Grizzly Lathe

[Benjaminhurmx]

Has anyone ever owned a Grizzly lathe? I was looking at the G0658 12 x 20 Heavy-Duty Bench-Top Wood Lathe and it's a lot cheaper than the jetts and other top name lathes with all the same things. 3/4 hp, variable speed, 300 to 4,000 rpm. Its about 150 dollars cheaper. Anyone had one? Looking to buy a second lathe and upgrade. I don't want to buy this one and find out I should have bought a Jet later. Your help would be appreciated.

 

[Curly]

Hi Benjamin

Welcome to the forum. Your font size is a little too big unless the reader has really bad eyes.

We have the 12 x 20 Grizzly machine. The week spot might be the electric switches and controller. Marla has made over 500 pens on it and the on/off switch went at about the 100 pen mark. I replaced it with another I had but Grizzly stocks them if you need it. The Digital readout went at the 200 pen mark. Since we don't look at it any way because we go by the way the material cuts I haven't bothered fixing it. The motor is plenty powerful for the machine.

The outboard turning stuff is not very useful because the hand wheel is the only way to mount anything to the lathe and you need to do so with it on the lathe. The hand wheel is a 3/4-16 left hand thread locked with setscrews that also hold the bearings in the headstock. If you can find a chuck or faceplate to fit you will need to get the torque right when you put it on or the bearings will suffer from over tightening or being loose. Best is to forget about outboard turning part altogether but if you get a Jet you won't have that either.

For the money you get a decent machine that should serve for some time to come. I have a second new one in a box but haven't set it up due to a lack of space. Have to do a major reorganization someday. :wink:

I see this thread is duplicated in a smaller font so if the mods are going to remove this one please move my post to it.

 

[pensbydesign]

geees no so loud

i owed a one of there lathes and what a piece of crap couldn't wait until i got a new one. it was loud full of vibration, never felt right. i felt bad when i sold it ( not really)

 

[SCR0LL3R]

Quite a few people have had issues with Grizzly lathes. While I would buy certain Grizzly tools, a lathe would not be one of them. Especially if a Jet is only $150 more. If this is an upgrade for you, make sure you are getting a worthwhile upgrade.

 

[Powerstroke 7.3]

I have this lathe and have had no problems with it - the varible speed is great. I turn mostly pens but have done a couple of bowls turned down from a cedar 6" round log and it did great.

 

[hilltopper46]

I have this lathe and agree with Pete's (Curly's) assessment of it. My experience has been very similar to his in that I have had to replace the switch and the digital readout is currently not working. I bought a replacement board for it which is still sitting in the box. The times I miss the readout are when I use it for buffing and that's about it.

The lathe was real quiet at first and has gotten noisier. I replaced the bearings in the headstock thinking that might help, but any improvement is hard to tell.

Another thing I don't particularly care for on this lathe is how loose the tailstock is. There is a LOT of movement between the ram and the TS casting.

If I had it to do over again I would add the $150 and get the Delta.

 

[Benjaminhurmx]

Well the digital read is one of the reasons I wanted it. The one I have now has a belt you move on the motor pully from left to right. I have no idea how fast its going or how it works I got it on sale from Rockler and it didnt even come with instuctions.

 

[yomanyouahippie]

The font scared the crap out of me. The last few "cheaper" power tools have ended up costing me more money, for example, I had a PSI lathe, 10" w/ VS, and sold it for 300, because I was so upset with the quality. Although I would hope that Grizzly has nicer lathes than Penn State, You should probably throw in another 100 dollars + and get something a little nicer.
I ended up buying a Delta 46 460, which I am sure a lot of people here can support. the difference is just amazing.

Variable speed is great, but not a necessity.

 

[JimB]

Well the digital read is one of the reasons I wanted it. The one I have now has a belt you move on the motor pully from left to right. I have no idea how fast its going or how it works I got it on sale from Rockler and it didnt even come with instuctions.

If that is all you want to know then all you need to do is go online to rockler, look up the lathe you have and most likely the description will tell you the speeds of each pully setting.

 

[phillywood]

First of all welcome to the forum, secondly it was mentioned that you typed too large which would be considered being loud. I don't have that particular lathe , but I own a lever type variable spped Grizzly lathe which is exactly like what HF now sells it. Sinnce I bought it from a friend at a reasonable price I can not complain, but If you asked me to won another one I'd say NO. On mine the first thing was that the main tool rest broke twice even after my friend welded it for me then the post on the extension too rest broke. I had to go round and round to try to find a 10"x 12TPI adaptor to make the lathe work with my Nova2 chuck. To make the story short try to steer away form this brand and it may be little hard to put up more money ,but in the long run you'd be much happier to have a better brand name lathe. If you like you can call me on my phone and I'll tell you about it.

 

[Mac]

I have one and it is for sale. Due to the fact that I am selling my grizzly 12/20VAR. and do need to get a little bit of money for it. all I can say is, it is for sale and is a used lathe.