King 1236ml (grizzly G4003) Is Home

HBilly1022

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A few weeks ago my new lathe arrived at my dealers shop and I picked it up, brought it home and uncrated it. Then I left for holidays and finally got home and got it into it's new home.

Here it is sitting on the pallet and ready to be lifted onto the stand.
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Here is the stand waiting for the important part.
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All bolted together and ready to move into it's final location.
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and at rest in it's final location.
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A one man operation with the tractor but very slow going.
 
Billy, I saw your other post about quality issues with the lathe, are you keeping it or are you still deciding what to do about it?

Did you check out the PM lathes from Quality Machine Tools?

The PM1236 is about $4,600 CND delivered, as the $CND has improved about 3% in the last week, and the trend is looking positive, so if it's not too late maybe worth a look.

Good Luck,

David
 
Billy, I saw your other post about quality issues with the lathe, are you keeping it or are you still deciding what to do about it?

Did you check out the PM lathes from Quality Machine Tools?

The PM1236 is about $4,600 CND delivered, as the $CND has improved about 3% in the last week, and the trend is looking positive, so if it's not too late maybe worth a look.

Good Luck,

David

Still deciding. My other post is in an attempt to find either a PM1236 or the equivalent Craftex lathe so I can see if they are better quality. Busy Bee in Coquitlam doesn't have one on display and even if they did I know they would not let me open the cover to look inside. I talked to the guy there before when I was considering returning my King 1022 lathe and getting a Craftex. Not helpful at all. Then I read some posts about bad after sales experiences with that outlet and decided to stay clear.

The reason I stuck with King is because of the dealer. I had issues with the King 1022 and even after wrestling with it for 3 months he agreed to give me my money back. In the end I kept it. With the new lathe I am experiencing new quality issues and he again offered to take it back. I took the lathe back to his store and went through the issues with a new employee he has. He was a machinist for 40 years and could see my concerns. I also told him I was concerned that if I kept this machine and something went wrong I would have to pay for shipping it back and forth across the country to get warranty work done. There is no service center near me or in Kamloops where I bought the lathe. He talked to King Canada and then gave me the following options. 1) Get my money back, 2) use the money and see what other brand he could get me into, 3) use the machine for 6 months and if I'm not happy with it then he will give me a full refund, 4) during the first 6 months if there is a catastrophic failure he will replace it and deal with King, 5) after the 6 months and during the rest of the 2 year warranty period, if there are warranty issues I will return the machine to my dealer and he will act as my service center. King has also agreed to pick up the cost of shipping, to and from his store, to any service center they choose during that time frame.

With that offer I figured I couldn't go wrong with at least giving it try. Where else would I get that kind of commitment from a dealer.

Since before buying my first lathe I scoured the internet for information on the lathes I was considering, King, Grizzly, PM and Craftex. I found very little (almost nothing) on King, very little on Craftex and quite a bit on Grizzly and lots of new stuff on PM on this forum and some older reviews. The Grizzly ones were mixed with most of it being good. Craftex I only found a few and those were horror stories about after sales lack of support and warranty fights. Lots of good comments about Matt at QMT but there were some bad reviews on the PM when it was Precision Mathews a few years ago. I think the reason QMT is getting good reviews is because of the after sales service. Don't know if their machines are any different but would like to see the inside of one of their Chinese machines so I can see for myself. I read their warranty and it states I would be responsible for shipping costs both ways if there was warranty work required. That would be ridiculously expensive from where I am. So before I would buy one I would want to make absolutely certain they are indeed better quality.

From my research I am certain that Grizzly and King are the same machines with very minor tweeks between them, with the Grizzly being a better version. King Canada also confirmed their machines are the same as the Grizzly ones. I believe the same is true with the PM Chinese machines, with some of their machines looking identical to the Craftex brand and some looking like a Grizzly. Even parts diagrams are the same, except for little tweeks here and there. So if that is true and these various brands can be grouped into 2 basic construction groups, then what we are really looking for is the better group and more importantly, a dealer that will stand behind his customers and try to keep them happy.

Just my take on this. I know you went for the Taiwan machine and I'm positive that will be a much better machine but I am not prepared to spend that much for a hobby machine that will get little practical use. It was a stretch trying to justify spending this much for a larger lathe than the 1022 I already have.

Well that's my story. To be continued.:)
 
Sounds like you have an excellent dealer there in Kamloops, great that you get to test it for 6 months without risk.

