Office of Steam Forum for Model & Toy Steam Gas & Hot Air Engines

The thing you need to understand with the cheaper (home shop) Asian equipment suppliers is that you are the QC inspector.  Assume nothing has been checked and you will be on the right track.  You will need to thoroughly inspect any new equipment and make sure your supplier will work with you if you find any problems. I bought my mill from Grizzly when they closed their Muncy, PA store as I was able to get a good deal with a discount and no shipping costs. PM Research in Pittsburgh would be another almost local option for me but I don't plan on buying anything else in the near future.

While I did some customizing to it, my mill (Taiwan) has always worked fine and been within specifications on tolerances and produced plenty of good parts over the years.  Any issues I had was usually from the monkey turning the knobs. I've also helped people online diagnose problems with the exact same mill. To their credit, when presented with a clear and sane description of the problem Grizzly quickly sent replacement parts and that fellow was able to fix his mill and was happy in the end. He just had to do a little work.

Matt at PM isn't stupid and isn't afraid to offer influencers free or really good deals on shop equipment as the advertising is golden.  Quinn got her current PM mill for free, which was freely announced but I'm sure she bought her PM lathe and first PM mill because she was unknown at the time.

Watch the beginning of this:

https://youtu.be/VzWYgwVHggE

I have owned my PM matthews 932 for 9 years. 1 reason i bought it over a comparable Grizzly is that i live close enough to pick it up in person. I opted to have the dro installed by the seller and no regrets there. Dont buy it without the dro, it is worth every cent. I have had to replace 3 minor parts over that 9 years and twice they replaced the part after the warranty period and still never charged me.
I have built at least 2 dozen steam and hit miss model engines on it as well as many other projects and i absolutely love it. I had an old bridgeport offered to me for free and passed on it, as they are always fairly worn, cumbersome, usually 3 phase, no dro and a beast to relocate. As for being chinese, my jet lathe is chinese and easier to find parts for than many of the old u.s. made lathes. I also have a southbend and atlas lathes, but my jet lathe is the one i use most.
Crazydoug

Not an owner ( I went tormach) but heavily considered Precision Mathews. More pricey than Grizzly but appear to be notch above in quality.