Grizzly G0670 16x40 Taiwan Variable Speed Lathe

  • coolidge said:
    Doubleeboy any news on your inbound G0670?
    Click to expand...

  • Its here and parked in my shop, errrrr.. 1 bay of 3 bay garage. It is a toy compared to old American iron, it weights 100 lbs less than my 12.5 x 20 Monarch but it seems okay, not under power yet. Lathe was built in Sept 2012, so the cosmoline is old and a hassle to get off, it is very hard. The non ground surfaces between ways are all badly rusted, that will be hours of scrubbing with brass wire brush and flooding with solvent, what a joy. The 3 jaw looks very nice, I chucked up a stub with two diameters on it and turned spindle by hand, run out of .0014. Unlike other Chinese chucks I have seen, no sharp edges or burrs. I have not unpacked the 4 jaw yet. I will likely get a 6 jaw set tru, either Gator or Bison and will at some point get a set tru 5c chuck. The four way tool post is off and will likely stay there. I have a spare wedge holder to use, BXA would be a bit on the small side and CXA seems just a hair large, the compound sits a bit high IMO.

  • Rigger proved why they get the big bucks. Every detail was gone over, the lathe never knew it was being picked up by fork lift. No blocking, no straps, went down a hill like it was a ring in a jewelery box. I suspect that Grizzly does not check these machines when they take delivery, or they would have done something about the frankenstein dials I got. Metric only on cross slide, combo on the compound and inch on the carriage. When I get it running I will report on how it runs. Its tough rapping my head around this purchase and I vacillated a long time, weighing the pluses and minuses. There is nothing about it that is as nice as my Monarch that is 59 years old, but its new does metric threads and larger which is why I bought it. Grizzly is thinking about what to do about cross slide dial, I supect there will be a long wait and maybe I will get new dial and pointer, or maybe I will just suck it up and put on the that .0001" reading Newall I been thinking about. Cudos to Grizzly, the lathe was very well attached to substantial skid, and then crated with half inch thick 6 inch wide slats. All the accessories were crated and strapped down well, no loose bits flying around. I have read the stories of others who have bought tools and found loose bits everywhere , not in this case. The plastic gear in threading chain looks pretty substantial, I would not consider it an issue. Right now I am undecided on how to get power to it. Being a dirt bagger I could just rig up cord on floor, done that before, but it would be nice to not have to step over it, so looks like overhead conduit, lots of turns and drop to lathe. Might be several days before it gets turned on.
I just figured out the crossfeed dial is pinned, if you push pin you can rotate it to get metric on underside, I missed that buried in cosmoline, so that issue is resolved , silly me.
cheers
michael
 
Last edited:
For $13,500 that would annoy me significantly. I have first hand experience with dried out cosmoline, it can permanently stain the ground surfaces besides being a pain to remove. Something else that doesn't like to sit for years unpowered are capacitors, in particular start/run motor caps. As for "badly rusted" that's not something I would expect to deal with on a brand new $13k machine.

Glad you got the dials sorted out, yeah they spin around from metric to inch. That's good news on the chuck though I had already planned to replace it with a PB. I have detailed specs on the cross slide, compound vs spindle centerline, CXA is the right choice. BXA is too small and CA is too large.

So this means I would have to drive up there and inspect the specific machine I would buy, duly noted. Hopefully they have some newer stock in Bellingham vs 2012. Would appreciate further updates as you make progress. As for your rust issue here's a tip from the guys who restore rusted old iron, they soak towels in Evaporust, lay them on the rusted areas and cover them in plastic, the stuff is amazing at removing rust I'd try that first. I first used Evaporust on a 1952 machine which had some significant rust on a rough casting you could not really wire brush, it came out amazing, no elbow grease required. Just rinsed it with some water and some very light scrubbing with a plastic bristle brush. Effortless. The rust was 100% GONE!
 
Update: I called Grizzly, they only have one of these lathes left in Bellingham, they could not give me the date of manufacture so I'd have to drive up there and inspect the lathe personally. ETA on the next shipment 6-8 weeks which is fine I'm not in that big a hurry. I'm still waiting on a Grizzly discount code anyway. If I got a discount code today well that might push up my timeline. Grizzly did say they would not ship me a lathe from one of the other facilities, due to the weight.
 
doubleeboy just checking in to see if you are making chips yet?
 
No chips yet, got power to it today and fired it up tonight and ran it as per instructions at different speeds. Will do it again tomorrow and drain oils and reload and might get some cutting in. I am still doing final leveling. With the 9 inch 3 jaw mounted the spindle goes from 0-2500 rpms in a couple seconds and stops in 3 the way they have vfd set, good enough for me. Machine is pretty tight, controls need some use. Pretty quiet to about 600 rpms, then like all gear heads it gets louder. The included 3 jaw chuck repeats within .0013 on previously turned stock. I am really impressed with the chuck , I was expecting the worse, not the case.

michael
 
Thanks for the update, so far so good then. I like that it's quiet. That's pretty good for a large chuck, maybe I need to re-think needing a PBA chuck. I took Thu and Fri off this week, I may take the long drive up to Grizzly's Bellingham store to inspect the last G0670 they have in stock.

I forget, what are you doing for 3 phase power? I was looking at a 40 amp single phase circuit into a RPC for this lathe.

Man she winds up to max rpm's quick, which means there won't be time to hit the E-Stop so one has to pay attention to what they are doing. Reminds me of the guy with the brand new Haas lathe who had 2-3 feet of stock hanging out the back side of the spindle unsupported. I don't remember what he was doing but the lathe went to max rpm's, the stock bent over and beat his brand new lathe to death.
 
I have 10 hp idler motor hooked up to a Phase Craft rotary converter box, output goes to 3 line disconnect box, fused then to lathe. The idler motor was free from a friend, I spent $200 putting bearings in it, the panel was about same cost, with magnetic switch.
 
coolidge said:
I may take the long drive up to Grizzly's Bellingham store to inspect the last G0670 they have in stock.
Click to expand...

Will they pop the crate so you can look? My G0709 was pretty well secured, lots of working knocking the crate apart.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top