[Naders]

I had the same problem with my g0704 (not as bad) having unfinished ways as well. On my machine the Y axis was properly ground and so was one side of the x axis though. I wouldn't have been sure that I wasn't just expecting too much from a low cost machine if it weren't for the fact that I could clearly see and feel the difference between the ways that were ground and the ways that were completely neglected.

I had a different experience with Grizzly customer service though. I didn't complain about the ways because I always wanted to lap them anyway, but I did write an email to customer support last week (complete with pictures for evidence) letting them know about a crack I have had in the headstock since I received it about 1.5 years ago. I originally mistook it for a mere crack in the paint until recently while I was trying to track down the source of the vibration problems my mill has with even slightly demanding cuts and I noticed that the crack appeared to have grown larger since I first discovered it. I took another look and it appeared that the crack was going through to the other side of the casting and was more than just paint. I told them that I knew it was out of warranty but that I didn't report it at the time because I had hoped that it was cosmetic when I first discovered and also because there was a waiting list about 6 months long for the mill back then and I didn't want to have to wait again for a replacement. I expected a "sorry, you should have said something sooner" but they actually offered to replace my entire out of warranty mill if I would pay for return shipping. True, the crack in the casting was a factory defect that crippled the mill and because of that they should really replace it at no cost, but it is out of warranty and they don't technically have to do anything for me so I appreciate that they are. The fact that they offered to send me a whole new mill instead of just replacing the broken part was especially surprising.

What they did to you Wheelie is wrong. I'm sorry that you didn't have an experience with their customer service more similar to mine. I think that your warning is fair and something buyers should be made aware of. You may have a great experience, many people do and really enjoy their machines. Some people do not though and end up with 400 lbs of problems. Know what you could potentially have to deal with if you are considering taking the plunge. Grizzly support seems about as consistent as the condition of these machines when they leave the factory. Sometimes good, sometimes very bad. Consider that as well when contemplating your purchase.

[bjones]

There reaction did surprise me and in fact they are the ones loosing out. I got the mill because I had a range of projects that I wanted to get moving on but I was (still am) in the market for a lathe and a couple of other pieces as well. Their reaction seems very shortsighted in my eyes. I actually had my wife talk to them because I'm not a 'phone guy' and given that she works in sales she is better at handling this stuff but after numerous phone calls and NO callbacks (they did phone me once but of course my Blackberry dropped the call) even she got exasperated, and told them so.

sounds like maybe your wife cussed them out? would make sense then that they terminated your relationship. did they pay for all the shipping costs to return the mill? bet you could go into one of the showrooms or tent sales, pay cash and they'd be none the wiser. if your heart is set on the same mill that is.
bill

[etard]

What they did to you is wheelie wong Wery rong fu!

[victorofga]

well.. it looking rough thats true..
however with shipping the whole machine is 1300.. i think a little handscraping could solve it..
i would send back only, if i have their promise to sending other.. otherwise... they cant work on your case much i think.. because they are selling a lot.. not only this machine but others..

and they cant promise for this price a high end machine..

i have the roundcolumn mill the larger.. i think rf45 ?... from harborfreigth.. for its price... works very great.. my machine also handscraped..

i believe you should keep it..
but its only my private opinion..

[H500]

There reaction did surprise me and in fact they are the ones loosing out. I got the mill because I had a range of projects that I wanted to get moving on but I was (still am) in the market for a lathe and a couple of other pieces as well. Their reaction seems very shortsighted in my eyes. I actually had my wife talk to them because I'm not a 'phone guy' and given that she works in sales she is better at handling this stuff but after numerous phone calls and NO callbacks (they did phone me once but of course my Blackberry dropped the call) even she got exasperated, and told them so.

My guess is that your interaction with their customer service people bordered on being abusive. I'm not saying you were wrong to be frustrated, but in the same way that you would not tolerate an abusive boss, they decided not to neither. Perhaps you can have a friend order it for you.

[joeybagadonuts]

Joey you still making donuts? Jellllyyy num num num. Make any Vegan ones?

Diyengineer,

Been making doughnuts for several generations and never baked a doughnut (Vegan) but we aim to please.
Maybe you would like a few cupcakes. Mr G might want a fruitcake.

JoeyB

[hoss2006]

Well, even though it's the most affordable bf20 available, it should be shipped as a useable machine.
Had it been bought at a tent sale for $400-500 (and it probably will later) then you might expect to have to scrape it.
Too bad they took the attitude they did with him because what he expected is perfectly reasonable.
You see that attitude occasionally though with the bigger companies, seen it by Tormach too now and again who don't want to deal with
a problem and they just issue a refund and wash their hands of it.
These companies are run by humans aren't they.
Hoss

[wizard]

I'm beginning to think that quality control on these machines went out the window some time ago. I've seen complaints elsewhere, where this design machine has suffered from quality issues. This from people outside the USA using entirely different vendors. It is too bad really, I kinda like the machine. It is just too bad there isnt a way to produce a machine of this size in the USA at a competitive price.

