# Lathe Manufacturers



## JollyGreen67 (Nov 1, 2010)

While in the process of stumbling through Laguna Tools 10% off sale, I discovered that Powermatic, Laguna, and Harvey lathes are built by Harvey Industries Co, LTD, in China.


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## jacksdvds (Jun 13, 2015)

But not fortune cookies!


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## Sigung (Nov 20, 2013)

Interesting in the extreme Jim, I wonder if all powermatic tools are made by them… If so, it migh be a real moneysaver to find them under another less expensive brand.


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## MrUnix (May 18, 2012)

Hmmm…. mine was made in Tennessee 

But it does make sense that the new ones are built off-shore. After being sold off in 1986 and re-sold a few times - In 2002, Powermatic was bought by the WMH tool group, which is who owns and imports Jet tools (among others). Probably made in the same factory now and imported into the country with the rest of them.

Cheers,
Brad


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## Wildwood (Jul 22, 2012)

It's easier to name lathes not made in China today. If go to Chiniese web sites will see many lathes sold in North America & Europe markets.

Manufacturers have become just vendors, customer service depends upon whether they stock parts & components for their products. Again if go to those Chinese web sits will see how many fit into a shipping container, but seldom mention spare parts or compoents!


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## JollyGreen67 (Nov 1, 2010)

I wasn't saying this is a bad thing, as Powermatic lathes are practically indestructible, so Harvey Industries must be doing something right. The newer Laguna lathes are in the same ballpark, not sure if they are in the same league as Powermatic but, by watching some interweb youtube videos it looks like they are coming close. Then there is the Harvey lathes, which are very interesting, of which I saw demonstrated at the Kansas City AAW Symposium.

I have a Nova DVR XP, which has been down with a spindle assembly problem, after burning out the bearings twice. And, to find out from Nova, the XP has been discontinued, so I have been searching the world for a replacement lathe. I was trying to decide between a PM, Jet, Grizzly, Rikon, and the Laguna when I discovered Harvey Industries. Then Nova in Jacksonville, FL "found" a new spindle assembly, and they are sending it to me under warranty.  That's also when I found out that not all Laguna Dealers are honoring the 10% sale, as in a previous thread.

Go to the Harvey Industries Co, LTD web site, very interesting machines with their names on them - looks just like numerous name brand machines.

Jack, I'm not sure if fortune cookies come with Harvey Industries Macines or not - maybe ?


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## Ripper70 (Nov 30, 2015)

Looks like Acme is honoring the 10% off Laguna.


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## TheDane (May 15, 2008)

Powermatic lathes have, in recent years, been manufactured in Taiwan. Appears to still be the case … here's the label from the lathe turner Carl Ford recently purchased:


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## JollyGreen67 (Nov 1, 2010)

Ripper 70 - yes, Acme is honoring the 10% sale. There are some others also, which I cannot remember. The sale is through 31 Mar. Woodcraft, Rockler, Craft supplies, Amazon, are not.

Gerry - all I know is what I found on the Harvey web site. True or false, I have no idea.


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## CaptainKlutz (Apr 23, 2014)

HaHa
Besides Laguna and Powermatic, If you spin through this site awhile, you can find Steel City table saw CSA certifications, and "hidden" SawStop partner reference in web code. Which will dissappear as soon as they realize it has been left behind.

Certifications are hidden source of information. 
When the selling brand relies on the mfg to gain CSA/TUV certification, it can not be hidden. They might leave marketing names missing from the document, but PN reference has to be same or it is not valid certification. If someone wanted to search certification records hard enough, you could figure out exactly which products are produced by Harvey for others.

FWIW - Need to be careful with making generalizations regarding which Chinese mfg is making tools for whom:

Sourcing tools off shore is a big business (which I have been involved for 20+ years in Electronics mfg tools). There are many wood working tool mfg in China. USA/EU companies contract with all of them, and use each for different things. It is how business works with off shore sourcing . Companies can/will contract mfg to more than 1 source for same tool to ensure they get volume needed for market. They can/will move mfg contract every couple years between mfg based on price/quality. Big companies will also use one mfg for planers, another for different design planer, different one for shaper, and another for band saws. This is called not putting all your eggs in one basket; as when demand is high for all products you become revenue limited by your contractors capacity. With several suppliers specializing in certain tools, production rates are easier to ramp up and you hopefully have fewer of inevitable quality mistakes. This incessant drive to have "low cost & high quality & instant ship" creates a lot of turn over where machines are produced.

