I Learned From a Mistake
May 20th, 2009Alert the Media
The quest for a milling machine gets more frustrating, the further I get into it. Ordinarily you expect to get CLOSER to an answer as you work on a problem, but it isn’t turning out that way.
I thought I had the solution. A guy selling “rebuilt” machines. I contacted him and talked to him. He said the machines were not rebuilt. They were reconditioned. That means they’ve had much less work than rebuilt machines, and according to one of his former customers, the reconditioning does not restore lost accuracy. So apparently, most of the money you pay for reconditioning doesn’t buy you any improvement in function. The former customer said he regretted the buy, and that he had to have the head on his machine rebuilt. And he said it privately, because he knew the “America first” crowd would get in his face if he did it publicly.
Guess what a rebuilt machine really costs? Roughly eight grand, plus shipping. So call it $9500. No thanks. I can get a new Taiwanese mill for that.
I started looking at Chinese machines and reading up on them. I’ve only learned one fact for certain: the people who always say you are better off with old American machines have to be ignored, because everything they say is useless drivel. Some of them hate Chinese people. Some are old union guys who can’t accept the fact that the free market proved they were wrong and drove machine tool makers overseas. Whatever drives them, they are all fools, and nothing they say has any value. Some Chinese machines are very good, and most are at least okay. Some Taiwanese machines are better than some American machines. And we are never going to have a big machine-tool industry in America again, so people who are upset about that need to shut up and deal with it.
Grizzly/Shop Fox has a few nice mainland-Chinese mills about the size of a Bridgeport, and some are cheaper than a RECONDITIONED Series I. So I am considering getting one. I’ll have a warranty, I’ll have someone to complain to if there are problems, I won’t have any worn-out parts lurking in the head or under the table, and delivery will be free or very cheap. How can you go wrong with a deal like that? The castings may not be as pretty as the old Bridgeport iron, but what good is a pretty machine that craps out and requires expensive repairs I can’t do? I can’t scrape or rebuild a mill, and how would I find someone near me who could do it? In Miami, you can’t find people qualified to run a weedeater. Seriously, that is no exaggeration. I had to build little shields around the bases of my trees. Skilled labor does not exist here. I think people come here because they are considered unemployable in Guatemala and El Salvador. So I’d have to sell the mill, because buying a new one would be a better deal than shipping it to someone who could repair it.
I wasn’t asleep during my ordeal with the “barely used” 1974 lathe I bought. I paid attention. I noticed that I was miserable. I am not eager to repeat that experience with a more expensive machine.
People are telling me I don’t need to worry about accuracy (i.e., a new or little-used machine), because it will be a long time before I’ll be good enough to take advantage of an accurate machine’s abilities. Does that make sense to you? To me it sounds like, “Spend four figures on a crappy machine, sell it at a four-figure loss, and then spend four figures on a better machine.” I have never understood people who say you should buy “beginner tools.” They invariably turn out to be disappointments, you always lose money when you sell them, and then you have to get used to their expensive replacements. It would make sense if cheap mills were cheap. But they aren’t. A good Millrite or BP clone, suitable for use by a serious home machinist, costs $3000-$4000, and a good “beginner mill” costs at least $2000. And a beginner Bridgeport costs $4000, delivered.
Why spend eight thousand dollars to get a four-thousand-dollar tool? Am I crazy?
I have two table saws. One cost $300, and the other cost $500. I will probably never use the cheap one again. The other one will handle any job I will be able to throw at it for the rest of my life, even if I use it commercially. I have two miter saws. One cost $200, and the one I should have bought in the first place cost $373. Is this a pattern I should repeat, with a decimal point added? Uh…NO.
People are also telling me a good machinist can do great work on a bad mill. Okay, and Jim Thorpe once ran the hundred-yard dash with another man on his back. Generally, though, he ran by himself. I’m pretty sure. Why make life harder than it has to be? Aren’t better tools BETTER? If bad tools are just as good, why do they cost less? I don’t want to do great work on a bad mill. I want to do bad work on a good mill, and then good work on a good mill. The same people who tell me I don’t need a good mill because I have no skills and can’t appreciate it seem to think that once I get the skills to appreciate it, I won’t want it. Does that even begin to make sense?
