New PM 932M-PDF arrival

[yota]

so I *****ed on my other thread about the 11 days it took to get to me from PM. 2 days to Orlando and then sat in Estes warehouse for 9 days. I mentioned it to Nicole at PM when I called about something they forgot to ship with the mill and she said that was way too long and not usual. I know it was Estes stalling until they got some other freight going to the small town area I live in about 1 1/2 hours west of Orlando. water under the bridge. other than the delay, the delivery was flawless. no damage to anything and the driver was a nice guy.

they are supposed to contact you the day before with a 4 hour delivery window and then the day of delivery the driver is supposed to call 30 minutes or so before arrival. the night before around 8 pm I received an automated call and it only included the last 2 words so I called the next morning to get the 4 hour window and of course the driver just showed up without calling but so it goes. all good.

the mill and stand were on 2 separate small pallets and not stacked. I backed my pick up to the back of the truck in the pouring rain and he lowered the hydraulic tailgate down on top of mine and rolled them into the bed without incident. I then backed into my shop and unloaded them with my chain hoist. was soaking wet by then so went to the house to change and have a nice lunch.

the water damage on the top of the crate is not from today as I threw a tarp over the crates as soon as they were in my truck. happened in china or maybe off loading from the ship or with Estes. the mill was in a big plastic bag inside the crate so no issues.

 

[Bob D]

Your shop is waaaaay too empty. Congrats!!!

 

[yota]

got the cast iron stand (sucker is heavy!) in the spot where it will live and leveled it up. light rust had formed on all the unpainted areas on the bottom and some inside the stand so I sanded it off and sprayed all bare metal with Boeshield.

spent a couple hours removing all of the heavy packing grease/oil from the mill and put way oil from my lathe supply on all the ways. sprayed the table and all other bare metal that wasn't a ways surface with Boeshield. did about a 90% clean up. will do the final clean when its on the stand tomorrow.

both the mill and stand have a LOT of paint chips from assembly in china and from crating and handling I assume. PM should include some small bottles of white and blue touch up paint with each machine. I will call and ask for some tomorrow. all of the chips are the result of putty flaking off. it looks like they used a gallon of putty to try to make the cast iron look like quality work. it isn't. there is also a lot of paint overspray on unpainted surfaces. it won't be hard to remove. in fact its obvious that the workers had no pride in their product as far as finish goes.

 

[yota]

this is only a fraction of the paint/putty chips.

 

[yota]

I haven't really looked the machine over yet as far as looking for manufacturing defects, will do so next couple days. after the unhappy post a member did and then deleted the other night I did put a good straight edge all over the table and it looks really good to me. one obvious thing is that the Z axis lead screw is way off center of the hole cast in the top of the head. the Z axis positioning motor installed ok and the hand crank moves the head up and down (with more effort than I imagined) so hopefully its ok. have not powered up the machine as yet so haven't tried the positioning motor yet.

 

[yota]

will follow up tomorrow.

 

[yota]

Your shop is waaaaay too empty. Congrats!!

 

[yota]

way too much crap in my shop. the only empty spot is the one I cleaned out for the mill. LOL.

 

[yota]

It just occurred to me that this probably sounds like I'm unhappy with my purchase. this is not the case, just reporting what I see. if this machine turns out to be accurate and reliable I will be quite happy.

 

[Bob D]

It just occurred to me that this probably sounds like I'm unhappy with my purchase. this is not the case, just reporting what I see. if this machine turns out to be accurate and reliable I will be quite happy.

My 940 arrived in a similar condition. I was happy with my purchase, but not with the condition it arrived in. I knew that I was going to have to clean up the machine when it arrived, but I don't think that it could have arrived much dirtier. My 1440BV lathe arrived in much better condition.

If you need to do more clean up, these make short work of it. I don't think it took me a quarter of the time as it would have would using WD-40 or Simple Green.

Kresto Cherry Wipes - Heavy Duty Hand Cleaning Wipes