WATCH LATHE and DRILL PRESS

[david pierce]

If you go to Ebay and pull up item #400662216754 there is a new Sincere lathe for sale including the drill press attachment. Take a look.

[tmac1956]

David:

Wow – that’s sure a great price for that machine and attachments. If I only had some additional cash…

Thanks for the link!
Tom

[david pierce]

Tom,
They are nice. I have been recomending them for several years on this forum but everybody ends up buying a traditional brand machine that they have trouble getting accessories for. I have plenty of the other WW and Geneva lathes and they are very nice machines also, but, the SINCERE is the only watchmaker lathe I have that has all of the machining accessories . This includes the drill press conversion kit, the gear cutter milling attachment, the hole plates and sector arm, the collet holding lever operating tailstock, the graver rest, the cross slide with an A2Z cutter holder mounted to it, motor and spring loaded belt tensioner. Getting all of this stuff for a traditional brand machine would at best be very difficult and expensive because it is no longer made except for the BERGEON. Their set with all of this stuff is over $44,000.00 dollars. Although the price of the SINCERE has gone up since I bought mine, all of this can still be purchased for around $2000.00 dollars. Since the lathe and accessories for the traditional brands are old and used, they are going to be worn and not as precise as the new SINCERE. It is a beautiful high precision smooth cutting machine.
If you go to the PERPLXR BALANCE COMPLETE TRILOGY-2 site on Youtube take a good look at the print in the beginning of the video. There is little wonder in my mind as to why the LITEZ WATCHMAKING SCHOOL made that part on a lathe (BERGEON) using a cross slide.
david

[david pierce]

Bernie,
If you have not already done so read through this post and also take a look at the Perplxr Youtube Video.
david

[bernie weishapl]

Thanks David. I will check it out.

[bernie weishapl]

Haven’t seen these sincere lathes for sale except on ebay. Does somebody carry them here in the states?

[david pierce]

Bernie,
I do not know of anybody but hey, we now live in a global world.
david

[vanhooglesnort]

David, would you trust the accuracy / precision of the Sincere to cut wheels and pinions for a watch? Have you found uses or done projects where the accuracy was found wanting? It’s hard to expect competitive precision considering the extremely low price.

[david pierce]

Van,
That is the same thought I had when I bought mine several years ago. At that time I figured that if it turned out to be a piece of junk I would be out $450.00. When I cut my first piece on it I could not believe how nice the finish was on my turned part. In the end it is a very well made cone bearing lathe that functions beautifully for watch size parts. If you go to Youtube and pull up THE WATCH REPAIR CHANNEL and then select HOW TO FIT A NEW WATCHMAKERS LATHE BELT BY WELDING you can see the lathe that Mark Levic uses. It appears that the name plate has been removed from the base but it is the same lathe. Mine has an extremely accutate spindle, a collet holding lever operated tailstock that lines up with the headstock, a well made cross slide with no backlash or wobble problems, a smooth running motor, a well made milling attachment, a sturdy well made spring pulley stand. From my perspective I do not know what anybody else would want to ask for but that is just my perspective.
david

[vanhooglesnort]

So those of you who have purchased a Sincere…did you get charged import duties? If so, what was the process?

[david pierce]

Van,
I have purchased and still purchase a lot of stuff from China and have never been told to pay an import duty. I do not know if this is due to the FREE TRADE AGREEMENT that the U.S. has with China or not. I only know that I was never contacted about this. As far as the “you get what you pay for” scenerio goes, a company in Germany buys these machines from China, puts them in a nice looking wooden box, jacks the price up by thousands of dollars, and claims that the lathe was “refinished” in Germany. They market it under the name VECTOR. I can only guess that this is for the benefit of those who want a product with a designer label. In truth, it is the same machine. Once I received my machine and checked it out with dial indicators I concluded that it was a well made high quality watchmaker lathe.
david

[stevefox]

@david pierce wrote:

Van,
I have purchased and still purchase a lot of stuff from China and have never been told to pay an import duty. I do not know if this is due to the FREE TRADE AGREEMENT that the U.S. has with China or not. I only know that I was never contacted about this.
david

It depends on what you buy and how much it costs. Customs has a big book with all of the different categories and the percent duty.
I purchased some ornamental plaster and had to find the category in the book. You know the government, the guy had the book and knew where everything was, but made me look it up, I digress. It happened that ornamental plaster is exempt, but there were a lot of items that weren’t. It was several years ago, but I seem to remember that the average duty was around 15%, but I could be wrong about that. My understanding is that they should be collecting duty on a lot of eBay sales, but don’t have the manpower to go through the packages.

Steve Fox

[chris mabbott]

You’d be hard pressed to find a compound tool holder for a vintage lathe for that price. I’ve recently been on a couple of projects that involved Chinese made equipment and I have been pleasantly surprised and impressed.

Remember not so many years ago when… if it came from Japan, it was cheap plastic junk 🙄

Chris

[david pierce]

Chris,
Nor would it be as likely to work as well. The products from China are brand new and the used products have been in use for many years and are in some cases worn. This is particularry true with leadscrews and backlash issues but also on other wear surfaces. Much of the Boley, Wolf Jahn, and Lorch equipment was made over 80 years ago. The accessories are difficult to find, are often expensive and are probably worn out. After going through an expensive learning curve with cars my wife and I drive Toyotas. I know that I can put my key into the ignition and get from point A to point B. A piece of equipment will either meet your needs or it will not. That said I also use a Boley with a Levin cross slide but I also have a background in machine work and a machine shop, and spent a lot of hours getting this equipment to work properly. I had to make a chuck holding tailstock runner with a chuck mounted on it to hold drill bits. The Sincere stuff worked perfectly out of the box and already came with this type of thing.
david

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