- Joined
- Aug 7, 2013
- Messages
- 22
I previously hijacked someone else's thread re: Busy Bee, the CX701 and their overall quality and support issues. I'm started my own thread to give more details to my personal experience and bring attention to the fact that many things surrounding Busy Bee, their products and service are, in my opinion, unacceptably low quality.
It all started when I bought a lightly used CX701 locally. Got a hand getting the lathe transported to my shop and got it mounted on a bench. I did a few test runs by facing a few things and then decided to attempt to turn a metric thread for a project I had. Got the lathe set up and didn't clear my workspace entirely...ended up hanging-up the carriage handwheel handle on a small box and that prevented the carriage from moving; shut down the machine as quick as I could but heard some bad sounds before I did. Entirely my fault but what happened next was very revealing about how these machines are made and supported...
Cleared the obstruction and set about testing various parts of the lathe. There was no longer any drive to the feed rod so I checked the change gears; the bushing between the middle 2 change gears was sheared in half. Thought it was strange that an entire bushing would destruct and checked the lowest gear in the drive...it has a removable pin that mates it to the input shaft that drives the gearbox. I assumed that this pin is meant to be 'sacrificial' and therefore should have sheared instead of the bushing above it. Not only did it not shear, it wasn't even bent...simply fell out of the hole when I poked it. It's made out of steel and not a soft 'white metal' like cotter pins, etc. Poor choice of material for a shear pin. I made a new pin out of brass to try to ensure that this pin would be more likely to become sacrificial if something like this happened again. Contacted Busy Bee and told them that the pins were unsuitably hard...they didn't seem to care. Moved on from that topic and wanted to order replacement gear change bushings and they wanted $8/piece; I wanted a few of these as if they were this weak, I'd want some spares. Took 3 calls/emails to get an order placed and during that time, I contacted Precision Matthews since they sell a comparable lathe: guy there laughed and said 'Yeah, I hear about Busy Bee lots..' and offered to send the bushings for FREE...took him up on that and told Busy Bee to keep theirs.
Checked to see if the lathe had more issues e.g. handwheel would not turn smoothly throughout entire rotation. Disassembled apron and found out that 1) apron casing had a mounting hole in it that had no metal on one side...casting was bad 2) the bed rack pinion gear shaft was bent/bushing was cracked. Great...the overly-strong pin ALSO caused destruction within the apron. Again called Busy Bee and had to have multiple conversations to drive home the point that I needed these parts, had to figure out part numbers, figure out how to pay, etc. Once we sorted the parts list, they told me that they had none of the parts in stock and all of them would have to come from 'overseas'...and take 3-4 months. I said that was unacceptable; sure, I don't expect them to stock every parts but having NONE on hand and all of these parts can fit in an envelope...they don't need to wait for an entire shipping container to be filled on their next equipment order for my parts to be sent out. They stated that I could pay (much) extra for shipping and get it within a month. $60 to send a padded envelope from China the size of 2 pieces of sliced bread...seemed very expensive to me for 2-4 week shipping. Already had the lathe apart for weeks and didn't want it to stay like that until the rest of the year so I agreed to pay the extra shipping cost. Did arrive by the end of the month but when I opened the package I was disgusted...
...almost half of the parts didn't fit and one of the shafts was missing a hole for the pin that fastens the gear to it. Called Busy Bee back and asked what was going on...the parts they shipped were worse fit/finish that the broken ones I removed. Tech guy said 'yeah that happens...you'll have to make them work'. WHAT?!? Simply unacceptable...one of the parts wasn't even the same diameter/thread pitch as was listed in the package that it was shipped in! I couldnt fit the keys in the keyways since 1) the keys were too long 2) the keyways were jagged...and crooked. As for the shaft with the missing hole, I was told 'yeah...you have to make that yourself once the apron gearing is re-assembled'. He was actually right...the tolerances are SO BAD on the parts that if they had pre-drilled the hole, you might not be able to re-assemble them/have too much play. The original hole wasn't even drilled in the center of the gear/shaft but slightly offset and probably changes on every machine they make so that they ahve to be 'paired' by assembling everything first.