Diving a little deeper:
There is also another challenge hidden with China outsourcing, relationships and licensing. In order to better control over quality and scheduling, most companies learn they must have a local office staff that oversees the foreign mfg operation. But not just any company can get a government license to have "on site" business managers and have a Chinese division. So many equipment mfg have Taiwanese partner(s) that help manage the Chinese sourcing. It is easily to co-locate a loyal company managers to help coordinate business in Taiwan (Been there, done that, got T-Shirt). 
Additionally, 25+ years ago, these same Taiwan companies used to make the wood working tools, till Taiwan steel and labor become too expensive. Now they ASSEMBLE tools made from Chinese components, and speak local language to facilitate sourcing complete tools in China. These hidden licensing relationships are everywhere and makes it almost invisible for customers to know actual tool producers involved (unless you track public shipping manifests, but that is side bar for different time). 
So next time you see a tool "made in Taiwan", know that parts inside where likely sourced from China, and business is supervised by English speaking company representative that communicates with US headquarters. 
I do not know if this is good thing, or bad. It is just, how it all works. 
Ahh, Joys of international business, it keeps a lot of US people employed. Glad to be retired from it.

Thanks for reading this mad lunatics ranting….


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## Tennessee (Jul 8, 2011)

My humble 18 month experience in China, I learned that you can build quality products in China, as long as you specify EXACTLY what you want. GM builds Buicks over there that are just great. They sell about 140,000 of them a year over there. At one point earlier a few years back, it represented about 35% of their profit for the year.

But if you let the Chinese management dictate some of the quality, or hand it off to them, quality will drop rather quickly. As long as you lay out exactly what you want, you can get great quality out of China. I do believe Apple is a good example of that. If they can build a great phone, why not a good woodworking tool? People judge too quickly.

Another good example is the Johnson Guitar Company. They are built mostly in Shanghai Instrument Company #1, one of the oldest stringed instrument companies on the planet. When I was living in Shanghai in 2006, they celebrated their 1000th year in business. So while most of our ancestors were trying to dig themselves out of the dark ages, a company in Shanghai was starting to build stringed instruments. I think they know how by now…


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## Wildwood (Jul 22, 2012)

Thing people learned about Lumber Litigators, and quality from that 60 minutes special all about what a US company willing to pay! If want quality have to pay more.

Same goes for anything made over there in China. Of course Chinese have cloned different name brand products to sell here and around the world with new names. Look at Chinese tourist going on vacation in Japan and buying baby products made in China but better quality than what can buy at home. Ought to tell us something!

Majority of woodworking machines we buy are never checked by vendors here before shipping to customers! How many post have you read about damaged or missing components found after delivery? Most of the warranties are useless and totally up to the tool vendors to make it right! Some do without much trouble others will if put up a stink. Store vendors and shipping companies may or may not be very helpful.

Just pay attention to return or refund and any restocking fee policies before you buy also who pays for return shipping if necessary! Might not be a bad idea better to hold up the delivery driver so can open boxes or crates before signing any shipping documents.


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## TheDane (May 15, 2008)

> Gerry - all I know is what I found on the Harvey web site. True or false, I have no idea.


Do you have a link to this info?


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## wormil (Nov 19, 2011)

Quality comes from quality control, which is expensive. It doesn't matter what rolls off the line, it matters what rolls out the door. When a company wants to skimp, QC is almost always the first cut.


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## JollyGreen67 (Nov 1, 2010)

Gerry - I'm looking for the link. Like a dummy, I forgot to put it my favorites file. Don't give up, I'll find it again.


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## Nubsnstubs (Aug 30, 2013)

Jimbo4, just copy and paste this. *Harvey Industries Co, LTD * I did that, but I only saw 2 lathes they were offering….... Jerry (in Tucson)


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## MrUnix (May 18, 2012)

They certainly seem to make at least some Powermatic products… here is a picture of their showroom in China where you can see the Powermatics lined up on the right:









(Website: Harvey Industries Co. Ltd.)

Don't see any lathes though - just a couple of planers and a sander.

Cheers,
Brad


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## JollyGreen67 (Nov 1, 2010)

Brad and Jerry, Maybe when I was trolling through the Harvey site I saw some Powermatic machines in the background and my synapses put out a recognition signal when I saw the color, thinking there were some lathes in the crowd. But - I'm still looking.


