This is the $42.50, model G8784 that (I think) a few of you have already. Showed up yesterday, thought I'd get a couple of opinions here before I call customer service.
First, when I unwrapped it, it was literally dripping oil. I understand the concepts of corrosion prevention and lubrication as well as the next person, and this was simply about 10X the required amount by any rational standard. So first job, disassemble and degrease, relube with the dry teflon wonder-lube I use on my guns. Oy. (My mood wasn't helped by the fact that the catalog I requested was in the bottom of the box, and came out with about a cubic foot of styrofoam packing peanuts stuck to it by static.)
Second, discovered during step 1 that there are no, repeat no, jaw number markings on either the jaws or the chuck body...good thing I noticed that after the first one and kept track. You'd think the tolerances would be tight enough that it wouldn't matter which jaw went in which slot, but on this one it sure seems to: the registration between jaws and chuck is a bit ambiguous. I think the technical term is "sloppy", which is the same word I want to use for the internal fit as well: the inner jaws have at least 1/32" of play on the scroll.
Got it back together and threw it on the lathe for a smoke test. The threads bottom out before the rear flange comes anywhere close to the flange on the spindle, but it seems solid enough, so I drop down to the slowest pulleys, stand back, and hit the switch. No evil noises, but visible runout: looks like the front face isn't square to the spindle, plus it's slightly out-of-round, which may be the jaw fit problem I mentioned before.
Is this just a case of "you get what you pay for", or is this particular unit hosed up?
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Originally Posted by Jim Becker
When I said "dripping with oil", I was not exaggerating...and there was what looked like cosmoline under the oil: haven't seen anything that messy since I refurbed a WWII-vintage rifle that had been in storage for 40 years.