I was pretty close to buying the King 1236 at KMS in Burnaby as it would have been something to play around with for a bit and learn on, but I know myself and don't have the patience to fix stuff just to make it work properly.

Not suggesting that all King lathes are bad out of the box, but I could see a few items that didn't look and feel right, the Norton gearbox was very difficult to move the selectors, and the staff members I spoke with were almost useless so didn't instill any confidence. They also assured me it was of Taiwanese origin, which it's not as I later verified with King Canada directly.

Busy Bee just doesn't get it unfortunately, I'm sure they have a loyal group of followers but they are lukewarm with their customer service, maybe they prefer online sales as the experience in person is very poor.

What specifically is wrong with your lathe or is it just fit and finish issues?

The King 1236 at KMS did have petty nice smooth carriage and cross slides I must say, better than the Grizzlies I tested in Bellingham, but it was obvious that the fit and finish was average so I can only assume the same lack of attention to detail is present everywhere else on the machine.

I'm kind of OK that the only real option for me was to go to QMT for my machines and have been impressed with my dealings with them so far.

Good luck with your "testing" and hope you find a machine to compare yours with.

David
 
What I find strange is that I have a lot of older King stuff in my hobby shop that was bought years ago and even though they are not the best quality (except for maybe the 6" jointer - I love that thing) I have not had any issues with any of them. The list includes; 17" drill press, 6" jointer, 14" vertical bandsaw, small wood lathe, 6" combo belt / disc sander, dual bag dust collector and probably some other stuff I can't think of right now. But all of the stuff I bought within the last year (10 x 22 metal lathe, PDM30 Mill drill and now the 1236ML) has had quality issues, some of them major. When I was chasing the motor issues with the PDM 30 I was in frequent contact with the King head office, I believe my contact was the customer service manager, and I told him the same thing. Maybe their supplier has changed his supplier. In any case, the quality has descended and they should do something about it.

The issues I have with the 1236 are numerous small ones that may become big ones over time. When I first uncrated it I checked for major flaws before starting to clean the shipping gunk off it. I turned the chuck by hand in every gear combo and quickly found that it would occasionally jam when it was in gear selector position "1". This was severe enough that I called the dealer and told him before I even bothered to put power to it. I was ready to return it. He suggested just going through the break in process and see if it would "work itself in". Before doing that, my curiosity got the best of me and I pulled the cover off the gear head and could see that there were 2 gears that were rubbing together if the gear selector was pushed all the way to the high side of "1". I could see that if the selector was moved a little to the left then those gears would not rub. There should be a detent or something to prevent this from happening but there is not. I also noted there was a lot of metal shavings in the gear head (and I have not even run this thing yet). So I took a magnet and went around the entire inside of the gear head to remove as much as possible before adding the oil. I then ran it through the break in procedure. Afterwards I opened the gear head again and there was more metal shavings in it. I started looking for other issues while I had the cover off and noted some minor ones and one that I thought could be major real fast. The lead / feed selector for the carriage drive direction has 2 positions; left for reverse carriage movement and right for normal. When it is moved to the left the mesh is fine, however when the lever is moved to the right the drive gears only mesh across about 1/3 of their width. In order to get the 2 gears to mesh across the full tooth width the selector has to be moved left of the full right position. Again there should be something like a detent to ensure the gears are fully meshed. The natural position is to have the selector all the way to the right.

Here are some pics of what it looked like after the break in.

Metal filings after break in. Note that I removed as much metal filings as possible, with a magnet, before the break in run.
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Pic of the rubbing on one side of the low gear. There are also some deeper score marks that don't show up in this pic.
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This is the biggest concern. A gear that only partially meshes when the selector is where you would expect to put it. Note the position of the gear collar on the shaft vs the next pic.
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This is where the gear should sit. The only way to select this is to do what I did. Pull the cover, find the right position and make marks on the gear selector then on the casing to align the 2 in this position. Note the gap between the gear collar and the shaft. There should be a spacer of some kind here to prevent this.
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Then I discover the saddle / carriage lock for my lathe is missing. No way to lock the saddle to the ways. Showed the dealer and he couldn't believe it. While trying to figure out why my lathe doesn't have one and it is shown on the King website parts diagram, I discover that the lathe I just bought was made in Jan 2015, almost 2 years ago. My dealer didn't have one in stock and didn't want to get a display one from one of the other stores, since display ones are often missing parts or have been abused by customers, so he ordered one direct from the King head office. They ship me a 2 year old machine that doesn't have a saddle lock. There is more but I'm tired of typing and I'm slow at it.