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## JollyGreen67 (Nov 1, 2010)

Looking at the Robust web site I found very interesting - lathes being shipped to Harvey Industries Co, LTD.

HTTP://www.turnrobust.com/robust-ships-american-beauty-lathes-china/-

I entered this link, as I have no idea how to enter it so anybody can go direct. Since I could not find how to enter a proper link I entered it for any one who wants to manually enter it. Questions from a dummy non-nerd: Instructions for how to attach the link ?

Or Google : Robust lathes shipped to China, which will take you direct to the link.


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## MrUnix (May 18, 2012)

Robust Ships American Beauty Lathes to China

Four lathes being shipped - don't think it's going to alter the world economy any time soon 

Links are added using the







button above the edit box.

Cheers,
Brad


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## JollyGreen67 (Nov 1, 2010)

Brad, thanks for the links how to. When I saw the web site I really was curious as to why. Plus, you're probably correct about the world economy. Just hope the Chinese don't have an ulterior motive about Robust.


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## CaptainKlutz (Apr 23, 2014)

> Looking at the Robust web site I found very interesting - lathes being shipped to Harvey Industries Co, LTD.
> HTTP://www.turnrobust.com/robust-ships-american-beauty-lathes-china/-
> I entered this link, as I have no idea how to enter it so anybody can go direct. Since I could not find how to enter a proper link I entered it for any one who wants to manually enter it. Questions from a dummy non-nerd: Instructions for how to attach the link ?
> Or Google : Robust lathes shipped to China, which will take you direct to the link.
> - Jolly67


Oh Oh…
Hope I am wrong in this case, but this seems like normal Chinese cloning process?
Sure hope that Robust is able to sell more…..
The tactic when attempting to clone another mfg product is to buy 3-5 units. They tear them down, measure everything 3 times, generate statistics on all dimensions, then create new drawings and copyright the design in China. If design is good, demand is sufficient, and can be mfg with lessor pricing (normally true); a clone will be sitting in the showroom in about 3-5 months for others to buy.

I have personally seen many different US/EU/Japan automated mfg machines that ended up having China made clones being sold to my Chinese competitors a couple of years after introduction. 
It is nothing new. Japan started cloning in 30's-40's to keep up with western mfg, S. Korea learned how to do it during Korean war as US helped them prosper, and China is enabled thanks to Walmart economy mind set. 
Why do you think most tools look alike since 1970's?


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## msinc (Jan 8, 2017)

They might all be made at the same factory, but they are definitely not all the same machine. I posted for info on a wood lathe when I bought mine about a year or so ago and a member was kind enough to post a photo of the 5 or 6 most popular wood lathes main spindles and bearings. Please don't hold it against me, but I cannot remember his username. It was an eye opener to see the difference in spindle and bearing size alone.


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## Tennessee (Jul 8, 2011)

> Thing people learned about Lumber Litigators, and quality from that 60 minutes special all about what a US company willing to pay! If want quality have to pay more.
> 
> Same goes for anything made over there in China. Of course Chinese have cloned different name brand products to sell here and around the world with new names. Look at Chinese tourist going on vacation in Japan and buying baby products made in China but better quality than what can buy at home. Ought to tell us something!
> 
> - Wildwood


That be true, Wildwood…I found that when I lived over there, the goods made for the Chinese people are usually not of the quality that they are shipping - to be honest, frustrates the hell out of them, at least the ones I worked with. I bought a shortwave radio for about $40 while over there, and was told that was the best offered to the Chinese people. It actually was a clone of one Radio Shack sold for about $21, then discontinued.
It did get Radio Free Europe, which was why I bought it, but not much else, to be honest.

So in the end, quality is the final feature…and it is expensive because you have to have people from your own country on the ground in China. Otherwise, you will see manufacturing variation and missing parts like you never believed possible. GM keeps about 2-300 people over there for their Buick division.
And no…a Big Mac in Shanghai does NOT taste like a Big Mac in the USA.


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## JollyGreen67 (Nov 1, 2010)

For those interested, I have found the country of origin of some name brand power tools : Jet, Powermatic, Laguna - Taiwan. Nova, Rikon - China. This is from Acme Tools web site. Still looking for others.


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