New Charter Oak 12Z on the way

I'm now looking at the Grizzly G0720R or G0722 in comparison...soul searching do I really need 12" of cross travel and 3,000 rpm if I'm honest no I won't be doing production work on the thing. If I have a larger work cube job and the need for speed I can throw that job to a local shop with an industrial CNC mill that will spit it out in a fraction of the time it would take on either of these home shop machines. What I like about the Grizzly is the quiet belt drive brushless DC motor, less expensive plus I have a 10% off coupon and the shipping is $150. Decisions decisions.

No offense, but why are you hijacking a thread that simply says I'm getting a mill with a "my choices are cheaper (not), and better" post? I know people do it here all the time (I have been guilty in the past as well, but am trying to behave myself). If we want to do a 'mine is better than yours' thread can we do it someplace else?

Kudos to you if that mill fits your needs. It doesn't mine. Just curious.

Bill
 
Hi Bill
Have you got a delivry date yet, i am getting excited & it is not mine. :thumbsup:
Photos please.

jeff
 
Hi Bill
Have you got a delivry date yet, i am getting excited & it is not mine. :thumbsup:
Photos please.

jeff

Just checked with Roadrunner and they just reported that the trailer was unloaded in Denver today. I am hoping to get a call today to verify delivery tomorrow. If that happens I'll 'borrow' one of my big engineers to go home and help me get it up the driveway and into the garage. Shipping weight is listed as almost 1050lbs. Biggest machine I've ever bought! :))

Bill
 
No offense, but why are you hijacking a thread that simply says I'm getting a mill with a "my choices are cheaper (not), and better" post? I know people do it here all the time (I have been guilty in the past as well, but am trying to behave myself). If we want to do a 'mine is better than yours' thread can we do it someplace else?

Kudos to you if that mill fits your needs. It doesn't mine. Just curious.

Bill

I guess I don't understand why you started the thread then, were you just looking for a 'congrats on your mill' thread or did you want to have a discussion? I am in direct contact with CO about the same mill you are getting. I have their pricing, I have checked availability and shipping and options. As you are buying the same mill I joined the thread to discuss the CO. If you want your thread to be just about you then that's fine.
 
Perhaps(likely) Mr. Miller is just very excited about his new machine and wants to talk about it. Nothing wrong with that. Don't you ever call a friend or 2 to tell them about something new and exciting you are into?

Since he has already ordered the mill,there is not much use in talking about the virtues of another machine.

I have a 1986 Grizzly 16" lathe,thankfully made in Taiwan. It has been lightly used(I do most work on my Hardinge HLVH). It is still in great shape. We had the brother to that machine at work. The motor blew out across the bearings. The apron kept having issues,and I kept fixing them. Eventually,it got to where I could not get it to engage for thread cutting. Luckily we got the budget to get a new lathe,and I gave the Grizzly to the furniture conservation shop.They would never use it for cutting threads anyway. They were not machinists at all. This was in Williamsburg,when I was master tool maker.

My partner Jon,has a 12 x 36" belt drive Grizzly,made in China. It had problems with the QC gearbox. It took Jon 2 YEARS to get Grizzly to get spare parts for him. Now,the gear that engages the rack under the front way has gotten totally buggered down to the nubs. Not hardened,needless to say. The rack has gotten several teeth knocked off. I'm suspicious the rack is made of cast iron. THE RACK IS TOO SMALL FOR THE SIZE OF THE LATHE. I told Jon to reverse the rack. I will manage to fix the gear by cutting off the broken part and making a collar to move the unused part of the gear under the rack. Fortunately,the gear is about 1" wide,and the rack is only 7/16"-too small,as I said.

So,having a Grizzly made in China is not all fun and games. And,there are no more spare parts available for Jon's lathe. Usually for Asian machines over 2 or 3 years old,you cannot get parts. I once had a Sharp lathe at work. Those clowns could not even identify the model of their own product. I had to make the parts myself. And,Sharp is supposedly a good brand. And Taiwanese at that.
 
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Jeff, they couldn't get it on the truck today. Will be arriving sometime Monday.
 
LOL... Fair enough. :lmao:

Not sure how far I'll get (with the setup, pics, etc.) as I'm still a little nervous about a machine this size. I don't have a backhoe or forklift or tractor to lift this thing. Just a 1-ton HF shop crane. So I'm going to get a perspective on the size of this thing and try to figure out how I'm going to get this on it's stand that is taller, +4", than standard. When I asked for the custom height I measured my tool box lower that my PM25 sits on and thought that would be a good height. I've only gotten one pic of this machine from a friend here and I didn't realize just how much bigger this thing is than my 25. You can stop laughing now coolidge... ;)

Anyway, I've had a bunch of personal msgs and post here from people wanting to see this thing. I asked my friend a couple of days ago if I could post a pic of his, but he hasn't responded (he did say he's been busy) so I'm going to post it here just so people can get a perspective. This one is on a short stand so he can reach it from a wheelchair but I think you can get an idea of the size of this thing.

If I can get this thing set up, when I finally do buy that G4003g or PM1340gt it should be a piece of cake. Maybe.

IMAG1593.jpg

Greg's mill

IMAG1593.jpg
 
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I'd really like a close up of that X power feed, they don't have a pic on the CO web site. By the way lifting that mill will be easy compared to lifting a G4003G onto its stand. My 29hp diesel Kubota front end loader could curl that mill all day without getting tired but it barely lifted the G4003G, it took every ounce of oomph it had plus some bucket curl at the end to heave it onto its stand. Should be no problem for a 1 ton crane though. Be safe rigging it.

l5.jpg

l5.jpg
 
I'd really like a close up of that X power feed, they don't have a pic on the CO web site. By the way lifting that mill will be easy compared to lifting a G4003G onto its stand. My 29hp diesel Kubota front end loader could curl that mill all day without getting tired but it barely lifted the G4003G, it took every ounce of oomph it had plus some bucket curl at the end to heave it onto its stand. Should be no problem for a 1 ton crane though. Be safe rigging it.

View attachment 84489

You're just full of good news, thanks. :)


Did you zoom in on the pic I posted? It's probably not as close as you'd like but it looks the same or very similar to the power feed that Griz sells. From the outside anyway. Isn't this table just a slightly larger version of that found on the Griz? The end cap/bearing support on the end of the table looks similar.

Don't know for sure, just thinking out loud.
 
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