Re: metal lathe?
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Clark</div><div class="ubbcode-body">The new SB made is China is a Jet/Grizzly/GMC/Harrison/Clausing/Precision Matthews/Sharp/Birmingham/Enco/Harbor Freight/Smithy/MSC/Bernardo/Rong Fu/ etc clone.
The new SB lathe is no more an American design than it is the man in the moon.
My brother's 10 year old Jet lathe has 80% interchangeable parts with my new Precision Matthews lathe.
The really expensive aircraft or medical electronic boxes I design or the really expensive electronic test instruments my wife designs may be American designs, but are being built in China by Jabil. The cheap crap car electronics my son is designing are built in China.
The new Chinese lathe I bought in 2009 with DRO and a foot brake, delivered to my door, did not cost that much more than is costs to SHIP an old lathe bought on EBAY.
What does it all mean?
1) There are a billion Chinese with higher IQs than American workers that would love to move from the sustenance agricultural jobs to the manufacturing sector. That cheap, intelligent, and motivated work force is going to make our manual lathes for us from cast iron for the foreseeable future.
2) Chinese are hell to negotiate with. You must have an American importer quality control department and warranty between you and dealing with Chinese businessmen. </div></div>
Well put. Thats why I went with a Griz for the customer support. In the past I priced old american lathes, your'e right, the shipping was in the thousands of dollars. And for what? A beat machine with little tooling. It is sad that the US has lost its manufacturing ability and I pray for our next generations who are only a consumer and not a maker. One the good side, my 0554Z Griz is actually quite accurate and smooth. Maybe I got lucky, who knows.