I sent photos showing him how bad the parts were...with photos of the old parts vs new parts and demanded that he escalate the issue to 1) get me new, useful parts 2) inform management there is a quality issue and that you couldn't even build a new machine from these parts. He told me it was pointless...they've had multiple issues before and they 'just have to accept whatever is sent'. I said that wasn't what I had to accept...I paid for parts that fit, and I wanted them ASAP. Multiple conversations later and he agreed to resend a few of the worst parts (since there ordered a few spares...probably at my expense) since they were preventing me from getting my machine operational. Got 3 more parts...and 1 of them STILL DIDNT FIT!!! Also, ended up wasting one of those secondary parts (shaft) in the attempt to drill the hole for the gear pin mentioned earlier since you have to do it freehand; trying to duplicate an originally-inaccurate hole is a tough thing to do. Spent hours cleaning up the keyways using a jewelers file (needed to control the amount of material removed so that keyways didn't become sloppy) and make adjustments on the hand-drilled shaft hole to get it to align with the gear and not bind the apron gearing. Frankly, if I calculate the time I spend modifying the garbage parts Busy Bee sent me and what I had already paid to get them, I could have taken the old parts to a machine shop and had them duplicated...properly.
I suspect that Busy Bee is getting their machines/parts from a supplier different than who made my machine originally (is now almost 4 yrs old). Regardless, the quality of the parts is a joke and it scares me to think that this is how the newer machines are being built. Add to that the difficulty and lack/ambivalent Customer Service in getting said parts...and I just cannot contemplate buying another machine from them. 2 months of dealing with them on what should have been nothing more than a sheared pin...dozens on hours, multiple emails/phonecalls, a bunch of money...simply wasteful. My wife heard some of my frustration and offered to buy me a CX707 to replace this lathe to save me the frustration (I really do LOVE her!) but I pointed out: there is NO guarantee the machine is built better (and possibly worse), parts availability will be just as dismal and the Customer Service will be identical...buying me another Busy Bee lathe doesn't resolve poor quality/service. In fact, it'll encourage them to continue behaving poorly by taking MORE of our money...I simply cannot let that happen and reserved the right to research/buy another brand.
Out of curiousity, I went to local Busy Bee and examined their display CX701; same X-axis handwheel I repaired I also tried on theirs...mine works smoothly now whereas theirs felt like it was binding . This is what a new machine feels like now?!? My guess is that the parts are either flawed like my replacement ones or that the after-the-fact shaft hole they drilled made the bushing/gears fit too tight. Either way, some new owner is going to be unhappy.
FWIW - although I'm the 2nd owner, I attempted to post a (more kind) review of the CX701 on the Busy Bee website. They wouldnt allow it...said they only allow reviews from 1st owners. However, I've also heard from other owners that their reviews were also denied. Can't prove that they were indeed original owners but the fact that there is some censorship afoot leaves me with yet another bad impression.
Checked in to King Canada and they moved production from Taiwan to China a number of years ago; going to assume that was NOT done to improve quality... Already have a King mill drill and priced out some of their replacement parts...very expensive.
KBC: looked at their house brand and seems to be more Chinese junk. Also, expensive vs competition. Can't afford their name brand stuff.
Checked out Grizzly: Chinese machines are the same junk as Busy Bee source and I determined this by making a visit to their Bellevue showroom (discovered some other inconsistencies while I was there, too). Maybe Taiwan/Southbend are better but out of my price range (esp. with CAD/USD conversion)
Precision Matthews: very grateful for freebies and easy to talk to. However, getting support from across border still concerns me and some of their machines are duplicates of Busy Bee e.g. PM1127 has same manual as CX701 so not sure they'll be built any better. They frankly told me to consider a Taiwanese-built machine but again, quite expensive by the time it lands here.
Modern Tool: entry-level equipment is junk. saw that you can buy their $6K 1440 lathe in China for $2300USD..and possibly less if you purchase a volume of them. Found a number of these for private sale and feedback has been the same 'you get what you pay for...'. some guys even claim that cant produce a quality finish regardless of what they do. Checked one out last week (model Co636ax1000) and without actually cutting anything, it was having trouble revving the chuck to full RPM <heard it surging...yikes>.
Like most other folks, have been trying to hold out for a older, good quality machine that has some life left in it but they are hard to find in Alberta. Like musical chairs with 1 chair and 10 participants...anything good gets pounced on ASAP.
