Gator Chuck Purchase Experience

[TakeDeadAim]

I wanted to pass on an experience I had in purchasing a 6” set-tru type chuck for my lathe. I wanted a six jaw six inch and a D1-5 backing plate. In looking at my budget and the available chucks I decided on a Gator chuck, which is sold by Global Tooling Solutions and available thru several distributors.

I placed an order with one distributor and received the semi steel six jaw chuck and backing plate I ordered. Upon inspection I could see the chuck jaws were mis-ground, in that the printed specifications for the chuck indicate it should clamp down on a 1/8th inch diameter rod. The chuck I received measured .470” in the fully closed position. The backing plate was also mis-machined. The distributor was excellent when I called, they checked the other chuck they had in stock and found them to be the same as the one I received. A call tag was sent and refund issued promptly.

I still needed a chuck so I contacted other distributors and found none with any six jaw chucks in stock. Finally I found a forged 6” three jaw and backing plate. On arrival I was happy to see the chuck was in excellent condition and within specs. The backing plate, however, was out of parallel, in the front to back surface, by several thousands.

I contacted Global Tooling Solutions where I spoke with Karl Ganshirt who is the president of the company. He apologized for the issues with the products and made it a priority to get me a backing plate. They had none in stock but he actually purchased one from a competitor and shipped it to me so that I could get up and running as I had a job waiting here for which I needed the chuck.

You can say what you want about import machines and tools but to me customer service is always an issue no matter where I buy. I will say Global Tooling stood behind their product and made things right and did it in a way that is not common to my experience with either US or off shore made items.

Karl shared with me that part of the problem they were experiencing is the manufacturing facility that makes these chucks for them had recently purchased some new high precision, high speed CNC machines, but because they are off shore they are not getting the support a US company would get in getting the machines set up and running. The policy does not make a whole lot of sense to me, a customer is a customer and I think everyone should receive the same level of support no matter how big, or how small or where they are located.

For us on this forum I think this is important, we are all small shops, some hobbyists, some home based shops and some small businesses. It should not matter who we are, we deserve the same level of customer service and support that any purchaser of a product should receive.

I want to publicly thank Karl at Global Tooling for his support to me and I wanted to post this here so other small shops know of this and can use them for tooling needs knowing if there is a problem it will be handled in a prompt professional manor.

 

[mksj]

Thank you for sharing your experience, I think it is very worthwhile to share both the concerns with Gator chucks and and the customer service of Global Tooling. I must say Although I have purchased Gator backing plates and found them spot on, I am disappointed with others experiences with this manufacturer. Bottom line is the QC should be picking up these issues, and this level/frequency of problems is disturbing.

When I purchase my 5C chuck, I was told from Ajax Tooling that both the Bison and Gator where similar in quality, I still went with the Bison, glad I did. At the prices Gator charges, it is probably worth paying a little more and getting a Bison chuck. I have purchased three Bison chucks, and have not had any issues, they function very well and quality is very good, although the PBA chucks I feel are a step above the Bison in quality/finish. I guess Gator gets checked off as another one to avoid until we hear otherwise. The choices for manufactures producing good quality chuck seems to be fewer and nil.