There is a used Bridgeport in Connecticut that interests me. If I can get a guy to inspect it and report on it for a hundred bucks, I may buy it. I’ve arbitrarily decided I won’t buy a mill that won’t hold five tenths, because I needed a standard, and five tenths seemed right. If the seller opines that an inspection will confirm that the machine meets the standard, I’ll spring for the checkup. If not, I guess it’s time to order Chinese.
May 20th, 2009 at 8:56 PM
” And we are never going to have a big machine-tool industry in America again”
Well, actually, once the Chinese and our standards of living have reached an equilibrium that has both closer to each other, it won’t be as cost-effective to buy stuff from there, so maybe there will be a revival.
Not that I’d hold my breath, or am looking forward.
May 20th, 2009 at 10:16 PM
Consider your ROI. You could probably have anything you’re ever going to make with one of those things done by a machine shop for less than the 4 or 5 grand it costs to buy one.
May 21st, 2009 at 1:54 AM
Preach it, Brother Steve, preach it.
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May 21st, 2009 at 4:13 AM
” I have never understood people who say you should buy “beginner tools.”
Always buy tools and weapons that are more accurate than you are.
That way the errors are limited to yours, and not “in addition to tool slop”.
Of course, there is the old expression to be considered too: “It’s a poor carpenter who blames his tools.”
May 21st, 2009 at 8:18 AM
Shouldn’t it be easier to learn how to do good work on a good machine?
May 21st, 2009 at 9:12 AM
“You could probably have anything you’re ever going to make with one of those things done by a machine shop for less than the 4 or 5 grand it costs to buy one.”
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Well, think about it. I could also buy books instead of writing them.
May 21st, 2009 at 9:44 AM
It sounds as if you’re building up to the decision to buy a new machine.
Are you going to buy one with a DRO?
Could you link to one of the new bridgeports or grizzlies you’re thinking of buying?
May 21st, 2009 at 9:57 AM
Five tenths where? in the leadscrews? they don’t come that tight from the factory. In the ways? Ditto. In the quill? Maybe.
Knee mills wear. No getting around it. A prudent operator changes the location of his vise weekly to distribute the wear evenly. But there are millions of knee mils out there, and they are all worn, some more evenly than others, and a lot of fine machinists are making great parts on them. five tenths tolerance is a function of the operator and the material predominantly, much less the machine. A good operator knows his machine, When he has to hold a very tight tolerance he moves the vise to the least worn place on the X and Y and dogs the quill down so it’s nice and tight. If he’s drilling a bolt pattern he turns the leadscrew in one direction only from start to finish so the slack is taken up.
Of course this will be easier on a new machine than an old one. If you want new, buy new. You won’t find the chaiwanese stuff wanting, certainly.
The measure of the machine is what parts you can make with what ease. By the time anyone gets good enough with a mill to appreciate accuracy the mill is worn. That’s why they have gibbs on mills, to keep them in adjustment as they wear. The gibbs themselves are bronze or soft iron so they wear rather than the ways.
May 21st, 2009 at 10:06 AM
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Preach it! Preach it over and over!
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Yes, a skilled tool-user can do good work with crappy tools. That’s because the skilled person knows how the tools work, and how to compensate for the problems.
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People who are unskilled — and anyone just starting out is included in that, no matter how smart — need the best quality tools they can buy. You can get a crappy screwdriver for a dollar. A good screwdriver costs five dollars or more. The crappy screwdriver won’t fit the slot properly, and you are highly likely to hurt yourself trying to use it. You end up paying $1501 for it — the price of the screwdriver, plus the emergency room visit when you drive it through your forearm. The good screwdriver just works; it fits the slot and grips, doesn’t slip, and has a handle you can hold onto and get some torque. The same principle applies all the way up the line. A pilot with 10,000 hours can get in a worn-out plane with loose controls, an engine that blows oil, and missing panels, and fly it safely. Give the same ship to a 100-hour newbie and you can start writing the crash report before he gets it started.
