# New Member, New Purchase



## Jozef (May 24, 2017)

Hello all.  I just purchased a CX707, 12 x 36 lathe from Busy Bee Tools in Calgary.  Got is safely home to Lethbridge, unloaded, assembled and leveled.  I have found that the lathe manual is very brief and incomplete. Requested a PDF version from Busy Bee and it is no better.  I have downloaded the manual for the Grizzly Modeel Go750G, 12 x 36 lathe and this unit appears to be very similar to the CX707.  Have any owners of the CX707 found better information about this lathe?

My present lathe is an EMCO compact 8 that I have used for many years but it is just too small for what I would now like to do.


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## kevin.decelles (May 25, 2017)

That is status quo for busy bee manuals.  How did u find the sales/service there?  Everyone is very polite and there is no sales pressure per say but I always wonder if they know the machines they are selling .  


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Dabbler (May 25, 2017)

they don't know their machines well.  Only one sales guy does any substantive woodworking, and only one has ever operated a metal lathe.


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## Janger (May 26, 2017)

Jozef said:


> Hello all.  I just purchased a CX707, 12 x 36 lathe from Busy Bee Tools in Calgary.  Got is safely home to Lethbridge, unloaded, assembled and leveled.  I have found that the lathe manual is very brief and incomplete. Requested a PDF version from Busy Bee and it is no better.  I have downloaded the manual for the Grizzly Modeel Go750G, 12 x 36 lathe and this unit appears to be very similar to the CX707.  Have any owners of the CX707 found better information about this lathe?
> 
> My present lathe is an EMCO compact 8 that I have used for many years but it is just too small for what I would now like to do.



I had a CX701 until recently, smaller than yours, another guy on here also has one @Jimbojones . Jim has done some interesting gear train calculations for it. Your lathe has a much better gear box, better motor and a lot more meat. The manual for the cx701 is fairly brief too. What kind of info were you looking for? General lathe operations or more information about that lathe?

Welcome to the forum. What are you working on?


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## Jozef (Jun 2, 2017)

Janger said:


> I had a CX701 until recently, smaller than yours, another guy on here also has one @Jimbojones . Jim has done some interesting gear train calculations for it. Your lathe has a much better gear box, better motor and a lot more meat. The manual for the cx701 is fairly brief too. What kind of info were you looking for? General lathe operations or more information about that lathe?
> 
> Welcome to the forum. What are you working on?



The CX707 manual is totally lacking on electrical drawings for the lathe.  The lubrication/maintenance section is also brief and there is little information on the gear selection knobs.  Trial and error to find out how everything works.  This being a more complex lathe than my Emco compact 8, it was a little disconcerting that so little information was in the manual.  The manual is 63 pages which contrasts with 110 pages of much better information in the Grizzly manual.  As I get used to the lathe the poor manual will not be an issue.  No specific projects per say but some fabrication for items that I need around the shop such as 2 inch spacers for my 20 T air jack.  Never cut threads on the lathe which I want to get comfortable with.  Bought a milling attachment for the lathe that needs to have a fabricated attachment plate but that is a job for my milling machine.


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## Jimbojones (Jun 7, 2017)

Some of the BusyBee machines are also similar to Precision Matthews units; it's short but here's a link to their 12x36 manual in case it has any different info:
http://www.machinetoolonline.com/files/PM-1236_v3_6-2016.pdf

I see the PM 12x36 has 7 change gears...how many did yours come with?   I wanted to compare online but I don't see the CX707 manual posted on BB website...wth?


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## Jozef (Jun 19, 2017)

Jimbojones said:


> Some of the BusyBee machines are also similar to Precision Matthews units; it's short but here's a link to their 12x36 manual in case it has any different info:
> http://www.machinetoolonline.com/files/PM-1236_v3_6-2016.pdf
> 
> I see the PM 12x36 has 7 change gears...how many did yours come with?   I wanted to compare online but I don't see the CX707 manual posted on BB website...wth?



The CX707 has 18 spindle speeds.  The manual for this lathe is not included in the web site information.  I requested a PDF of the manual and Busy Bee sent that to me and I have attached it.


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