[victorofga]

companies are not different like us.. like all bussiness.. least work, most income..
thats why customer looking for quality and companies selling what they think fulfil a quality..
that customerservice handled before thoushands of customers.. they could deal with..

i couldnt judge either side because even it looks normal i heard never company dont replace but terminate the whole thing..

grizzly replacing parts freely when you open box and visible in box is a broken handle or other damage..

and about quality control.. a mini cnc mill start somewhere 5000 .. if you want a quality with good support and warranty and american made that will cost a lot more


how much affordable this G0704 ? its simple to find.. just take it to a machine shop and ask them regrinding all necessary surface.. can happen that cost double that the whole machine you paid for..

[handlewanker]

At a competitive price?????.....if you want to work for a dollar a day and a bowl of rice.......that's how competitive you'll have to get if you want to make/sell/deliver and warranty a machine for the same price........ oh and I forgot....and pay the IRS the tax you owe making it for the price too.....they are tho only ones who make the money from the CNC World without hitting any green buttons.

I have to wonder if anyone who remotely knows what machining and finishing cast iron is about can even guess to the nearest $100 what it would take to make one of these manual mills that are so sought after for conversion, when all the knowledge that is required to produce the real thing can be found in forums like this and Utube without having to do endless market research to find out what the customer wants.

Apparently the Chinese are far in advance with their machinery building techniques, not only in design but in manufacture too with regard to the customer wants.

Yes, we all know the current flock of mill/lathe whatever fanaglia are made in China on CNC machines by little old ladies and kids in mud huts for a dollar a day and a bowl of rice, but they won't put more into a machine build than the customer will pay for, if they could they would, but the customer won't pay the price, so down go the standards, up goes the production and the complaints are on the same ratio.

The target to be aimed for is.........whatever you are prepared to pay for an out of the box press the green button and watch the wheels go round piece of machinery without having to first strip it down, remove most of the parts and buy more to make it what you should have bought in the first place.

To sum up, you must expect to pay at least $5,000 for a ready to go retrofit ex manual mill that is hardly up to standard for the task it is hoped it will perform, and that does not include refitting most if not all the dovetail slideways that should have been linear ways if the build is going to be CNC fit and state of the art, 21st century, not 20th century thinking.

I think all those that aspire to be micro CNC machinists and mini business owners should first serve a 10 year course just understanding what it means to machine metal, then do another 10 year course in economics to understand why you need to have a wage structure that will compete with a foreign power that is already doing just that.

If you miss out on both strategies through gross ignorance of the facts, you will spend your money and lose it without knowing why.

It could also be a time for the government of the day to support the home workshop wannabes in their endeavour to be free and competitive against the tidal wave of foreign imports, as this will generate real buying power in the pockets of the people who would prefer to spend it in the home market.
Ian.

[zamazz]

I looked at my G0704 casings yesterday. I show some tooling marks similar to yours on the flat surfaces, not the dovetails, but it is very smooth as if ground or lapped. My column wasn't even finished, however. It was raw casting at one point on the dovetail.

[Winnfield]

I bought some dovetail slides from Gilman a few years back, and the ways looked exactly like those in the picture. I thought I would have to scrape them in, so I put a straight edge on them and they were nearly perfect, and perfectly aligned - no need to scrape them at all. I have also taken the pretty, finish ground table off of my BF20 and rubbed it on my surface plate and it is a warped turd. I think anybody who buys these machines and needs to make really nice parts should invest in Connelly's Machine Tool Reconditioning if, for no other reason, to learn to measure actual error in the ways, as going by appearance alone is unreliable. I think in many cases, it isn't as bad as it looks, and in others it is much, much worse. The only way to really know is to measure it. They make these machines as quickly as possible, and I bet they let these parts get HOT on the grinder and the casting moves all over the place. The thing that would be particularly concerning to me would be the difference in finish along the same way (half machined, half ground), but if you can indicate the error, you may just have a scrape job roughed in for you

[bjones]

who cares if they may have been mechanically true surfaces, they are unfinished and would just file away at each other being that rough. it's not his job to make them smooth like everyone else gets for the same money.

[Winnfield]

who cares if they may have been mechanically true surfaces, they are unfinished and would just file away at each other being that rough. it's not his job to make them smooth like everyone else gets for the same money.

lol. OK.