Are there ANY viable options in Canada that a hobbyist can afford?
It all started when I bought a lightly used CX701 locally. Got a hand getting the lathe transported to my shop and got it mounted on a bench. I did a few test runs by facing a few things and then decided to attempt to turn a metric thread for a project I had. Got the lathe set up and didn't clear my workspace entirely...ended up hanging-up the carriage handwheel handle on a small box and that prevented the carriage from moving; shut down the machine as quick as I could but heard some bad sounds before I did. Entirely my fault but what happened next was very revealing about how these machines are made and supported...
Cleared the obstruction and set about testing various parts of the lathe. There was no longer any drive to the feed rod so I checked the change gears; the bushing between the middle 2 change gears was sheared in half. Thought it was strange that an entire bushing would destruct and checked the lowest gear in the drive...it has a removable pin that mates it to the input shaft that drives the gearbox. I assumed that this pin is meant to be 'sacrificial' and therefore should have sheared instead of the bushing above it. Not only did it not shear, it wasn't even bent...simply fell out of the hole when I poked it. It's made out of steel and not a soft 'white metal' like cotter pins, etc. Poor choice of material for a shear pin. I made a new pin out of brass to try to ensure that this pin would be more likely to become sacrificial if something like this happened again. Contacted Busy Bee and told them that the pins were unsuitably hard...they didn't seem to care. Moved on from that topic and wanted to order replacement gear change bushings and they wanted $8/piece; I wanted a few of these as if they were this weak, I'd want some spares. Took 3 calls/emails to get an order placed and during that time, I contacted Precision Matthews since they sell a comparable lathe: guy there laughed and said 'Yeah, I hear about Busy Bee lots..' and offered to send the bushings for FREE...took him up on that and told Busy Bee to keep theirs.
Checked to see if the lathe had more issues e.g. handwheel would not turn smoothly throughout entire rotation. Disassembled apron and found out that 1) apron casing had a mounting hole in it that had no metal on one side...casting was bad 2) the bed rack pinion gear shaft was bent/bushing was cracked. Great...the overly-strong pin ALSO caused destruction within the apron. Again called Busy Bee and had to have multiple conversations to drive home the point that I needed these parts, had to figure out part numbers, figure out how to pay, etc. Once we sorted the parts list, they told me that they had none of the parts in stock and all of them would have to come from 'overseas'...and take 3-4 months. I said that was unacceptable; sure, I don't expect them to stock every parts but having NONE on hand and all of these parts can fit in an envelope...they don't need to wait for an entire shipping container to be filled on their next equipment order for my parts to be sent out. They stated that I could pay (much) extra for shipping and get it within a month. $60 to send a padded envelope from China the size of 2 pieces of sliced bread...seemed very expensive to me for 2-4 week shipping. Already had the lathe apart for weeks and didn't want it to stay like that until the rest of the year so I agreed to pay the extra shipping cost. Did arrive by the end of the month but when I opened the package I was disgusted...
...almost half of the parts didn't fit and one of the shafts was missing a hole for the pin that fastens the gear to it. Called Busy Bee back and asked what was going on...the parts they shipped were worse fit/finish that the broken ones I removed. Tech guy said 'yeah that happens...you'll have to make them work'. WHAT?!? Simply unacceptable...one of the parts wasn't even the same diameter/thread pitch as was listed in the package that it was shipped in! I couldnt fit the keys in the keyways since 1) the keys were too long 2) the keyways were jagged...and crooked. As for the shaft with the missing hole, I was told 'yeah...you have to make that yourself once the apron gearing is re-assembled'. He was actually right...the tolerances are SO BAD on the parts that if they had pre-drilled the hole, you might not be able to re-assemble them/have too much play. The original hole wasn't even drilled in the center of the gear/shaft but slightly offset and probably changes on every machine they make so that they ahve to be 'paired' by assembling everything first.
