Opinions please

[Steve Krumanaker]

I've had it in my head for some time I'd like to have a small metal lathe but I would also like to have a small mill as well. I've been watching CL for a few months and haven't seen anything that interests me. So, I've been looking at the Grizzly combo machines but I'm not the biggest Grizzly fan. What does everyone think of these machines? Specifically the g9729, it seems as though that would more than satisfy the needs(wants) of a not so serious hobbyist.

 

Combo lathe/mill

[RustyFN]

Not sure about the lathe. Where I used to work we had a Geizzly table saw and mill. We had them around 10 years and they both worked well. Never had a problem with either one. Hope this helps.

[lew]

The only thing I see- and I'm not a machinist so I could be way off base here- is that it looks like the distance from the mill head to the lathe bed is fixed. The mill spindle travel is a little over 4". You might need to make an auxiliary table for smaller work. 

[DAB]

that's sexy.

 

i'd have no idea how to use it, but it looks cool

 

[HandyDan]

I have this Atlas lathe and tooling and also a 3 and 4 jaw chucks.  It has a six inch swing and has been adequate for what I have done over the years.  It has self feeding capable and I wouldn't want to be without it.

 

 

I also have a Unimat hobby lathe and have used it more than the bigger one.  Having both is great.  It doesn't have self feed but I wish it did.

 

 

It can be transformed into a milling machine in a few steps.  I haven't often had the need for that but glad it was available when needed.

 

 

A couple times I needed bigger but It wasn't for anything related to woodworking and I have a friend with a machine shop and used his.

 

I haven't any experience with Grizzly machines so no help there.

 

It is the same as getting a wood lathe.  The are plenty of goodies to go with it to spend your money on.  It is a lot of fun just the same.

 

 

 

 

 

[Grandpadave52]

Steve, Not much help as far as owning or using one and unsure, what you plan to do or would like to be able to do or budget.  With that said, based on what I've always heard and know from a couple guys who have them,  the Unimat 3-n-1 like Dan has is pretty popular with the home machinist.

 

At one time, Jet made a benchtop 3-n-1 unit similar to the Grizzly...not sure if they still do or not. Also, Shop Fox offers a 3-n-1. It's probably very similar to the Griz and Jet.

 

Personally, if I was flush with money, I'd own an Enco. We used similar versions that had been upgraded to CNC controlled for both our basic and advanced CNC user & programmer training models. They were awesome machines and took a lot of abuse. Some ITCC campus locations have them as well.

 

I assume you are watching the Indy Tools CL as well as Fort Wayne? I have seen 2 or 3 bench top 3-n-1's for sale within the last year. Occasionally I see old Atlas/Craftsman lathes within the State/CL so will be glad to forward those to you going forward.

 

Edit add: Maybe @Larry Schweitzer will weigh in on this. He's got a home machine shop (the Deluxe model)

Edited March 23, 2018 by Grandpadave52

[Grandpadave52]

4 hours ago, HandyDan said:

I have this Atlas lathe and tooling and also a 3 and 4 jaw chucks.

That is one beautiful lathe Dan. Have you refurbed it or just maintained it to that level. The little Uni is pretty sweet too.

[HandyDan]

3 hours ago, Grandpadave52 said:

That is one beautiful lathe Dan. Have you refurbed it or just maintained it to that level. The little Uni is pretty sweet too.

Those are oictures from Google Images but mine are in that shape.  As we all know a little care for our tools goes a long way.

[Larry Schweitzer]

That Grizzly combo you referenced seems to have good specs. The MT sizes are good for that size machine. There are some advantages to a combo machine over having two separate machines. You can devise an indexing system for the lathe so you can index work to use the milling spindle to flute & keyway but you won't be able to cut gears w/o some changes. Take my comments with a gain of salt since I'm just a hobby machinist, no professional training other than YouTube university. I don't know what a 4-bolt intrinsic spindle is? The tail stock has a 2 1/2" travel which you may find limiting for drilling. the slowest lathe speed of 175 will seem pretty fast for threading toward the head stock but there is an easier way. Just thread away from the head rather than toward. It will require that you turn the tool upside down and run the spindle in reverse, but works well.  There will be many additional things you will eventually want as you learn to make things. A short starting list: Live center for tail stock, 4 jaw chuck, HSS tooling in assorted sizes, boring bars, center drills, a milling vice, sets of parallels, a boring head & tooling (forget the typical brazed Chinese boring bars for the head!) My lathe came with a quick change tool post that I find really convenient. I don't have any inserted lathe tools other than boring bars and an internal threading bar, I don't think you will need any either since they are really designed for taking deeper cuts at higher seeds than what you can do. I did buy an inserted 2" shell mill for my milling machine and it works surprisingly well, especially considering how cheap it was. I had been using a fly cutter, worked, but slow. The milling feature of the combo machines have really limited Y axis travel. So you will be restricted to very short y axis travels but you will have the full travel of the carriage in the x axis. Since the combo machines don't have a quick change gear box, you will probably end up finding a speed/ feed that works for most things and only do the change gears when forced into it. My lathe has a pretty decent gear box but I have to use the change gears to go metric, PIA!

