Factory/vendor recommendations for direct ordering lathe from Asia/Chine

[kevin.decelles]

I have a friend that is discouraged by the higher price of on-shore lathes/mills and would like to order direct overseas and tackle the import part.

Any recommendations on factory/company/country? Looking at at least a 14x40 lathe or bigger (max 10HP) and a manual mill (10x50ish).

I suspect that Grizzly/Precision-Mathews/Modern are all ordering from similar spots, does anyone know which exactly?

 

[David]

I ordered my mill direct from Weiss.
Overall it was a positive experience. I can't say the mill is top quality but I knew what I would be getting as is is the same machine as a CX601 from Busy Bee.

 

[Junque]

A friend of mine bought from Taiwan 20 plus years ago, but he was buying from a fellow here who dealt with the factory there. This fellow knew what he wanted and had the technical knowledge and equipment to do his own QC checks. Despite that, there were occasional problems I'm told, but they were addressed promptly.

In my limited experience of dealing with the PRC, if you are a single-use customer or they think you are, you may well be sent some factory seconds they have sitting around the place which their major client's didn't accept or they couldn't sell for some reason. Thrifty and hard-driving, but without the sense to see that screwing over small customers ensures they don't turn into big customers. 🙄 There is also a degree of technical arrogance which is compounded by a certain stubborness and the "face" concept in Asia.

Taiwan is still to some extent a cultural artifact of pre-revolutionary China and different from the culture in the PRC, and as the PRC gets stronger and more self-confident with every passing month, that difference is actually going to increase not decrease I suspect.

 

[kevin.decelles]

Thx for the perspective!

 

[Junque]

A used lathe built in the West is probably the best and cheapest option for your friend if he can find something that hasn't been beaten up and has hardened ways.

Or you pay the protection money to Grizzly and let them deal with the suppliers in the PRC. 😉

 

[gerritv]

I have a friend that is discouraged by the higher price of on-shore lathes/mills and would like to order direct overseas and tackle the import part.

Any recommendations on factory/company/country? Looking at at least a 14x40 lathe or bigger (max 10HP) and a manual mill (10x50ish).

I suspect that Grizzly/Precision-Mathews/Modern are all ordering from similar spots, does anyone know which exactly?

I would contact https://veltmanmachines.com/ , buying used North American equipment that typically has been beat to within an inch of its life is not a good plan forward. I recall an interview years ago with Stefan G and an US based machinist who said that the NA mentality generally does not support maintaining or even buying quality equipment. Buy it, use it up, write it off.

if he really wants to buy Asian, then visit http://www.hhrobertsmachinery.com/, at least that is in Canada and not the US.