First things first with a new lathe?

[matthewsx]

Oh, and if they don't offer to make it right quickly post up the sellers eBay name so others will know.

John

 

[Stockyj]

If you can tolerate the grind mark and get a part refund it may best to get an easier closure. As long as the grind area is not a crack repair are there any marks on the inside surface. The ways should still run true so it shouldn't affect the function just visual

 

[Tired&Retired]

Thanks for the thoughts, guys. I am still in negotiations with the seller, so I'll just see how it goes. I made it pretty plain that I wasn't happy with getting a factory rejected unit.

In the meantime, since it is sitting on the tailgate of my wife's truck in the garage, I've just been playing around checking things out on it to see what else might be wrong with it. So I put an indicator dial on the chuck, and then put a small piece of brass stock in the chuck jaws to see what sort of runout it had. Then after that, wanted to see if there are any odd or disconcerting noises coming from the spindle when run up to speed. I found that a lot of noise comes from the change gears after I just pulled them away from the spindle. All in all, it didn't do too bad. Not sure if this embeds YouTube videos or is just a raw link.

 

[Tired&Retired]

The unfortunate thing is the old mechanism eBay put into place to keep people from unloading junk just doesn't work anymore. They will probably just change seller names and keep on going.

Yes you deserve a working and defect free machine for your money, in China they may not have it but here in the US every product comes with an implied warranty of merchantability that should cover any defective good which your purchase certainly falls under.

If you want your money back file a claim with eBay or PayPal right away. If you claim through PayPal, eBay won't do anything and vise versa. The seller will ask for videos, pictures, more videos, more pictures etc. but this is a stalling tactic. Ultimately they will try to settle with you for a partial refund because they don't want to take it back, EVER!!!!

That's where I was going in my earlier post, you can hold out for a full refund, or decide how much you will accept for an offer. Their cost was probably half what you paid so that's what they're going to want but if you hold out for a full refund you might get 3/4 of your money back.

Everything depends on what works for you, if you know it's gonna bug you every time you look at it either settle for more than you think you can sell it for or figure out how to send it back at their expense for a full refund. Either way it's more of a hassle than you deserve but unfortunately it's the chance you take buying from sellers who don't really care about anything besides getting your money.

We have a great forum sponsor who would be glad to sell you a product they stand behind. More money yes but less heartburn....

John

Yeah, I hear that. I need to see how things go talking to the buyer. And I need to keep my own expectations in the forefront too. I bought this to make me happy. Will I be happy with it? Well, I just dunno.

I fully intended to take it apart, learning as I go, so I pretty much expected problems, but problems that were fixable. The manual says the spindle has taper roller bearings on it, so that surprised me, as I was expecting to have to replace the roller bearings like I had seen in all the videos I have watched about this sort of mini lathe. I did put a dial indicator on the carriage as I ran it up and down the bed, and as best I can tell, the grind scar is cosmetic. But still, as you asked, will it bug me every time I see it? It IS right out there front and center. Again, I dunno.

I have already sent photos to the seller, and of course he asked for a video too. So heck, I have the equipment and photo/video is actually one of my minor hobbies anyway, so I generated a quick one for him showing the problems. Below is what I pointed him to.

FYI, I played around with those carriage controls quite a bit today, and those controls are just difficult to work with. Not very useful if that is the way they are supposed to be. Maybe I need to be Hercules to work them? Nothing in the manual about how to correctly use them, and besides the sticker around them about the 200 rpm, not a clue about how to actually get them to do what they are supposed to do. I like the idea of being able to change the speed of travel of the carriage independent of the spindle speed on the fly, but not sure this will actually work. I think there is a problem in the gears or a shift lever of some sort to move the gears, but that would require taking the headstock apart (I think) just to take a look. Something I am not willing to do if this might actually go back for a refund. So I told the seller that I consider the carriage controls as being DOA BROKEN on this unit. Maybe it is easily fixable, maybe it is not. As it is now, I have it working at what I consider a STATIC setting of running in the correct direction, with the "middle" speed, which is supposed to be used for threading. The question, of course, is whether I will be willing to take the chance and keep this thing if this function can't be fixed. Heck, there are always design flaws too.

