New (to me) Grizzly DF-1224G or G1003 lathe (aka Busybee/ Dai Fong DF-1224G)

[lSherlockl]

So about a month or so ago while hunting FB marketplace, craiglist etc. for a decent used benchtop or smaller lathe I stumbled on this guy. Initially listed at 500 bucks I was chomping at the bit/afraid something was critically wrong with it. turns out inexperienced seller and after some chatting and other peoples offers I ended up taking it home for just north of 1k (i hope/dont think that was tooo bad of a deal) here around WI its pretty dry for used machinery and I still drove 4 hrs each way to get it.

Edit its the 12x 24 should be enough to suit my needs and still plenty heavy/beefy



EDIT: above is before pic at pickup and below is after teardown cleaning and relubrication.



In situe in a walk out basement sure was interesting to move and absolutely filthy, but i was able to observe under power shift the gearbox and engage all the feeds and directions so it seemed all good for a novice, and the ways looked in good shape if not hella dirty which seemed to protect it at least.

Came with what I think are all the original accessories

the c shaped steady rest
circular 3 point steady rest
3 jaw chuck,
4 jaw chuck,
face plate,
original 4 way tool post,
the two change gears for metric (thank goodness found in the most oil and dirt caked plastic bag in a corner of one of the drawers),
original manuals (and receipt even)
as well as a 5C collet closer a rack of 5c collets in seemingly interesting assortment not really a full set but not complaining probably picked up as needed will likely do the same to finish that out.
a drawer full of assorted tooling not sure how much of it is good or not or what some of it is.
And the stand which apparently came from IBM once upon a time which used to be a cast iron table for punch card computers?
and like 3-4 buckets of aluminum and steel stock and scrap




packed up for the long ride home (think 3 stops along the way to recheck and readjust strapping and blocking) brought a engine hoist along and boy was I glad we did, took 2-3 hrs to remove machine and get it on the trailer and about 4 buckets of stuff out of the cabinet/stand which is cast iron by the way and weighs quite alot in itself



here she is home and awaiting disassembly and cleaning. also pro tip cover the sight gauges or the venturi effect will just suck all the oil out thru the air event holes!


I will admit there are some minor regrets after the drive to get it and back and the following cleanup and teardown which ill cover more in future post replies as man its been quite a lot of cleaning. I will also sprinkle in bits and pieces of "what is it" trying to figure out what something might be or if it may be something the previous owner included that may not even make sense in association with

I have my gallon of WD40, WD40 Degreaser, and mineral spirits and a ton of paper towels, and still quite a task ahead of me (even though at the time of writing this I'm a good ways into it)

 

[lSherlockl]

Figured I would follow this up with the mystical drawer of treasures

couple of the tool holders for the smaller HSS square stock cutters, knurlers, reamers, some nice needle files jacobs mt2 chuck a few dead centers and a live center, knurlers and a bunch of generally unidentifiable stuff.

I really need to find a decent way to just clean the small bits up, probably small strainer in mineral spirits.



and the assortment of 5c collets all cleaned lightly oiled in their box which was also cleaned and de-crusted. Sort of no real rhyme reason or grouping too them but maybe im thinking too hard

 

[fitterman1]

No doubt one of their better offerings by the looks of it. Dual scales on the handles tells me it better than todays offerings

 

[lSherlockl]

No doubt one of their better offerings by the looks of it. Dual scales on the handles tells me it better than todays offerings

its a 83' Taiwan make vs china but it does have the negative of being a different/older style so parts really non-existant or a absolute dice roll
at least a new grizz has parts support for at least 5-10 years. so far quality of it still seems to have some cut corners but much better quality than my Chinese made mill

 

[T. J.]

Congrats on the new machine!

I’m currently cleaning up an Enco badged version of the same lathe (with a 36” center distance).

 

[Downunder Bob]

Looks like a good buy, at least it's Taiwanese so it should be a good machine. Does the original documentation say what factory it was built in?

 

[markba633csi]

Nice set of collets, those will come in handy. Good deal overall, and it's a gap bed too it looks like
-M
PS cool art-deco stand

 

[Ulma Doctor]

nice score on the lathe and tooling, you did very well.
it looks very similar to my newer (1985) Shenwai SW900B 1236
the removeable gap is a sweet feature if you need to swing larger work
the t-slotted cross slide is cool too

 

[lSherlockl]

I Don't' have any documentation as to the original factory just the Grizzly manual the DAI Fong Instruction and spare parts manual, original invoice/receipt which is kind of neat (i paid less than it was new)

And yes its a gap bed debating if I should pull and clean the gap while i have it apart or leave it as it just mated up so perfectly like I cant feel that there is a joint though I can clearly see it, so they did their job well.

 

[lSherlockl]

here is the first bits of cleanup and experimenting on what works well doesn't hurt the paint etc. everything was coated in a thick grime of I think oil+ grinding swarf or dust/saw dust absolutely sucky to clean up and you'll see some awful stuff later but most everything so far has come out looking great with little to no wear. It probably actually helped protect or hold the oil in place if it sat unused for quite some time no rust on it at all.
can kind of see the lovely black coating of **** here (I already cleaned the crossfeed and gave much of everything a wiped own for major stuff)

tailstock off for teardown, cleaning and relubrication.


and all fresh ready to go spins nice and smooth, though i will say it was quite fiddly to get the spindle lock orientated just right when re-assembling must have took 8 or 9 tries to get it just right though yeah hindsight i could have just pulled the stop pin for the locking lever and then just spun it till snug and re-inserted the pin