Painting NEW Import Lathe?

OK, it's for a good cause ... but nevertheless, my reaction to that color is "barf".
 
benmychree said:
To paraphrase L. Francis Herreshoff, "There are only two colors to paint a machine tool, one is grey, athe other is green, and only a fool would choose green".
He was speaking of yachts, and the colors were white and black. He was the author of "The Common Sense of Yacht Design".
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My Clausing is green. That’s the way they made it. That’s the color it will stay.
Color does not a Machinist make. In my case, it’s going to take much more than color.
 
From my limited experience Chinese paint is poor quality. It seams to have a hard finish but does not bond well hence chips easily. Maybe poor surface prep. There are plenty of paints that cure hard but bond well.
As a side note my Summit lathe made in Poland arrived with the paint still soft, sort of rubbery. The top painted surfaces on the saddle quickly wore and melted away with hot chips. Took a couple of years for the rest of the paint to fully cure.
I've painted some of my old machines that were in rough shape or had a couple of brushed on coats but don't think I could bring myself to tear down a new one to prep and paint it.

Greg
 
I own numerous Jet and other pieces of machinery, I never understood manufacturers painted their machinery white, but I was not about repaint it because of the color.
 
Buffalo21 said:
I own numerous Jet and other pieces of machinery, I never understood manufacturers painted their machinery white, but I was not about repaint it because of the color.
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Having worked for 34years in a business that supplied capital equipment to manufacturing it gives the impression of newness. We had some customers like Tesla and others that wanted their equipment a specific color. You wanted the order so you did it. The Europeans really drove the looks. Crazy!
 
This is sort of along the lines of this thread. I have a friend that worked for Outboard Marine Company(OMC), they made Evinrude and Johnson outboard motors. I once asked him the difference between the two product lines. His response was succinct: “paint”. I imagine Asian built machinery is the same; stop the assembly line, switch from Grizzly-green to PM-white or Powermatic-gold and keep cranking’em out. I imagine there are more similarities than differences between these brands. In other words, color doesn’t matter, or does it?

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Titanium Knurler said:
I imagine Asian built machinery is the same; stop the assembly line, switch from Grizzly-green to PM-white or Powermatic-gold and keep cranking’em out
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While I can't say for sure, not having visited a Chinese factory. I have read enough to believe that there are more differences. It could well be that a single factory makes both a Grizzly and PM produce but I believe that these companies are making quality vs price decisions on many levels that make the products different. I also think it will not always be apparent what is "better" as trade off choices may or may not be something they mention in their literature. Also depending on the intended use, different trade-off decisions will have different "value" to potential buyers so you can't simply say that PM is better than Grizzly or vice-versa in a generalized way.
 
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