Sorry to do this to you but am am sick of chasing my tail trying to find a good old American dream machine   The last two were a South bend 13” with a huge slop factor on the spindle and missing all the oem accessories and the other was a nice Logan that was sold before I could even make a phone call.

I am looking to order a Grizzly 12” x 36” machine and they have two that are about  $400 apart.

Both appear to be Chinese (not Taiwan).
The cheaper one seems to have more threading settings
The cheaper one says it has a cast iron base compared to a formed steel on the more expensive.
About 150 pounds heavier on the less expensive machine.

What am I not getting with the less expensive machine?  What is the real difference?

This is personal hobby use not a business use fwiw.

Curious as well....

Personally, I prefer the G0750G over the G4003G, I like the position of the thread dial, and like the quickchange gearbox dials/knobs over levers.  And yes the G4003G has more threading options, but in all honesty, are you going to be threading over 56 TPI or finer than .4 mm per thread?  Likely no

G0750G:
Number of Inch Threads..............................34
Range of Inch Threads................................4 – 56 TPI
Number of Metric Threads...........................26
Range of Metric Threads.............................0.4 – 7.0 mm

G4003G:
Number of Inch Threads............................ 40
Range of Inch Threads.............................. 4 – 112 TPI
Number of Metric Threads......................... 29
Range of Metric Threads........................... 0.2 – 4.5 mm

Today is my day off and I was actually going to download the manuals and spec sheets on each to see just what threads they’re talking about.

Thank you for that.

May I suggest that you get the 13x40 with the DRO's already installed, G0776.  Ya, it costs about a $1000 more but you're getting the DRO's (which are a PITA to install in you had to do it yourself), one more inch on swing and that extra 4" on the tail stock movement really comes in fucking handy if you ever have to ream and tap choke tube threads into a long shotgun barrel.  That's the lathe I plan on getting next year.

You know I should.  I am a bit old fashioned and keep shying away from digital.  My machinist friend thinks I’m nuts from practicality.  I just never used digital in school.  We had one machine that ran paper tape code (donated) but no working paper code card writer.

You are probably right.  Confession.  I ordered my fisrt custom scope, mil reticle and moa knobs because that’s all I had before like my old Leupold tacticals came.  It was what I knew.  Then a couple years later I realized the folly when I got my first mil/mil scope.   I suspect it would be like that.

I have a 4003G
I have a friend with a 0750G
I think his bed is a bit longer
I believe my spindle is 1/16 larger
FWIW
BTW, both machines will hold .001 or better
Neither of us has had a problem.
They both see light use

Thank you.  My gunsmith friend says if I can hold to the half a thousandths you’re fine for most any gunsmith work.

I pulled the trigger today.  I was waiting for a sale and the weather to break a bit due to crappy private road for delivery.

I ordered the G 0750G model for the oil bath gear box.

Thanks again.

Btw $150-200 off some of their lathes right now FYI.

Watching the news I wonder if my timing was right.  I was thinking they might slap tariffs on the goods.

Ah life is normal.  My lathe showed up obviously dropped off a fork lift or run into by one. Dirt and gravel and smashed crate in the outboard spindle.  Whole lathe was broken free of the pallet and outer crating smashed.

I hope your noted it on the delivery paperwork and put a call into to let them know so they can investigate the situation to figure out what happened between them and you.  Do you know if there was any damage to the machine itself?  Just make sure you documented everything in case, busting it on the spindle can cause problems that will not show right up by looking at it.

Yes sir.  One look at the wooden crate flopping around while they dragged it to the tommy lift was an obvious problem.  I noted product damage and crate damage on the paperwork and called.   If I was faster finding their number I could have gotten authorization to refuse it.   Had I only known that.   But in all fairness I couldn’t tell if it was limited to cosmetic or worse until I looked inside.

My investigation indicated that Some one operating a fork lift was unaware it was a an off balance package.   Looks dropped on the head stock side.
- crate side and corner smashed in
- lathe broken free of the pallet it was bolted to (wood split at bolts) and sitting kitty corner in crate with headstock edged against crate wall remnants
- crushed spider gear cover
- crushed outboard gear cover, enough to impinge on the spindle
- both cover retaining threaded studs bent, one broken at weld but hanging by weld bead
- cinders, asphalt, and pulverized wood inside spindle bore and spider area.  About 1.5 tbsp worth of so called dirt
- speed control knobs ground down from abrasion
- instruction decals gouged through to metal
- metal panel between cabinets mangled from the 10” faceplate set free by snapped metal banding, god knows what else like the Threading bar it may have whacked
- possibly the finger knobs busted off the carriage and cross slide handwheels

The hard blow to the end of the spindle and what it may have done to the bearings is what is a concerning unknown.  Not worth the risk for me.  The CSR was decidedly not inclined to see if I’d keep it with some Kind of adjustment.  The way he asked it he was inquiring and expecting that I would prefer replacement. That was a big yes or we would have been dealing with the credit card company.  Glad that was not the direction they went. My guess is this will end up on the Missouri showroom scratch and dent sale.

