New Grizzly G0698 Lathe - Not so great review

[Terry Stellman]

I recently sold my Jet 1442 lathe and posted on here a couple of weeks ago asking about new lathes, primarily Jet 1642 models. I got some good advice and several recommendations for the 2hp model. I then made a U-turn and bought the new Grizzly G0698 1847 lathe. It came about a week ago well packaged and undamaged. I assembled it and plugged it in. Grizzly advertises in their catalog, internet, and owner's manual that this lathe operates at 0-1200 rpm in low range but in actual practice the spindle pulses (herky-jerky) at anything below 130 rpm. At 50 rpm, which is the advertised low speed for the Jet lathes, this thing is completely unusable for anything, even sanding. I reported this to Grizzly technical support and was told that this is normal for any speed below 100 rpm. I am really disappointed since this was advertised as a machine that could operate at very low speeds and I thought this would work great for power sanding. My other less than favorable item is the tail stock. I find the threads to be a little sloppy and the whole thing not machined to very tight tolerances. I guess this lathe work but I think I am going to be a little disappointed every time I go to use it. Sorry for the long post but I wanted to put my opinion out there for others considering this machine. I am lukewarm on it and probably would not recommend that anybody purchase one without trying one out.


Terry

[John Keeton]

Terry, I really hate this for you. I came very close to buying this lathe, and it really sounded like a good buy. Hopefully, you will gain confidence in the lathe and ultimately it will serve your needs.

[Terry Stellman]

John,

I know I am very disappointed. I am hoping some other Jet or Powermatic lathe owner will jump in and say that they all are like that. This is the first variable speed lathe I have operated.

Terry

[Steve Mawson]

Terry,
Sorry to hear of this problem. I know nothing about the VS controllers but know that my Powermatic does not have that problem. Hopefully others will join in and make some suggestions. However if Grizzly says that this is common then may not hope for too much. 100 RPM for me is not too fast to power sand. Hope it gets better.

[Donny Lawson]

Do you think Grizzly might take it on a return?Let them know it's not what you thought it was.You might lose the shipping cost but that's better than being disappointed every time you use it.I would try that anyway.
Donny

[Dick Strauss]

Terry,
Possibly the VFD can be re-programmed to keep it from being so jerky. Try someone in tech support or engineering over at Grizzly and maybe you can get the issue solved.

[James Combs]

I am not sticking up for Grizzly per say but my lathe is a Grizzly VS midi lathe model G0658 and it runs great but granted its lowest speed is around 300rpm. Fit and finish are excellent too. I think if it were me I would call them back one more time and see if I got a different Tech. A different one may have a different opinion. If that doesn't develop a solution I would consider sending it back.

[Terry Stellman]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I will contact grizzly again to see if some kind of adjustment can be made to make it smoother. I am currently waiting for a call back from someone further up the chain of command about returning it. I was originally told that "O yeah, you can return it but you have to pay for shipping". I already paid shipping to get it to me and I don't feel I should have to pay to send back something that was falsely advertised. I will keep it before I put any more money into it.

Terry

[Nigel Tracy]

Hi Terry,

I have another iteration of the same lathe, the craftex ct128. My tailstock, while not like a oneway, is certainly not sloppy.

Check out the photos at:

busybeetools.ca/cgi-bin/picture10?NTITEM=CT128

Does your tailstock look the same?

If so, I would say yours is defective and you should have every right to a good one.

I agree with you that the pulsing problem, while probably not normal since mine doesn't do it, is at very lease an example of false representation of what the lathe does.

Mine goes right down to 0 with very smooth operation at any point. It's a treat. My bet is your electrics are bad.

They should take back the headstock and tailstock. Better than shipping the whole thing and "good" ones would mean a whole different experience with this lathe. Mine is a real joy to use.

Good luck.

[Mike Lipke]

My Jet 1642 did not do that.
It did not go to zero, but in low range, a very steady strong 30rpm

Bite the bullet, send it back.

[Terry Stellman]

Thanks Nigel. I will definitely bring yours up with the electrician at Grizzly in the morning. I have been so concentrated on the speed problem that I haven't even started on the tailstock problem. I measured the play in mine at the handle and it is .040" up and down and .035" inline. In other words, if you grab the handle and move it that is how much it wiggles around. All of this play is in the threaded rod not the tailstock shaft itself. It seems like there should be a bushing or something on the threaded rod but there isn't. By the way, mine looks identical to yours except for the color.

Terry

[Dave Schell]

Terry, when you talk to them again, I would drill down on their reasonings for exactly why their lathe gets jerky around 100 RPM. This certainly isn't the case for all lathes - a Oneway can literally rotate at 10 RPM and be very smooth. The same is true of my Vicmarc that I actually supplied and programmed the VFD for. I didn't have to tweak the VFD at all to do that - it is that smooth with just the default programming. Perhaps it is the potentiometer they are using - it is not that sensitive at slower speeds.

[Bernie Weishapl]

Terry here is a little bit of a post from another forum. This guy bought the same lathe you have. It looks as though he is having the same problem but said he probably wouldn't sand or turn that low anyway so it didn't bother him at this point. He also said in another post that it didn't completely go away in any of the belt settings but was worst at 0-3200 setting. He did say he was totally satisfied with his. I am not going to give a name or where but if you would like to know more PM me and I can give you his name. Here is what he said:

I did notice that if you have the belt on the high setting [0-3200rpm], and want to go real slow [50 rpms] that the motor searches just a little, but when you move the belt to the higher tork setting [0-1200 rpm] then most all of that goes away. I did not have time to mount a blank of wood this evening, but I would imagine once a blank was chucked up, that searching would probably not even be noticeable.

So maybe it is a thing with these lathes. Hope you get it figure out.

[earl timmons]

I have posted before regarding my now two year old Laguna 18/47. Your problem with rpm control really bothered me because in a recent post I mentioned that the low end speed control and torque was good. I use it all the time to screw blanks onto a screw chuck for instance. But I had never really looked at the speed readout while doing this. So I just went out to the shop to check. I can easily go down to 30 RPM before I see any hint of jerking and I am not even sure if I am seeing it there.

I also checked my tail stock for slop in the ram versus the handle. There may be a little but I have to look for it. It is not something that is significant enough that I ever noticed prior to your mentioning it.

[Terry Stellman]

Earl, I had to go out to the garage to close up so I checked mine at 30 rpm. My 'pulsing' description is my way of being kind. At 30 rpm, on the readout, it is more of a stop start stop start.

Terry