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Double down when the thing you’re using the tools on is also cheap or worn-out. The first thing I do when I get something in a kit with fasteners included is to throw them all away and buy first-quality replacements. I’m not sure what they’re made of, or what the similar ones in the $2 kit of assorted screws are made of; perhaps the finest Polish butter. I do know they won’t fit the tools and will break or strip if I try to use them.
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The worst thing is that a newbie using crappy tools on a crappy object learns nothing, and is likely to be so disappointed in both process and result that he or she abandons the idea of self-help altogether. Buy good stuff. Even more, learn to throw it away when it’s worn out. It can be hard, hard, hard to toss a $30 saw blade, but if it isn’t sharp and you can’t sharpen it (or get it sharpened) its only tool-related purpose is as a way to commit suicide.
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Regards,
Ric
May 21st, 2009 at 10:06 AM
There are some things where the really top line stuff requires a real expertese to use, and the beginner to middling guy is better off with the merely good stuff.
I tend to think that this stuff ins’t one of those things – and your reasoning seems impecable on it.
May 21st, 2009 at 10:25 AM
Seriously. Buy the Shop Fox. You’ll be happy. You might even get them to kick in for some tools for you.
May 22nd, 2009 at 4:37 AM
“You could probably have anything you’re ever going to make with one of those things done by a machine shop for less than the 4 or 5 grand it costs to buy one.”
Whenever there is something I want that I can make myself, I always ask myself the key question: “Do I want it, or do I want to build it.
I consider all my shop tools an investment in future “want to build it, not buy it” urges that I have chosen to indulge in – and emergency repair efforts, of course.
May 22nd, 2009 at 8:17 PM
“And we are never going to have a big machine-tool industry in America again”
You’re kidding right? The biggest Machine Tool Manufacturer in the world is Haas Automation, located in Oxnard CA, and they didn’t exist before 1983. At their peak production a coupla years ago, they were shipping over a thousand machines a month, almost all of which are mid 5 figures and up. Manual mills have been mostly replaced by Machining centers, which is why all of the original US machine tool builders are either dead, importing machines and rebadging them, or are now mostly making CNCs.
I too, share your disdain for the Bridgeport, but for different reason(you look at the $^#^ universal head funny, and the damn thing goes out of tram). For the cost of a low mileage BP here in the NE(about 4 grand or so), I’d much rather have something like a clean Cinci Toolmaster(a real beast of a machine) or a big Acer(a Taiwanese Mill, who’s new cost, is close to that of a New BP). I will point out an advantage the BP has over every other knee mill out there: Universality. Need bearings? Power feeds? a thingamabob? They’re made for BPs.
Oh! If you’re considering new asian iron, I would seriously consider Jet – A Jet 9×49 is $7500 new, They’re significantly more money than Grizzly, but then, I’ve never seen a Grizzly in a machine shop. A word of advice – since you have the room, and unless you really can’t swing it financially, I would get a 9×49, or better yet, a 10×54(be warned, they’re significantly more expensive than the more common 9×49). You may not need the extra envelope often, but when you do.. Also, the bigger machines tend to be stiffer, and with more horsepower – makes taking bigger cuts easier.
May 22nd, 2009 at 8:30 PM
No, I’m not kidding. Most of our old machine tool companies are dead, and they have been replaced by overseas companies. One company doesn’t make a spring. Like Shiraz Balolia said recently, when he bought the South Bend name, manufacturing in the US was out of the question, because the labor costs would have driven him out of the market. Grizzly/South Bend now makes its home in Taiwan, where the wage is only eight times what it is in China.
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The US tool builders aren’t dead because people want different machines. That’s silly. They could have built the manual mills and lathes the Asians now build, had they been able to compete. Look at Hardinge. They make a wide variety of things. The American companies that died did so because they could not compete.
