Subject: Re: Vertical milling machine clones (what one is best)

From: [email-masked] (Steve Lindsay)
Date: 29 Nov 1994 09:27:38 -0700

I received a fax from a machinery dealer in Missouri he sells
Jet and Supermax.  He listed out in order from worst to best the
major players:

Enco
Kent
Sharp 
Acer
Jet
Chevalier
Alliant
SuperMax
Bridgeport

The prices he quoted for Jet and SuperMax are
Jet, step pulley 9x42 $5250
SuperMax Titan step pulley 9x42 $5495

"Many of these companies are assemblers of parts which they 
purchase from many different vendors.  As vendors change and the
company tries to stay price competitive, they change vendors and
often quality suffers and parts are hard to obtain.  When you purchase 
a mill buy from a company which either manufactures their own machine,
or from an established assembler which can offer a number of references 
you can contact, you will find greater customer satisfaction over time. 
Jet 
is an assembler of mills; SuperMax is a manufacture of mills."  

Is the player list correct?  I thought Sharp, Alliant and Acer where just 
under Bridgeport.  Does any out there own a SuperMax?  Does it belong
where he rates it?

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From: [email-masked] (John W Bottoms)
Date: Tue, 29 Nov 1994 17:30:31 GMT

>Bridgeport

I recently called Smithy to follow up a lead from one of our participants.
The lathe is called a BZ-239 and does English and metric threads. They
faxed me a list of spec tolerances and across the page (backwards) was
"Household Machine Tool Works, ?? Road, Guichi City, Anhui, People's
Republic of China".

Does this unit sell under other names? It is a bedgap 12x39" lathe and 
the advertising doesn't exactly instill confidence. It reads:

 James Shelton of Custom Models..."My lathe cuts just about everything
 from brass and copper to 4140 stainless steel. I have to maintain 
 absolute accuracy, I can't be off by .005", I have to be on and the
 BZ-239 gives me that".

5 thousandths? Wow that's fine? The lathe sells for $2595 and you have
to change 3 gears to do metric. Is this the way it is commonly done?
There were also 2 pages of tolerance inspection items in mm. Great, 
now I have to change them all to inches so I know what it will do.

Anyone familiar with this lathe?

-johnbottoms

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From: [email-masked] (Russ Kepler)
Date: Wed, 30 Nov 1994 05:38:30 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
>under Bridgeport.  Does any out there own a SuperMax?  Does it belong

There's a few mills missing, one such is the Lagun.  A Lagun mill is
sort of a Bridgeport on steroids.  I'm completing a deal on a 9x48
Lagun FT-2 and due to have the millwright install it in my garage in a
week or so, depending on the fitness of the mill.  It was a handwork
mill in a CNC production shop, so I expect (and have been told) that
it's in like-new condition.

Kind of an early Christmas gift to myself...

-- 
Russ Kepler posting from home  [email-masked]

                      Please don't feed the Engineers