1340gt finally made it after what looks like a rough ride

I am not beating up on Matt or QM they are well regarded. That said the problem with damaged equipment is the use of common carriers. UPS and Fed Ex Freight along with YRC, Estes, Oak Harbor and all the rest use so many terminals, so many trucks and reload centers that a skid loaded on the east coast might see half a dozen trucks on its trip across country. Its the reloads that damage the freight. I know a guy one man shop representing a variety of companies like Kent, Chevalier, Accra, etc. He will not ship common carrier, he goes through a freight router, finds a trucker, trucker picks it up and takes it to end destination on open trailer, package partially crated, shrunk wrapped and then tarped. He says his blood pressured dropped dramatically when he went this route, his customers are happier and he sees next to no damage,usually a little touch up paint and that is that. That and its usually cheaper than common carrier. In last 15 years I have bought half dozen tools and had em shipped, all in 2000-3500 lb range. The common carriers damaged every machine, the open trailer independent truckers damaged nothing. Food for thought for guys buying machines. The other thing about open trailer is its easy to get one with air ride suspension, good luck getting air ride trailer for your common carrier shipment.

michael
 
Hi Devin,

I ordered the new stickers for you and they will be drop shipping directly from the factory to you. As far as the paint, we are checking to see what we can get you that will match up with that. There isn't a color code that tells us exactly what to get but we will get it matched up for you. If there's anything else you need let us know.

Thank you,

Greg
Quality Machine Tools
Click to expand...

Well, they seem to be working on it & trying to make things right. Meanwhile I'm finishing up cleaning up the corner of my shop, doing the last bit of wiring & stalling with some other cleanup & lighting projects waiting to put the lathe together.
 
Seems to me that the worker bees are forced to make do with pallet jacks when the situation calls for a fork truck.
They grab them and slide them hither, thither and yon, when the pallet or crate needs to be lifted.
 
middle.road said:
Seems to me that the worker bees are forced to make do with pallet jacks when the situation calls for a fork truck.
They grab them and slide them hither, thither and yon, when the pallet or crate needs to be lifted.
Click to expand...

It's hard to dedicate a forklift to sit in the back of every truck all day long. A pallet jack is much smaller & lighter to maneuver stuff in the back of the truck while on the road. And really, you can do much less damage with a pallet jack than you can with a forklift. Personally I've destroyed a lot more stuff with the pallet forks on my tractor than I have with my pallet jack. Anyway pallet forks would have speared things or broken/bent things, not caused chafing damage or crush damage (unless things were double stacked & you went down to far with the forks messing with the top load).

The 2 legs of the stand were actually in their own boxes & not on a pallet. At least until he picked them up by hand & set them on top of the crate as I was unloading it with the tractor. I'll blame those on a rough trailer ride & insufficient packing. The crushed case & scuffed panels/trays in the crate as well was a combination of rough trailer ride & insufficient packing.

As others noted, there probably wasn't air ride in that trailer. The fact the crate crushed a pallet indicates there was a lot of bouncing & vibration going on in there.
 
Didn't know they provided scratch and dent service during the high priced delivery ride. Lucky it was at least created.
Congratulations on a very nice lathe.
 
Congratulations on the new machine! It is a crying shame that the freight company did all that damage. It is good to see that Precision Matthews is helping out, as always.

In the past 14 months I bought a PM1340GT, a PM935TV, an Ellis 9400 drill press, and an Ellis 1600 bandsaw. All were relatively heavy and all were delivered by Fedex freight and none had any damage. So I became a fan of Fedex Freight but sounds like my experience may be a bit
different.

BTW, my 1340 stands were shipped separately and came about 2 weeks after the lathe arrived. Again Fedex was the carrier and no damage.
 
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Sorry about the shipping damage, but glad you got it, and it's mostly ok. Maybe this is why I stick to beat up old machinery.:grin: Shipping always seems to be kind of a crap shoot, but for the most part I've had pretty good luck over the years. Welcome to the site, from a fellow Coloradan. Cheers, Mike
 
FOMOGO said:
Sorry about the shipping damage, but glad you got it, and it's mostly ok. Maybe this is why I stick to beat up old machinery.:grin: Shipping always seems to be kind of a crap shoot, but for the most part I've had pretty good luck over the years. Welcome to the site, from a fellow Coloradan. Cheers, Mike
Click to expand...

I was leaning that direction, but decided I didn't want to gamble & deal with rebuilding an old machine. I could do it, but realized I have better things on my priority list for now. That list is long enough as it is. That and I'm not familiar enough with the machines yet so wanted to play it safe with a warranty. So decided to try new for once.
 
I had some minor damage to my GT1340 as well although the crates looked fine when I received them both doors on the base were scuffed and one significantly bent. There was also damage to the chip tray paint although no distortion. I'm not quite sure how it happened without the shipper having visibly damaged the crates. I so far have not repainted anything although my damage was not as extensive as yours was but did have to tweak the door on my press to get is straight. Also had to bend and reshape the levers for the door latches on the base because as supplied (they were straight) they simply did NOT function. I'm sure you will be pleased with the end result tho'.
 
Just waiting for some decent weather to try & paint the stands. Peeled off the aluminum badge on the stand which bent it all up despite being careful. Goo-Gone got the adhesive off. Did some light sanding to smooth things out.

Have a gallon of Sherwin Williams DTM color matched sitting ready to go. PM kicked off the refund for a couple of bucks more than the cost of the phone within a couple hours over the weekend. A gallon was the smallest they had, so it looks like my 2" x 72" grinder in a box build is gonna be color matched to my lathe, probably some other tools as well.

Bought a HVLP gun years ago but have managed to avoid ever using it so far. Finally gonna give it a shot. Might be pushing 60 this weekend. Hopefully warm enough to spray.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk
 
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