"John Stevenson" wrote (snip)
Strange that price is exactly the same as P-B, must be what they imagine 'the market will stand' - not this market though!
Far-east prices are from Chester UK and will I presume bolt straight onto the machine, whereas I would also have to make a new back plate for the P-B. It does seem a waste of a perfectly good chuck though - hardly worth pinching it!
I have had on the shelf for some time a Burnerd 30A lathe chuck in good condition having been fitted with special jaws for a particular job at work some years ago and then languishing unused until I liberated it when the place closed. Inevitably the original jaws have been lost so I contacted Pratt Burnerd to see if new ones are available - yes, but there is a catch - they are £95 a set each for inside and outside! Price of a brand new chuck from the far-east? £59 for the nearest equivalent 125mm and £135 for a useful 160mm! How can you compete with that?
A TOS chuck from J&L in their latest flyer is £59.95 plus VAT plus £3.00 odd delivery, soft jaws are £11.50 per set.
What makes this doubly outrageous is that TOS now make the standard range of chuck for Pratt Burnerd. Some of the Far East chucks still have a way to go on quality, not all but some, whereas TOS have had a very good reputation for many years.
I have just gone thru this with a 10" Bison chuck with a broken jaw. In this case £95.00 for one set against a new 10" TOS with two sets of hard jaws and one set of soft for £128.00
-- Regards,
John Stevenson Nottingham, England.
I'm still toying with the idea of machining a set of soft jaws to the same pattern as my broken ones and getting 10 thou of case dropped on them. Should be good enough for general work. Annoying thing is the TOS and Bison don't share the same jaws, Bison is heavier, but I need to keep the Bison as it has about 5 sets of jaws for special jobs
-- Regards,
John Stevenson Nottingham, England.
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