Tools, Machinery Reviews:

Enco AC109-1015 3 in 1, by Ron Jones, from the 3in1machine egroup:

Jan 21, 2001

    I bought one of the AC109-1015 3-in-1 machines from Enco last week. Ordered it on Tuesday @ 4:00pm and it arrived on the trucking company's loading dock at 1:30pm the next day. I knew that price reflects quaility and that certainly holds true here.
    The machine has a lot of slop, crooked threads, off center holes, and non square faces. At least like in another post here the face of the spindle only needed a light cut to true and I've spent 2 days now just going through the whole machine. The centers aligned perfectly without any adjustment at all which was a welcome shock. I removed the end play in the feed screws by truing the collars and shiming with brass shim stock. By upsetting the threads in the handwheel nuts I can now adjust the play completely out.
    When I got to the tailstock I found 4 socket head screws under the dial which did seem to hold any thing until I tapped lightly. At that time about 3/4" of the end of the tailstock housing came off in my hand and showed that about an 1/8" of bondo was used to smooth the lines and rough casting. I chamfered the edges and reassembled now it shows a groove on 4 sides. The alignment and motion are great so I'm to paint and leave the groove.
    I haven't checked the mill yet but I think that the taper for the drill chuck is off center. Atleast with the lathe running true this will be easy the fix.
    Would I consider buying one of these machines again? Yes. It has done a nice job on the parts that I've had to repair and for a hobbyist I think that it's the best bang for the buck.
    BTW, If you look at the pictures of the Grizzly G4015Z and the Enco AC109-1015 they appear to be the same. Just different power switches on the front and I saved all the shipping.

    Hope this helps if someone is looking at these machines. Ron Jones

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