Jet/Grizzly Lathe Parts

[hammer8]

Hello All-

I have a chance to buy an unused Jet 9X20 metal lathe locally for less then half price of new. The catch being something had fallen against it, breaking the bracket for the cross slide handle, and bending the cross feed lead screw. Other than cosmetic, no other damage is apparent.

From the research I've done, it seems that all these "China" machines are the same, but I was wondering if anyone had any experience with actually interchanging parts. Looking at both websites, the Jet and Grizzly parts diagrams are exactly identical, however the same items from Grizzly are considerably cheaper.

Thanks for your input and advice!
Don

[KurtHuhn]

Spend the money and get your replacements from Jet. I've seen the inside of the Grizzly lathes, and wasn't impressed. Besides, there's no guarantee, despite the diagrams being the same, that the Grizzly parts will fit the Jet lathe - and then you'll end up having to buy the Jet parts anyway.

[RadDavis]

The parts probably won't be interchangeable.

My 9 x 20 Enco lathe looks exactly like the Jet (and Grizzly), yet I'm unable to use any of the parts from the Enco on my Jet. I tried a couple, like the tail stock and chuck, just in case anything went wrong, and no luck.

I'd get parts from Jet.

Rad

[hammer8]

Kurt and Rad-

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I am kind of surprised that that there actually are differences in the lathes. I do value your input and will take your advise to buy from Jet. The owner of the machine is out of town until Friday. Hopefully, I'll be able to pick it up over the weekend.

Thanks again,
Don

[KurtHuhn]

I have found in the past that, while there's only one or two factories in Asia that make most of the machines for sale in the rest of the world, they are not identical from nameplate to nameplate. There are minor differences in sizes of the castings, motors, machined parts, etc. There are differences in how much the brand is willing to pay for materials, manufacturing tolerances, quality assurance, process, and so on. Jet and Powermatic are willing to pay a little more, while Harbor Freight is not. - for instance.

I recently went through this looking for a new drill press, and decided on a Hitachi. Even though it looked identical to the Delta of the same size, the tolerances on the Hitachi were much tighter, resulting in an overall much more accurate machine.