Quote:
Originally Posted by Cory
I've found virtually all of the Chinese copies of Bridgeports to be perfectly fine. Even JET, which I overall hate. we have a JET JTM-1 (or something like that) and it works perfectly fine after more than 10 years. No issues with it at all. However it is the pulley head and not the variable head, so there's a lot less to break there.
It's interesting that this is the case, because most all of those same companies' cheap lathes are total garbage.
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WOW, I know you hate most Chinese made machines so this is saying a lot. I guess it is harder to mess up such an old and tested design that the Bridgeport represents. I know I definitely have a distaste in general for Jet, Grizzly, and similar "branded designs" where they just slap a company sticker and paint job on a machine. I guess it makes sense that some of them are worth a good look as a machine to add to one's shop.
One thing you can do to "fix" some of the speed issues with using a pulley head is to stick a Variable Frequency Drive on you machine so you can adjust the speed of the mill by altering the AC frequency(letting you run faster or slower than normally capable). I've heard(haven't looked into it much) you can fine VFD's for around $200 these days.