machined surfaces were coated with a light coat of machine oil. So far, no complaints.

I purchased a 5" independent 4 jaw chuck from Vevor. My first turning job will be to make an adapter.

I'll see if I can find a link to the manuals.

Phil

 

[trlvn]

Hi Phil:

Maybe your Weiss machines are delivered in better condition than my Busybee but I think they are all built by the same factory/factories in China. I found a fair bit of grit mixed with dirty oil on the internals of mine. So far, I've disassembled, cleaned, lubed and reassembled the compound, cross-slide, tail stock, 3-jaw chuck, and 4-jaw chuck. I recently bought the gear oil for the headstock and apron but haven't had a go at that yet.

Do your chucks have the same mount as mine?

The bolts pull the chuck onto a tapered mount. The large end of the opening on the chuck is just about 50mm. BTW, my 3-jaw goes on and off the lathe very easily. But with the 4-jaw, I have to use the nuts to pull the chuck onto the mating taper. To remove it, I need to bump it with a brass hammer (several times) to get it to come free. I haven't tested the fit of the face plate yet.

Since I'm yammering, I found a fun accessory for storing the change gears. A free design is available on Thingiverse and a local guy on Kijiji agreed to print it for a few dollars:

It is actually designed for the Precision Matthews 10 inch lathe but it works perfectly for the my gears. The empty slots are the gears that are currently on the lathe.

Craig

 

[froudeg490]

Hi Phil:

Maybe your Weiss machines are delivered in better condition than my Busybee but I think they are all built by the same factory/factories in China. I found a fair bit of grit mixed with dirty oil on the internals of mine. So far, I've disassembled, cleaned, lubed and reassembled the compound, cross-slide, tail stock, 3-jaw chuck, and 4-jaw chuck. I recently bought the gear oil for the headstock and apron but haven't had a go at that yet.

Do your chucks have the same mount as mine?

View attachment 137723

The bolts pull the chuck onto a tapered mount. The large end of the opening on the chuck is just about 50mm. BTW, my 3-jaw goes on and off the lathe very easily. But with the 4-jaw, I have to use the nuts to pull the chuck onto the mating taper. To remove it, I need to bump it with a brass hammer (several times) to get it to come free. I haven't tested the fit of the face plate yet.

Since I'm yammering, I found a fun accessory for storing the change gears. A free design is available on Thingiverse and a local guy on Kijiji agreed to print it for a few dollars:

View attachment 137724

It is actually designed for the Precision Matthews 10 inch lathe but it works perfectly for the my gears. The empty slots are the gears that are currently on the lathe.

Craig

Hi Craig,

I took apart the tailstock, toolpost and compound and they were fairly clean. I will probably disassemble more and lube etc. I'm waiting for the material to arrive to make the 4 jaw chuck adapter.

The chuck is attached with 3ea 8mm studs. The registration pilot is 52mm.

I like the change gear holder. I have a 3D printer, so I'll have a go at printing one.

Phil

 

[animal12]

You may want to take the chuck apart . Every chuck I have bought & seen that came from over the left ocean had a bunch of grit & swarf inside . Have you gotten all the twist out of the lathe bed ?
animal

 

[froudeg490]

I haven't taken the chucks apart yet, but it's on my to do list. Definitely a good suggestion.

I haven't leveled the bed yet. I still need to decide on the final location for both machines.
It will be interesting to see how it works out. It's something that I haven't done before. The lathes that I used during my apprenticeship had probably been leveled sometime in the 50s....

Phil

 

[animal12]

Do you have , or have access to a good machinist level ? Be prepared to spend some time on the process . I couldn't believe how much time I spent moving the level back & forth up & down the lathe bed . Through some good fortune I have 3 Starrett levels now ! Cut the time in half ! Good Luck
animal

 

[timo_gross]

Hi Phil:
... but I think they are all built by the same factory/factories in China .....

Haha do not let yourself be fooled by "the same factory" myth.
Imagine: Feeding your favorate lady at the first date vs. feeding the neighbours cat. ( All coming from same kitchen in USA? )

Greetings Timo

 

[user 284]

My Weiss branded lathe was ordered and shipped from Quebec. And there are or were Weiss labled machines in a few parts of Europe. For at least mine and I believe the Warco 280V, PM 1127 and LB models they all seem to be built in Nanjing China. That said, and while they might be from the same factory, there's various non stock or usual features some of the tool dealers just don't bother to list. MT 3 tail stocks as just one example where most list there's with MT 2. Now there's also various spindle nose designs from what seem to be quite rare threaded, then the studs and nuts and up to the proper D1-3. Just because a dealer lists the lathe with only certain features doesn't mean others aren't available as long as your willing to special order and wait for it to be built and shipped with the next order because that's what I did. I dunno, maybe not all dealers would be willing to do so. Mine was.

These machine tool factory's are now much like the North American automotive factory's from the 1950's - 80's. They'll have an available option list and with business the way it is in China, will build some of the quality, grinding etc up or down to meet your out the door price point. Grizzly has mentioned quite a few times in the past having there own limited staff at some of the machine tool manufacturers as there in place QC for final acceptance the tool would meet there minimum standards. Looking just like is not the same thing as being exactly the same. Some models of the PM lathes have feed rod clutches instead of the rudimentary shear pin all the rest seem to have. Superficially then yes they all look to be the same until you start to look a bit closer. I'd also suggest it's fairly safe to assume the lower volume dealers with lower price points might get some of the lesser or close to out of spec parts that the high volume dealers don't, or in Grizzly's case there own QC reps ensure they get the better parts and assembled machines. It's simple business economics at that point. That also might answer why some lower priced machines have more part or electrical issues mentioned on these forums than other more established dealers do for what looks to be the very same machine. Since we don't know for sure were all mostly guessing. But I'd rather make mine with more logic based guesses.

