I purchased my Grizzly G0733 Wood Lathe about 3 weeks ago at the Grizzly Springfield MO location. I read reviews from SMC and the Grizzly website and found complaints about the G0733 not having a handwheel on the spindle to easily rotate work. I also found people whining about the drive belt pulley access door having a screw requiring a screwdriver instead of a knurled, captured screw to open the door. The G0733 display model on the floor at Springfield was missing both improvements, so I decided if I wanted them then I would be forced to make the modifications myself. When I got home and unboxed the G0733 I was very pleasantly surprised to find both enhancements already installed on the lathe. The handwheel is about 3 to 4 inches diameter and does a nice job of turning the chuck. The captured drive belt pulley door screw is also very nicely done and greatly appreciated. Neither of these items are on the exploded parts view, which shows the floor model I saw at Springfield.
This post meshes with my previous post. Before I left the showroom, I cornered one of the salesmen and ask about the drive being password protected, because at that time I thought the G0733 used another Delta drive that allowed a password to be entered to unlock it. He was tight-lipped and repeated "We have not had a problem with that issue". At unboxing, I found that the lathe uses a Delta VFD-M drive with the UP / DN buttons disabled on the operator interface so all you can do is look at the first of the 157 parameters. Today I learned that a replacement drive for my lathe through Grizzly cost $872.75. The drive can be purchased open market for a fraction of that price, but without access to the parameters you are forced to figure everything out yourself, which is possible. My big break came when I found that David Roseman is the contact for information on the drive and a nice guy also.
Gary, I think Grizzly keeps the parameters close to the tech services department so as to prevent people who are not educated from ruining their lathe motor or inverter. The average turner does not have a clue, but thankfully, there are some like David that are smart and know what they are doing. Glad he's a stand up guy, and helpful to others. I think you will find the 0733 will serve you well. Your post mentions that they are now putting a handwheel on the 0733, and the knurled knob on the door. Great to hear about those improvements. Grizzly does try to bring upgrades when they can, and this is good news!
Awww, shucks, Fellas! Thanks for the kind words. Gary, thanks also for reporting that the G0733 now ships with a handwheel. That is good news, as it was the only shortcoming of my 2012 G0733 until I added a shop-built handwheel. This is also a bit surprising to me. To do that, Grizzly had to spec a major change to the spindle. The original OEM spindle neither extended beyond the headstock casting, nor was threaded for a handwheel. Interesting also that, as you report, the change was not reflected in the hard copy of the manual that shipped with your lathe. Out of curiosity, I just checked the Grizzly website and pulled up the current parts list for the G0733. https://cdn0.grizzly.com/partslists/g0733_pl.pdf The new, online parts list does in fact show the new handwheel, as well as [cont]
a newly-designed spindle. I guess the printed documentation is probably just catching up with the change. Can't tell just from the parts numbers or diagram, but I wonder if perhaps Grizzly was able simply to retrofit the G0733 with the same spindle used on my G0766. In any event, it's a smart move, IMO.
David, you may be correct. I see that both spindles use the same bearings, a pair of 6206ZZ's.