Could you imagine the hell (and costs) I would be going through if I bought a machine from a dealer that wasn't concerned about after sales support or if I had to pay for shipping to a service center across the country or worse yet, out of the country.

I'm very glad I have 6 months to decide whether I want my money back or not. The sad thing is that I still want a lathe of this size and if I can't find a better quality one in this price range I may have to do without.

EDIT: I forgot to add that there are things I like about this lathe. It is very robust compared to the 1022 and as you noted the cross slide, compound and carriage movements are smooth. The 1022 couldn't part because it would chatter, vibrate and jam but this lathe is solid. The 3 jaw chuck also repeats well. There may be more positives (or negatives) but I haven't had time to find out yet.

I bought this lathe a few weeks ago and since then I have been out of country for 10 days and now my wife is in the hospital. Further evaluation will have to wait.
 
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The lathe looks good but is a Trojan horse.

The gear alignment issues are what I could consider a major design flaw and instant show stopper period.

The machine needs to be user tolerant meaning as you indicated...levers should click into their positions and should not be allowed to go where they should not.

Our 1917 SB had simple interlocks as does the 1945 SB.

The gear shifters on our 1946 L&S have click stops where they should go and you can miss and the gears not engage but the handle is not locked in this position.

What we are saying is the issues you have pointed out are stupid simple design things that are ridiculous cheap to build so there is no excuse of any kind period.

Metal shavings on delivery is lack of clean assembly but cleaning them out then finding more indicates something is cutting something else so it simply is designed like crap.

Do not waste your dealers time and just have it picked up.

The factory should have shipped a fresh one...but...

They are not local so we are guessing they had one in a warehouse somewhere and had it shipped.

Maybe it was a warranty return maybe not but if the factory was sending a replacement as a warranty claim one may assume that they would cherry pick the best one in the batch to be sure they are done.

If they did....Holy smoke!

If you need to buy new then seek out a dealer who can open and show the inside as well as set it up.

Also consider used reconditioned something as you may be better off.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337Z using Tapatalk
 
Billy, I'm pretty sure I can check a few things on the floor model at KMS in Burnaby, I'm in there at least once a week.
What gear ratio(s) do you want me to check? if they let me open the top of the machine and anything else, and was it the lead screw fwd/rev that had the alignment issues?
Would be good to know if all machines are the same.

Regards to your wife and hope she is doing OK.

David
 
David, my name is actually John. I just call myself Hillbilly since we left the City and moved into the country (hills) when I retired. :)

On my way to the Vancouver airport 3 weeks ago I stopped at the Coquitlam KMS store and checked their display model. It was made in mid 2016 and had the same binding issue when selecting gear position "1" and having the lever all the way up. There are some other issues that make me think this is inherent with these machines. I read a post a while ago about an issue with the Grizzly G4003 and the guy posted a pic of the inboard side of the input shaft. You could clearly see that the inboard bearing at the end of the shaft was only partially supported in the casting. The casting was plenty deep enough but the shaft was a little short and as a result some of the bearing race was outside of the seat. My lathe has exactly the same issue.

You are right, it is the lead screw fwd/rev selector that has alignment issues. The only way to see it is to pull the cover off. I suspect that the Grizzlys have the same issue.

Last night I tried parting with the lathe. That was a very positive experience. I used the power cross feed and it cut through the 1" piece of steel like butter. My little 1022 lathe can't do that because it is not rigid enough. There was another issue that arose though. When center drilling the end of the piece I noticed the center drill bit would dive as it entered the work. I pulled it back and checked to see that everything was seated properly and it was. I tried again but started the entry very slowly and that seemed to work ok until I pushed a little harder and then the bit snapped off. These are not chinese either. They are Norseman bits. I will try this a few more times to see if I can determine where the problem lies.

I firmly believe that all these machines have the same issues but would love to be proved wrong. That way all I have to do is find one that is built properly and I can stick with my dealer. Otherwise I need to find another brand that is better quality. If I can find another brand and am permitted to go over it thoroughly before buying it, that would drastically reduce the need for any warranty work or repairs. However there are no machines that I can find anywhere near me and I doubt a dealer will let me pull the cover off a new machine.

Got to go and plow the driveway then it's off to the hospital to see the wife.
 
Any dealer who is properly trained and provides service to their clients would pull any cover off for inspection in a heartbeat.

If they do not want you to look inside there is likely a good reason.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337Z using Tapatalk
 
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