BTW, what is considered "forward" and "backward" on the carriage travel on a lathe? My thoughts were that "forward" would be towards the chuck, and "backward" would be away from the chuck. It seems to be the opposite on that lever control the very few times I could get it to work.

Believe me I looked at every small lathe I could find and nothing came close to all the specs this unit had that I found attractive. Particularly the weight when considering the the other specs included. I just don't want something bigger and heavier. It would mean too much in the way of allocating space and effort to move it, which I just don't have available. The 11x27 series of lathes seem mighty attractive, but that approx. 400 to 500 lbs of weight to deal with puts it out of my reach. Not to mention about two to three times more expensive than this one I just got.

I expect the seller to drag his feet and come up with excuses about why he can't get an answer from "someone else". So we will see. Honestly, I can live without this lathe, and just put the Compact 5 back on the worktable. It's done most of what I have needed so far. If this doesn't work out somewhat satisfactorily, I believe this will be my last attempt to get another lathe.

Thanks.

 

[brino]

Just browsing the exploded view of an entirely different lathe made me think back to this thread......

On that Jet lathe a ball, spring and set screw went thru the front of a dial, like this:

that's from page 35 of this manual:
https://content.jettools.com/assets/manuals/321360A_man_EN.pdf

Note I am NOT saying that there are great similarities between the two lathes.
Just thought that if you end up keeping this lathe you make look under those (upside-down) decals.

-brino

 

[Tired&Retired]

Just browsing the exploded view of an entirely different lathe made me think back to this thread......

On that Jet lathe a ball, spring and set screw went thru the front of a dial, like this:

View attachment 337463

that's from page 35 of this manual:
https://content.jettools.com/assets/manuals/321360A_man_EN.pdf

Note I am NOT saying that there are great similarities between the two lathes.
Just thought that if you end up keeping this lathe you make look under those (upside-down) decals.

-brino

Thanks for thinking of me. Good idea. Those decals are very thin, so maybe if there is something like that, I will be able to feel it with my thumbnail. That certainly could explain why I am having so much difficulty with those levers. Unless the set screw is in the same hole that those levers screw into, I don't see any holding the knob in place on the shaft, so I was thinking they are just press on fits. Maybe whoever was doing final assembly on this thing just laid those small parts we found in the crate on the bottom and forgot to install them before putting on the upside down decals.

The seller got back to me again early this morning and asked if he could have more time to have some techs look into this. He said they could replace the "dented" piece, so maybe he is talking about sending me a new bed? He also mentioned that he would arrange for truck pickup if I just wanted to send it back for a full refund if things aren't satisfactory to me. I'm just going to wait and see what happens, I guess. Honestly, I guess the lathe could be a whole lot worse. Yeah, I wish it were perfect, but I wasn't expecting that at all when I ordered it.

If the seller is willing to do whatever it takes to make this right, I guess I should do my part and work with him and not cop an attitude.

 

[matthewsx]

Just make sure you know how much time you have to file a dispute. I guarantee they do....

I’m not saying that your seller won’t make it right, just that the cultural norms we grew up with aren’t universal.


John

 

[Tired&Retired]

After someone suggested that the grind mark might be covering up a crack, I broke out the Nikon and took some close-up pics of the grind mark so I could take a closer look at it. I do see a shadow that looks like the casting void extended upwards to a small crater on top of the sliding surface, but nothing that immediately looks like a crack to my untrained eye.

 

[Tired&Retired]

I got a 5MT dead center that I put into the headstock and put the 2MT dead center in the tailstock. I had to fiddle with the adjustment screws on the tailstock to get the dead centers point to point. But I noticed that the top of the tailstock is quite a bit offset from the bottom section. Is this something to be expected?

 

[Tired&Retired]

Just make sure you know how much time you have to file a dispute. I guarantee they do....

I’m not saying that your seller won’t make it right, just that the cultural norms we grew up with aren’t universal.


John

PayPal has 180 days now to file a dispute, I believe. My credit card company says two billing cycles, which is roughly 60 days. Not sure about Ebay, but I believe the window is smaller than the other two. I can always start a dispute to get the clock ticking, and then if promises aren't kept when the deadline arrives, just let the dispute stand. If promises are kept, then just cancel the dispute. At least in theory.