There are lots of challenges learning to do things machining. There are some very good machinist that post on line. But also some people that post and don't have a clue. I've got a list, somewhere, of the sites that I've found the most helpful, contact me if you'd like my list. lks@neb.rr.com

Machining is addictive, always another challenge.

[Steve Krumanaker]

Thanks for all the comments and replies. Not ready to pull the trigger(maybe never, maybe tomorrow) but I feel better with a little knowledge to help. I happen to have a brother who is an excellent machinist and I'll run this by him. The only reason I haven't is I know he'll say he would do it for me(machining) and he will but it's still an avenue I want to explore.

 

Steve

Edited March 23, 2018 by Steve Krumanaker
typo

[Smallpatch]

Too bad you are not closer...I think my health is keeping me from having as much fun playing around with this stuff like it use to. I bought this little metal lathe over 30 something years before I ever used it for the first time in 2000. My neighbor was a teacher at Texas Tech and I bought it from him.Lots of wood dust on it but I have used it maybe 20 times since 2000.

  I think unimat made this for Sears back yonder sometimes ago.

 This 3 in 1 mill??of some kind was the last thing I bought about 5 years ago . It is a 2000 model and a woodworker bought it new...The 3 cost me about 1000 to 1200?? or less, too long ago to remember. They might get turned on 

every other year or so....and if I need to use one I do clean it and oil it and grease it then it sits for a year or so collecting saw dust.

  The mill runs either direction and has 2 motors..

 

 
The little craftsman unimat is only good for small bits like smaller than 1/4"

[Cliff]

On 3/22/2018 at 3:52 PM, Steve Krumanaker said:

o, I've been looking at the Grizzly combo machines

I wouldn't touch one of those things with a 50 foot pole.

 

If you are willing to spend a few dollars check out http://www.precisionmatthews.com/

It's a goof company selling good machinery.  I know people who know the ownership.

 I have a request for a quote in to a taiwanese company for a mini mill and a lathe.  They haven't responded yet.

[Steve Krumanaker]

33 minutes ago, Cliff said:

I wouldn't touch one of those things with a 50 foot pole.

 

If you are willing to spend a few dollars check out http://www.precisionmatthews.com/

It's a goof company selling good machinery.  I know people who know the ownership.

 I have a request for a quote in to a taiwanese company for a mini mill and a lathe.  They haven't responded yet.

Cliff, I appreciate your thoughts but I would know where they are coming from. I've already stated I'm not the biggest Grizzly fan ever so I would agree with you on that level. Are you saying that because it's a Grizzly machine or a combo machine?

 

 

 

Steve

[Cliff]

45 minutes ago, Steve Krumanaker said:

because it's a Grizzly machine or a combo machine?

I've never used a grizzly.  It's that genre of machine that is the problem for me..   The cross slide is too small to be practical as an X - Y table, I've never seen  one with a dovetailed  column.  They hang out too far for the amount of iron they are made with so they lack the rigidity needed. Occasionally  they have square columns which is the next best thing but a round column is  unworkable. They  slip  under the stress of machining moving the cutter out of position, The heads rarely have tilt capability, and the overall scale of what can do with them is - - well it's tiny.  Once you get a vice on the table   you are pretty much out of headroom.  You can not  put a flycutter in them.  They tend not to have geared heads so  controlled boring is not available.

 

I'm speaking as an old school machinist toolmaker.  If I could find the room  I'd have a monarch toolroom lathe and a bridgeport. Heck I'd have a full machine shop if I could fit it in my space.   Since I can't fit it I'm looking ad machinery  that is way smaller than I'd prefer.

But on a dare I would not own  one of those combo  miller/lathe things.

 

Maybe if I were a watch/clockmaker. But it'd have to be a very high precision machine.  I don't think any of them are.    Maybe if I made RC cars and planes?  Small stuff. 

Google around on the  Machinist and  machine shop forums.  People hate those things. They let you down every time.