May 23rd, 2009 at 10:08 PM
Most of our old machine tool companies are dead, because, they were still trying to sell manual machines in an age of CNC. You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve heard “But this is the way we’ve always done it” in machine shops going out of business.
“The US tool builders aren’t dead because people want different machines.”
Don’t Believe me? Go try and find a CNC South Bend. Or a Clausing Machining Center. THEY DIDN’T MAKE THEM. Hardinge? They started making super precision CNC turning centers. The first is dead, the second is rebadging machines(which are quite good, by the way), and the Third is still making machines(and in fact, Hardinge is the new owner of Bridgeport) See a pattern.
Manual machines are now a tiny chunk of the market. Grizzly, Shop Fox, etc are all squarely aimed at consumers. Virtually all production shops, want CNC mills/lathes, because they’re faster, and time is money, and the biggest cost these days is labor. I’ll give you an example. The first place I worked after graduating with my Man. Tech degree, had in the previous 10 years, transitioned to CNC from almost all manual machines. They went from 20 machinists to 2. 5 Haas VMCs replaced dozens of Bridgeports. They then not only made more, they made stuff that was previously impossible. All with 1 tenth the labor, and less than a quarter the number of machines. In the last 10 years, I’ve been in dozens of machinery auctions, and it became quite clear – the ones that were going bankrupt were mostly manual shops, while the ones that were mostly CNC, were either the owner was retiring, or the shop was upgrading to newer, faster equipment. If you’re aimed at industrial users(which SB and Clausing certainly are), you have to keep up with Technology. If you’re going to aim at consumers, then price becomes the all consuming objective.
May 24th, 2009 at 9:19 AM
I found this in in under ten seconds.
“The U.S. machine tool industry is already a shadow of its former self. It was ranked seventh in the world in output at $3.8 billion last year, behind Taiwan, which has a GDP of $600 billion, far lower than U.S. GDP of $14.2 trillion. The United States accounted for less than 5 percent of all the machine tools produced in the world last year. China, whose GDP ($3.3 trillion) is one-third the size of the United States, produced $14 billion worth of machine tools last year, more than three times the U.S. output. Japan’s output ($15.8 billion), and Germany’s output ($15.6 billion) are both four times larger than the U.S. industry’s, according to Gardner Publications “
May 25th, 2009 at 2:20 PM
Believe what you like. I’m telling you from my personal experience working as a machinist for a decade and a half.
Most of the US builders went away, because they continued to build manual machines. MACHINE SHOPS DON’T WANT THEM. Not because of expense(Go to Haas’s website, they’re one of the few that list prices), but because time is money.
What happened was this: the CNC revolution started in the Mid 80s, where it got to the point where almost any decent sized shop could afford a CNC machine, instead of just the Big Aerospace and Detroit 3(CNC, or rather NC, was actually invented in the 50s to ease the manufacture of wing spars on fighter planes). So there was a mad dash to start the switch, as they could dramatically lower costs(labor, time), despite a dramatic increase in costs(I think a New Series 1 BP at the time was about 9 grand, a new Mori Seki was about 8-10 times that). Most of the US Machine Tool industry was of the opinion “Eh, passing fad”, and continued to make the same machines they’ve made for the past 50 years(In fact, I’ve got a sales flyer from South Bend for their heavy 10 lathes in the mid 90s!), and promptly saw their sales slip into the toilet. The average machine shop doesn’t care that much if a machine cost a fortune, if it can increase production – there’s a slang term in the industry “Cubic dollars per minute” for metal removal rates(meaning the faster the Cubic inch/minute rate is, the more money they make.
Most of the Big companies went away because they were either stuck in the past(South Bend, Clausing, etc) or because they were arrogant bastards when dealing with customers(Bridgeport). So it became a matter of the invasion of the Japanese machines
And oh, take that Chinese number with a grain of salt – much of their Commercial Machine tool production is internal, so accurate numbers aren’t really possible.
I’m not disputing that the industry is much smaller than it was 50 years ago. I’m disputing WHY.