 

[stanstocker]

Hi Folks,

I knew a gent, now gone, who imported tooling. He told me that he could buy stuff made from the same looking castings from the same factory at differing price points. The 50 cents per pound stuff was the bottom of the barrel, poor casting quality, roughly machined, ungraded hardware, paint over sand, all the stuff that gives Chinese machines a bad name. The dollar a pound stuff was OK, typically usable with minimal tweaking and replacing hardware, in some cases a good value. The three dollar a pound stuff had the best castings, well machined, better hardware, tighter tolerances, upgraded electricals if any, usually pretty darn good to excellent. A catalog photo of three machines or accessories at these three price points could lead you to think they were the same machine. Hard to tell gold from gold paint in a small photo sometimes

This was probably 20 years ago, from what I've seen at Cabin Fever and at a few dealers it appears that there are either higher end / lower end manufacturers using similar to identical designs and raw parts, or at least some factories still build at varying quality levels to meet customer requirements.

Some folks want a 115 piece drill bit set for $19.99, some folks wouldn't want those bits anywhere in their shops.

Cheers,
Stan

 

[stanstocker]

My Taig II is a great little lathe and I plan on keeping it for very small parts. For larger projects I added a bigger lathe and a mill.

I just finished building the benches. I haven't used them yet, but they spin up OK and the DROs work very well.

It took me a very long time to decide what size of machines to buy. So far I'm happy with the fit and finish.

Where or where are my manners today? Congratulations on your new machines. I hope you get a lot of pleasure from them.

Cheers,
Stan

 

[trlvn]

The chuck is attached with 3ea 8mm studs. The registration pilot is 52mm.

Does this "pilot" taper at all? Mine has a slight taper. So far, I haven't found the details of taper. I'm toying with the idea of a collet chuck so I'd need to be able to make something with a good fit.

Craig

 

[packrat]

I think blondihacks uses a lathe of that size, watch her videos on youtube she is good....

 

[Bentwings]

AIUI, your Weiss lathe is virtually identical to the machines sold by Precision Matthews, Grizzly, Harbor Freight, Busybee (in Canada), Warco (in the UK), and others. I'm not familiar with Weiss though. Did you buy direct from them? What led you to choose them other the others?

BTW, the Precision Matthews manual was far superior to the one that came with my recently-purchased Busybee (Craftex CX706 model). Do you have a link to the Weiss manual.
I’m green with envy. Congratulations. . Time to get you Hogson 18 cyl radial engine plans .

Byron
Craig

 

[mccreamark]

I had the Weiss 8inch lathe(sold it) pretty good, and I still have the Optimum version of your mill (excellent), I cnced it 12 years ago, it still surprises me how well it runs. I have refused a few generous offers for it. Good luck with your new machines.

Mark

 

[william_b_noble]

a friend of mine who died a couple of years ago was good friends with Chris, the owner of little machineshop dot com. he examined several of the items of tooling rather carefully, helped evaluate the prototypes from China and designed new parts for some of them. His last purchase of a machine was a mini-mill - he redesigned the drawbar and a few other parts. I have scanned a lot of his material and posted it on OWWM.org, including his planns for a tramming tool. I think the comments up-thread about you get what you pay for are salient - even with tools like a micrometer - you can get harbor freight, Shars, and SPI, all made in China. and you can feel the difference as soon as you turn the dial - same with dial calipers. My friend must have bought 40 or 50 calipers from harbor freight when they were on sale, I'm still getting rid of them, they are OK but they are not Mitutoyo quality. So (here's a hint for you) save up for a bit if you need to and look for one of the Mitutoyo solar powered calipers, mine say code no. 500-491, model CD-S6"CP. I got mine used, they have a cal sticker that says next cal due 3-9-07. I have some gauge blocks, so I checked it at varous extensions and with just a little care, I'm accurate and repeatable to less than 1/2 thousandth of an inch, if I practice with a gauge block that is near the size I want to measure, then I can get that to about 2 tenths. That's beyond my machining skill

 

[animal12]

Pawn shops are sometimes a good source for precision tools at a good price . I bought a Mitutoyo 1" digital mic for $30.00 at one . Went back to the same one last week & came home with a Starrett Last Word indicator set & a Fowler 3" ratchet thimble mic for $ 25 .00 for the pair , The caliper still has 2 months till its due for its next calibration . The Starrett & the Fowler are past due . I cary a few standards in my glove box . You never know when you may need one .
I know that DroPros carries the Weiss mills & lathes & from what i have heard in the past Weiss is one of the companies that pays the extra $$$$ at the factories to get the better quality machines .
https://www.dropros.com/DRO_PROS_Weiss_Lathes.htmanimal

 

[william_b_noble]

if you actually want micrometers and last word type indicators you can message me - my experience is that pawn shops are usually (not always) pretty aware of what they are selling. I'm still trying to dig out from under a giant pile of stuff from my friend's estate, I just reached to my right and picked up a Gem 222 which is a little less expensive than a Last Word (no less accurate though) with a blemish on the crystal - sigh - so much stuff .....

lesson: stuff can own you - my friend lost that battle, I'm fighting it.