I sent photos showing him how bad the parts were...with photos of the old parts vs new parts and demanded that he escalate the issue to 1) get me new, useful parts 2) inform management there is a quality issue and that you couldn't even build a new machine from these parts. He told me it was pointless...they've had multiple issues before and they 'just have to accept whatever is sent'. I said that wasn't what I had to accept...I paid for parts that fit, and I wanted them ASAP. Multiple conversations later and he agreed to resend a few of the worst parts (since there ordered a few spares...probably at my expense) since they were preventing me from getting my machine operational. Got 3 more parts...and 1 of them STILL DIDNT FIT!!! Also, ended up wasting one of those secondary parts (shaft) in the attempt to drill the hole for the gear pin mentioned earlier since you have to do it freehand; trying to duplicate an originally-inaccurate hole is a tough thing to do. Spent hours cleaning up the keyways using a jewelers file (needed to control the amount of material removed so that keyways didn't become sloppy) and make adjustments on the hand-drilled shaft hole to get it to align with the gear and not bind the apron gearing. Frankly, if I calculate the time I spend modifying the garbage parts Busy Bee sent me and what I had already paid to get them, I could have taken the old parts to a machine shop and had them duplicated...properly.
I suspect that Busy Bee is getting their machines/parts from a supplier different than who made my machine originally (is now almost 4 yrs old). Regardless, the quality of the parts is a joke and it scares me to think that this is how the newer machines are being built. Add to that the difficulty and lack/ambivalent Customer Service in getting said parts...and I just cannot contemplate buying another machine from them. 2 months of dealing with them on what should have been nothing more than a sheared pin...dozens on hours, multiple emails/phonecalls, a bunch of money...simply wasteful. My wife heard some of my frustration and offered to buy me a CX707 to replace this lathe to save me the frustration (I really do LOVE her!) but I pointed out: there is NO guarantee the machine is built better (and possibly worse), parts availability will be just as dismal and the Customer Service will be identical...buying me another Busy Bee lathe doesn't resolve poor quality/service. In fact, it'll encourage them to continue behaving poorly by taking MORE of our money...I simply cannot let that happen and reserved the right to research/buy another brand.
Out of curiousity, I went to local Busy Bee and examined their display CX701; same X-axis handwheel I repaired I also tried on theirs...mine works smoothly now whereas theirs felt like it was binding . This is what a new machine feels like now?!? My guess is that the parts are either flawed like my replacement ones or that the after-the-fact shaft hole they drilled made the bushing/gears fit too tight. Either way, some new owner is going to be unhappy.
FWIW - although I'm the 2nd owner, I attempted to post a (more kind) review of the CX701 on the Busy Bee website. They wouldnt allow it...said they only allow reviews from 1st owners. However, I've also heard from other owners that their reviews were also denied. Can't prove that they were indeed original owners but the fact that there is some censorship afoot leaves me with yet another bad impression.
Checked in to King Canada and they moved production from Taiwan to China a number of years ago; going to assume that was NOT done to improve quality... Already have a King mill drill and priced out some of their replacement parts...very expensive.
KBC: looked at their house brand and seems to be more Chinese junk. Also, expensive vs competition. Can't afford their name brand stuff.
Checked out Grizzly: Chinese machines are the same junk as Busy Bee source and I determined this by making a visit to their Bellevue showroom (discovered some other inconsistencies while I was there, too). Maybe Taiwan/Southbend are better but out of my price range (esp. with CAD/USD conversion)
Precision Matthews: very grateful for freebies and easy to talk to. However, getting support from across border still concerns me and some of their machines are duplicates of Busy Bee e.g. PM1127 has same manual as CX701 so not sure they'll be built any better. They frankly told me to consider a Taiwanese-built machine but again, quite expensive by the time it lands here.
Modern Tool: entry-level equipment is junk. saw that you can buy their $6K 1440 lathe in China for $2300USD..and possibly less if you purchase a volume of them. Found a number of these for private sale and feedback has been the same 'you get what you pay for...'. some guys even claim that cant produce a quality finish regardless of what they do. Checked one out last week (model Co636ax1000) and without actually cutting anything, it was having trouble revving the chuck to full RPM <heard it surging...yikes>.
Like most other folks, have been trying to hold out for a older, good quality machine that has some life left in it but they are hard to find in Alberta. Like musical chairs with 1 chair and 10 participants...anything good gets pounced on ASAP.
Are there ANY viable options in Canada that a hobbyist can afford?
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