Jim,
Yeah I've got a C-6 that I bought about 5 years ago, But just one example of these lathes probably isn't a true representation of what the average quality is. I can state what I found with mine though. Overall my C-6 has a pretty poor fit and finish, And a definite lack of quality control. The cross slide was out over 1.5 thousands in the X axis and 2.5 thou in the Y axis using milling machine coordinate directions. Those measurements aren't even constant, There's a twist in both directions on the cross slides top surface. The cross slides bearing and dovetail ways are very true, The top surface is out in both directions. The tailstock pointed uphill .009 in 2". Overall my opinion was that it should have never have left the factory being that far out of alignment. I gave up on further checks at that point as my blood pressure was getting more than a bit high. Maybe they have started to do better quality control at the factory since mine was made, Or mine somehow got missed for a quality check. But the equipment used to machine and grind the parts should have been set up, operated, and maintained far better than what the finished results show. I fully realise you do get what you pay for, And these are inexpensive lathes. But for a factory's finish grinding equipment being allowed to get that far out of tolerance to produce my examples doesn't seem to show a lot of care or experience by them even without the quality control checks. Flat and true is just that. My parts didn't warp after finish grinding, They were ground out of tolerance to begin with. Just for the top surface of the crossslide to be that far out on such a small part are huge inaccuracy's on any surface grinding equipment. I can easily mill parts to far tighter tolerances than those. Maybe their surface grinder isn't or wasn't out of tolerance and there was some contamination on the magnetic chuck while the cross slides top surface was being ground so it was then operater error. Either way my lathe shows some major errors in how it was built, assembled, and shipped out the door as a finished and usable product. Even though I own a larger mill that's basically a 3/4 sized Bridgeport clone along with some very high quality boring heads. Whenever possible for thru holes, I'll fixture parts to the cross slide and use between centers boring bars. So I expect, want and need a true surface on the cross slide.
Personally I'd think you would really miss having the power cross feed. For a bit more money and a far better lathe with a power cross feed you might want to look at something like Warco in the U.K. sell like a WM-250 VF, That lathe is compareable in size to the C-6 and it should come with a proper test certificate. Also it has a much better set up than the C-4 for the longitudinal and cross feeds using a separate feed rod. Depending on your location, These lathes are sold thru various dealers all over the world. Just try Googling Weiss lathes or Weiss machine tools. I bought a WM-280 VF and using Canadian prices this lathe cost about $1400 more than a C-6. That $1400 bought at least two-three times the quality, accuracy and performance than my C-6 was capable of. I wouldn't ever hesitate to buy another one. And to be honest, I have to thank JasonB for some detailed PMs about his lathe before I bought mine.
I'm not specifically saying that the C-6 lathes are junk, I'm just giving my opinions about one single example. My experience has made me very gunshy about buying anything further with the Sieg brand name. I do know I'll never buy another new lathe that doesn't come with a test certificate. Without that? You have no tolerances to complain about if your lathe is as far out of true alignment as mine was. Yes the problems I found can be fixed by the end user, But why should it cost the end user time and money to redo what the factory should have done originaly? It's not like building a lathe is brand new rocket science. We've been doing this for over 200 years. Anyone building lathes in the volume Sieg does should be well versed on what it takes to align the major subassemblys to at least under .001 without adding anything to the lathes cost. In todays industrial world .001 tolerances are huge IMHO, And especially so with any type of surface grinding. When I bought my lathe I certainly wasn't expecting Monarch EE or Hardinge lathe accuracy's. But I did expect much better than I got.
In hindsite, Reading the Conlley book, Machine Tool Reconditioning and learning how to run some simple tests on a lathe has made me a bit critical about what the factory's are selling us for out of the crate and useable machine tools though. But I have to think alignments to at least .001 isn't too much to expect.
Pete