[joeybagadonuts]

Sports Fans,

I understand what its like to be in Grizzly's shoes.
We make hundreds of thousands of doughnuts, cupcakes, jelly rolls, long johns, danish etc... Once or twice a year someone slips up and the frosting is not applied perfect.
In the scope of things it really is not such a big deal. Why not request a RMA for the part that needs finish grinding?
A nice note to Mr. Balolia (the chief cook and bottle-washer) may get a quicker response. A coupon for a free bakers dozen wouldn't hurt either,

JoeyB

[fretsman]

who cares if they may have been mechanically true surfaces, they are unfinished and would just file away at each other being that rough. it's not his job to make them smooth like everyone else gets for the same money.

lol! That should be in the G0704 manual. :stickpoke

[handlewanker]

Hi all, you have to face it, if you were to attempt to produce the same quality machine you bought from new as a foreign import, that is with all the blemishes from poor manufacture due to cost cutting etc, you'd be hard pressed to make a dollar on the build, so don't expect to have a well finished machine at that price unless you want to pay double and get the deluxe version that had the castings aged for more than 24 hours before they were machined.....LOL.

The expectation of the poor are only be exceeded the depth of their pockets....old proverb, but very true to "bargain hunters", and by that I mean anyone who sets an unrealistic price based on what the market is offering, never mind the quality, feel the width etc.

There is probably an opportunity for some enterprising person to buy one of these mills, do all the finer refinishing required, maybe even remove all the unwanted bits and do a conversion, but with a price tag for all the parts for the conversion alone, without the fine refinishing, amounting to at least $5,000, who would get out of bed, stand in line and get excited for that kind of money, IE a very low response from those that only see the first offering as the answer to their needs but can't afford to buy a fully finished CNC item that actually has slides etc to Schlesinger standards.

It doesn't matter where the machine is made and for how little, if the sliding surfaces are sub standard, it is crap, and that does not go on to further test the alignment of all the axis to one another......yet people willingly stand in line to acquire one of these sub standard items, purely because they don't know any better.....so stop complaining, grin and bear it, and have fun with little expectation of going into business and undercutting the opposition.

In the cold hard light of day, once the covers are off, all the warts and blemishes that previously were not considered in the equation of money for metal, rear their ugly little heads and the realisation that the real conversion has yet to begin,

That is, making it work to expectation, as it should have been made at the factory, not as a refit in the home workshop by people who not only haven't a clue as to machine tool fitting, but also don't have the money for the equipment to do it.

The problem is exponentially compounded by the hidden defects that due to warranty conditions cannot be revealed without stripping the machine down and thus voiding the warranty.

I sincerely hope we don't hear more from people who bought at bargain basement prices and expect to have quality in the same package.
Ian.

[691175002]

For what its worth, the Y axis ways look fine to me. The g0704 ways are not surface ground flat, the machining marks are left in and they surface grind the tops off so that they hold oil (and probably because its cheaper). You can tell if they are finished by using a loupe and looking for the grinding marks. If you get full travel without binding, the ways are fine.

Too hard to know for sure in the photos, but if you tighten up the gibs and indicate the important numbers (flex and squareness) you will know how good the machine is for sure. I wouldn't judge the machine without getting some real numbers.

[handlewanker]

Hi, I don't think you can have a slide with "gutters" that will carry the oil away from the slide surface, and also have a slide surface that has enough plain surface bearing area to maintain an oil film.

When a slide has scraped hollows they are enclosed containers NOT DRAINERS of lubricant that continually supply a lubricant film as the slide bottom surface slides over them.

The pockets are only thousandths of a MM deep (tenths of a thou) but maintain the lubricant by the viscosity of it.

The slide in question is so badly made that suggesting that you can have a rough machined surface and then grind the tops of the spiky hills to have some flat areas for the slide to run on is pure B/S.

The method is so slap dash and shoddy, it's an indication of the overall quality of a cheap as in cheaply made, cheaply machined and priced for those that don't know cast iron from chalk.

You only get what you pay for, so why expect to have quality when you willingly pay pennies for rubbish?

I sympathise with those that did not have golden spoons dangling from their mouths at birth, and as there are many fixit solutions on the forum, no doubt with the necessary help from our friends, the Sow's ear can be made to function like a silk purse.

I have a humungeously big milling machine, like a Bridgeport, but bigger, INT 40 spindle, 54" table etc, and if anyone has problems like the slideway one and cannot get them remachined economically enough, I would willingly do a bit of rework just for the shipping charges there and back, so if you get really desperate, give me a PM and we'll work something out.

BTW, it would pay to check the slideway fit with the base not bolted down to a table etc, just laying on the bench, to make sure the casting isn't distorting by uneven bolting to a hard surface.

Some castings are so full of tension from too rapid cooling that adding a bit more just increases the twisting etc.

By that I mean, if the casting was not initially machined clean AND TRUE on the bottom mounting faces before attempting the machining of the ways and column mounting face etc, you will get distortion big time when you unbolt it from the machine table.
Ian.

[Ronal2dduff]

The pockets are only thousandths of a MM deep (tenths of a thou) but maintain the lubricant by the viscosity of it.