[Larry Schweitzer]

Cliff, I agree that here are considerable limitations. I wouldn't buy one either, like me they are a master of none. The concept reminds me of Shopsmiths. As long as people understand the limits and what it will do, fine. I don't think many people, that are experienced, buy them. I only know one person with a combo, not Grizzly, and they have found the mill part not very useful. They also were enthused about the large diameter of work it could swing but then found that was limited to very light cuts and work. All that said they still think it is a useful, if limited machine. If it was me, which it isn't, I'd buy a separate lathe and mill. Cheap used machines seem to be seriously worn, Atlas, Logan or 50 year old industrial machines. That's why I bought a new Chinese lathe. I wanted to use it not rebuild it. Not many armature machinists can true the ways on a sway back lathe.  I'm happy with my Chinese lathe. It is a better machine than I am a machinist.

 

I'm not a Grizzly fan either but a lot of people seem to be happy with them considering the price. So many of the Chinese machines look like they were all made by the same factory with different paint and names. I looked at them before buying a PM1440HD. It was a bit more expensive but the reputation of the seller was the clincher. My lathe hasn't seen a lot of use. I'm just a hobbyist. The seller replaced the original motor with one made in Poland before shipping it. (Chinese motors don't have a very good reputation) They also installed the DRO and taper attachment. I also got the collet chuck and a set of 5C collets by 32's. The collet chuck is excellent and has the "run true" type of adjustment.  Some of the controls were very stiff when I got it and the gear train was rather noisy. Both have improved as the machine wore in. It now runs fairly quiet and the controls shift reasonably well. I opted for 3 phase since I will be using it in my production wood shop. I would choose 3 phase even if I had to run a converter. The set of accessories that came standard was pretty extensive. I've only had to deal with the seller once. The lathe has a #3MT tail stock and was shipped with #4 live center and drill chuck. They took the #4s back and replaced them with better #3s. I would have preferred a larger head stock bore but it wasn't available on this class of lathe, this lathe only has a 1.5" bore.  A larger tail stock MT would probably be better but I haven't had any problems with the #3MT so far. The machine has a cast iron base and weighs 2700#s. Not a problem here since I have a 5000# fork lift and loading docks. I set the machine up using my high precision level. I recently checked and it is still dead on so the casting must have been relatively free of tension. I have taken things apart and cleaned and got the fits as well as I could. the only thing that is really sub par is the attachment of the taper attachment to the cross feed. Some day I will make some new parts to take the slack out.  

 

My two Grizzly tools have been: Drill press model G7948. The quill spring failed twice, poor design and the light socket melted and shorted to the casting and the wire attachments failed. It took two months to get a replacement spring from Grizzly! The fit of the quill assembly was quite sloppy and caused chatter. After 5 years I sold it. My other tool is an edge sander, model G9985, 3 hp, 682 lb. Made in Taiwan. It has been OK. The almost identical sander was sold under the Powermatic name for $1000 more. 

 

IWF2018 is coming up in August, worth the trip. 

[Jim L]

Steve,

I have purchased two different Grizzly bandsaws and one lathe.  I've always been impressed with fit and finish and have had zero problems.  The best part has been customer service from Grizzly, everyone I've spoken with has been knowledgeable and very friendly.  Good luck!

[Gerald]

I have a Grizzly TS,BS and compressor. No problem except the compressor would not auto shut off and then sent me a switch (4 times) but that did not fix it so I came up with a solution and at over 20 years it is still going , and I have several switch modules if u need one. The start capacitor did go out on it about 3 years ago but that was an easy fix.

[Grandpadave52]

@Steve Krumanaker...This topic intrigued me as I also have had a secret pent up desire to own a small metal lathe and mill. I too had looked at the Grizzly and will probably be flogged for putting this in print, even the H-F 3-n-1 unit.

After reading everything here, I did some surfing from my tablet the other night and this popped up..https://smithy.com/Combo-Lathe-Mill

 

I totally had forgotten about the Smithy...I remember seeing ads in the late 60-'s through maybe even early 80's about the Smithy as well as user reviews; even knew a couple guys way back who had one. They were into building small replica fully functioning Steam Engines and the like. Still a bit pricey, but they've been around a long time so they must still be a viable and desirable unit. Anyways, FWIW, another option to ponder

[Dadio]

Did  I hear HF?

Herb

[Steve Krumanaker]

I have to admit I have a Grizzly shaper that has served me well but then, I only use it about twice a year. A g1035, got it for $135.00 at a garage sale, wouldn't have bought it but the guy had several hundred dollars worth of router bits and knives that went with it. Grizzly had so many problems early and I know some guys who really had some lemon pieces of equipment, probably should get over it.

Dave, a smithy is definitely my first choice, have seen them on CL from time to time but though I've been watching haven't seen one for quite a while. That's what made me consider the Grizzly machines.

 

Steve