Thread: Attention: Hare & Forbes BM30 owners and or clones

Originally Posted by Grahame Collins

Its a case of you get you pay for.
My experience with a circ 2007 12 x 36 lathe (non H &F ) has taught me a lot,in as far as imported Chine machinery goes. The Chinese will continue to send us sub standard quality quality machines because we keep accepting them.

We are cost driven like everyone else and unfortunately have our learning curve generated by the faults of a cheap machine .
Grahame

I completely agree with the sentiments of Grahame and others as typified in the above quote, that you only get what you pay for, and the comment that the Chinese will continue to send us sub standard quality machines because we keep accepting them. However, let's consider the situation if the cheap Chinese tools or something comparable had never become available.

In 1948 my father bought a new 9 x 18 Brackenbury and Austin lathe for 115 pounds ($230). This was considerably cheaper than the slightly larger Hercus. At the time average weekly earnings were seven pounds fifteen shillings and nine pence ($15.58). The B&A lathe came with a faceplate, a chuck backplate (no chuck) and a three step countershaft pulley, but no countershaft, motor or stand, which all had to be bought separately, so it took a person on average weekly earnings 14.8 weeks' wages to buy the basic lathe without accessories. No manual was supplied - it was expected that the buyer would know how to run and maintain a basic small lathe.

In November 2012 average weekly earnings were $1396.00, and the catalogue price of a roughly comparably sized lathe, the AL50GA is presently $1089, complete with standard accessories and stand, for 0.78 weeks' wages. On the basis of the above, if the really cheap Chinese machine tools had not become available, to buy a new lathe of similar capacity, but better than current Chinese quality, about the size of the present AL50G you would now expect to pay around $20660. This does leave a fair margin to spend some money to improve the cheap Chinese tool!

I am no great lover of the present generation of available low-end Chinese machine tools with all their frustrations. However, I'm quite sure that without the availability of these tools, even with all their shortcomings, the prices of the limited number of available surplus commercial machine tools would be much higher because of their scarcity and lack of alternatives. I'm sure I would have been able to afford considerably less new or second hand machining capability than I have now.

Frank.

the correct manual for the easson dro tuned up in the post yesterday

I guess my verbal tirade of "not good enough" did the trick...if you dont complain nothing gets done