On 2/4/2015 3:52 AM, andy pugh wrote: > On 4 February 2015 at 10:32, Marcus Bowman > <marcus.bow...@visible.eclipse.co.uk> wrote: >> Sadly, it is now very difficult indeed to buy a really high spec quality >> tool of almost any sort, because, as customers, we have shot ourselves in >> the foot. If enough people buy cheap tools made of cheese, the manufacturers >> of quality high-spec tools will go out of business (as most of them have). >> But its part of an evolutionary process, and a cycle which goes on >> continually for all products. > > It is interesting to read lathes.co.uk and see that there have always > been many really quite cheap and nasty lathes out there as well as the > nice ones. See for example http://www.lathes.co.uk/flexy/ > > Apparently you can still buy a brand new Monarch 10EE, but they cost > $100k or thereabouts.
I think they finally quit making them. The newest info on new ones I have found was dated 2004. Monarch can make many parts for their old lathes, at least as far back as the early 1940's. A few years ago someone had a 12CK that got dumped on its front, busted almost every handle *except* the clutch lever. Monarch quoted the guy a cool $10K for new handles. He decided he'd learn to braze cast iron. I have a circa 1943 13" LeBlond "trainer". If you think some of the Chinese lathes have wimpy gears, this model has speed select and feed drive gears in the headstock only 5/16" thick. For a couple of those gears LeBlond quoted me $1,500 EACH, with a 4 week lead time. Must be how long it takes them to dig up an old machinist who still knows how to hand carve steel. South Bend, owned by Grizzly, is made in Taiwan at a factory that was happy to have the work to keep their crew working. Bridgeport, owned by Hardinge, got moved to a smaller factory but with completely revamped production, produces many more milling machines with a lot fewer worker hours into each machine. They reduced the workforce quite a lot but have kept production in the US. What I find so crazy about Bridgeport mills is they quit making the Series 2, designed to be a better mill, and far as I can tell they never quit making the Series 1. That's like when Volkswagen made the better Super Beetle for a few years then chucked it and went back to the previous design. The SB with MacPherson struts actually had a bit of usable space up front that wasn't taken up by the torsion bar front suspension. Did any Bridgeport knockoff mill manufacturer ever clone the Series 2? Many of the Series 1 copies are close enough, especially in the head, that BP parts are directly interchangeable or need minimal alteration. Here's a market waiting to be filled. A designed specifically for CNC mill head made to replace any Bridgeport J head or clone. Make it smooth and sleek with integrated motor and ballscrew mountings and give it a longer quill travel. It should be able to have a lower price because the casting and machining would be simpler and without all the lumps and bumps the CNC head would need a bit less iron. Don't change the drive mounting at the top. Keeping that the same would enable current (really old design) spindle drives to be used. If a company was willing to put the effort and coin into it, an almost fully automated machine tool factory could be built, even to doing much of the assembly. More and more is becoming possible to do with automation, there's one (perhaps more) seaport in Europe that handles far more ships and freight with a crew of 12 than the Port of Los Angeles can with a staff of 1,000. --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. http://www.avast.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dive into the World of Parallel Programming. The Go Parallel Website, sponsored by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot Media, is your hub for all things parallel software development, from weekly thought leadership blogs to news, videos, case studies, tutorials and more. Take a look and join the conversation now. http://goparallel.sourceforge.net/ _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