This will likely cost me another day of work off.

If it got dropped on the headstock it will never be right.

Yeah, glad they are doing a replacement.  That would be a problem child machine forever.

I hate that when it happens.  Glad the company is honorable.  The freight company needs to have its peepee slapped.

Yep I got a date for pick up.  I talked to them about shipping the replacement and doing a swap in one day.   They wouldn’t do that due to the value.  :-/.  It means I will lose two days more to facilitate the pick up.   Total three days lost.  I likely won’t see the replacement for two more weeks.   That kind of blows.

I would always have doubts on those spindle bearings and more.  I would not want to try to make it work for some discount for scratch and dent.  Way not worth the risk.

I would be billing someone for the lost work time, put in a claim with the shipping company

Pretty meaningless unless you know it the lead-screw is inch or metric.

No matter what you do with change gears the lead-screw determine what set will be exact and the other approximate.

Close enough for shorter threads but a real issue on longer ones.

I too finally took the plunge.  After weeks of research and gut wrenching decisions, I went and got the G0709 14x40 geared head lathe.  After reading the OP's problem with a damaged crate on delivery, I chose to pick my lathe up at the truck lines local terminal.  The trip to Milwaukee was only about 55 miles, my buddy and I made the trip in 2 1/2 hours.  I've got the trailer backed into the garage with jack stands under the rear corners of the trailer.  I've got the crate open and am now disassembling and removing all extraneous BS to make it lighter so when my other buddy shows up either Monday or Tuesday with his fork lift, it will be easier for him to lift it off.  Just going to have him set it down on moving dollies and push it into the shop.  So far I'm more than impressed with the overall quality, of course I've found a few things to bitch about.  There's a sheet metal shroud at the end of the cross slide to shield the screw, which in and of its self is no big deal, but it also just happens to be where I need to attach the mounting bracket for the DRO.  So fuck!  Now I've got to make a new one out of thick angle to have a solid platform for the DRO mount.  I spent yesterday figuring what metal I've got to get to mount the lathe bed DRO.  I may be able to use some of the bull shit universal brackets in the kit but I doubt it.  The last bitch I have is the quality of the drill chuck that they sent with the lathe.  I just spent over $5K on a lathe and you send me a tinker toy drill chuck!  When I'm done, I'll try to upload some pictures of how I mounted the DROs.  I should be able to recoup some of the money spent when I sell my old lathe, which is a Precision Mathews PM1127VF-LB.

Nice.

I am just going to get my wiring done today hopefully.  Yeah it’s taken a bit long.  My brother is the electrician so I had some wait it out moments for his help adding a few 240 circuits.  The hardest part was trying to track down a 3/4” conduit bender.   Everybody I know has only a 1/2.  I ended up buying one.   I paid about $500 for materials to run fifty foot of 6awg for a heavy duty welder line with three boxes spread out,  a 30 amp dedicated compressor circuit also about 50’ from the box, and a long 120v 15a run for the eventual Reznor heater.   So it wasn’t all just the lathe line.

Should run the motor breakin procedure tonight.  Then have my pro machinist buddy come help do the final leveling and check things out with his inspection equipment.

Right now I have all the wire pulled in the conduit on the wall but I didn’t touch the box other than running a green ground in.  I will let my brother do the
Box wiring.  He does a rather neat job of those things.    He also has the 6-20r outlet to plug the lathe into.  He said don’t buy it because he had it so that’s not done.  I bought the welder outlets and I installed them in the boxes.

ETA if you haven’t bought your plug for your lathe from Grizzly, Grainger had some premade ones very reasonable.   I was going to originally hardwire the lathe to the junction box via mc but changed my mind to plug and outlet.   The Grizzly cord and plug seemed a back together option so I hunted up the cord and Grainger had a few options.   I bought an 8’ right angled plug cord.  Perfect.

@jreinke

I assume that’s other than a Grizzly dro?

I bought my plug and receptacle from Amazon.com, L6-20 twist lock.  As for the DRO, yes it's the Grizzly.  I've had no problems with the one I mounted on my mill.