What is the consensus on the "Sincere" brand of Chinese lathes?

[GregG]

Despite my best attempts, I don't think my current mini-lathe is up to the task of creating watch parts.  I've been looking into getting a proper watchmakers lathe.  I found what many of you have probably found, which is an inexpensive Chinese brand called "Sincere."

For about 2 grand, you get the lathe bed, headstock, tailstock with a lever collet closer, 2 (?) XY tool posts, a milling head, a range of collets, and the overhead belt rod thing (not sure what it's called).

 

Also for about 2 grand, I can buy a used Lorch.  Most of what is in the Lorch box is a mystery to me, and it doesn't look like it has an attachment for milling.

 

Now of course the Lorch has some provenance, but the machine is probably very old, and who knows how well it may have been treated during its life, and if everything is still in alignment.  From what I gather around this forum and other forums, the Sincere lathe is the exact same that Boley sells under the "Vector" badge after touching up and finishing the lathe.  The criticisms of the Sincere lathe all seem to stem from theory, like the quality of the metal, quality of Chinese stuff in general, but those who's actually used it, such as Mark himself, have given it praise.  So I am leaning towards the Sincere.  Is there anything that I should know that would disqualify it?

Edited October 22, 2024 by GregG

[tomh207]

Not to disqualify it no. If considering a new lathe have a search for CZ50 watchmaker lathe. These are made in batches a couple of times a year. The manufacturer is Micheal Chung(spelling?) and they have a very good reputation. Seems to be easiest to contact him via Facebook or instagram.

 

https://www.lathes.co.uk/chung/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3CMl9futn6ctArdeuSplwjEtxRTlP-yaDWmjimJCVP9Vr1GQhY4TG67Xk_aem_PcXEoEcPMai7PG9jl-mXYA

Tom

[nickelsilver]

The CZ50 is in another price bracket (around 6000 dollars), but it's top quality. It also doesn't come with collets, but at that price you get the slide rest, milling attachment and digital dividing. My colleague has one, and I've messed with it a bit, definitely worth the price, and it's less than half what the similar Leinen WW82/3 goes for, with more capability (having milling/dividing as part of the package).

 

 

 

[Neverenoughwatches]

Thats a hefty wedge, I'd need to be throughly committed to watch repair to spend that kind of money. So glad i got my wolf Jahn when i did...eh Tom ? Still looking for a slide for it

[tomh207]

2 hours ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

Thats a hefty wedge, I'd need to be throughly committed to watch repair to spend that kind of money. So glad i got my wolf Jahn when i did...eh Tom ? Still looking for a slide for it

Last WJ slide I saw went for a good bit over £400 Rich 

 

Tom

[Neverenoughwatches]

34 minutes ago, tomh207 said:

Last WJ slide I saw went for a good bit over £400 Rich 

 

Tom

Yeah Tom thanks matey ,they usually around the 300 mark, double what my lathe was .

[nickelsilver]

A good slide rest won't be cheap. They all look similar, but you want one with large settable thimbles, 1mm pitch screws that turn correctly, and if for a WW pattern lathe with a good foot system. I know Lorch and Boley made some with reverse screws, possibly Lorch too. Some German makes are for left hand use, with headstock to the right, and they can only rarely be switched to "normal". Lorch, and I suspect some others, also used 0.75mm pitch screws on some slides. That's an absolute b!tch to use. (Same for reverse screws)

 

As for the foot, many slides require a shoe that fits the bed. In the pics is an example (ignore the broken bit), bottom view and top view with shoe. Not all beds are the same, even if nominally a WW pattern. Not all shoes fit all slides (obviously). A better design is the next pic, that's a Marshall slide, made very similarly to Levin. Leinen also made some with this design, but mostly they are found with a shoe. The Levin design will fit any WW bed, and even other shapes like Favorite and even the CZ50. Unfortunately, the CZ50 design of slide will only work on their bed though.

 

 

 

 

 

Here's a view of the bottom of the CZ slide, and the bed profile. The front "rail" on the CZ is 90 degrees to the top surface, unlike WW, where both sides are 60 degrees. It's a sort of hybrid system, where the tailstock pulls up against the front rail for alignment, much like Favorite did (next pic), which is a scaled down version of what Schaublin used on their 65 and 70 lathes (last pic).

Edited October 22, 2024 by nickelsilver

[GregG]

I've seen the CZ50, but unfortunately I don't have $6,000 of disposable income, and just for safety's sake, I wouldn't want to buy such an expensive small-batch item through Facebook or email.  Great thing about eBay (where I found the ones in the original post) is that its weighed so much in the buyers favor that if there's ever a problem, I'm likely to be able to return without too much hassle.

[HectorLooi]

My mentor has been using lathes from Michael Chung for many years. He has Generation 1, Generation 2 and Generation 3 lathes. Generation 6 is now already out in the market.

Since my mentor is proficient in Chinese and they have become personal friends. He can get customized parts and software from Michael.

Michael is a perfectionist and strives to better his products all the time. Hence the many generations of lathes. He doesn't appear to be the typical Chinese manufacturer. But I guess being proficient in Chinese has its advantages. 

[GregG]

I'm still not hearing a no regarding the Sincere lathe.  Though one thing I did find out from my research last night is that for some reason their drawbar and included collets all have non-standard thread sizes, M7x0.75 instead of the regular WW 0.275-40 (~M7x0.635).  My only concern is what kind of headache that might cause if I want to use a regular WW accessory.  The seller does offer a regular WW drawbar, though.

[SwissSeiko]

i would say, if your income relies on it, bite the bullet and get a michael chung. In the near future, ill be buying one or two of his lathes. I have 2 lathes already, but having one dedicated to wheel and pinion cutting would be fantastic

[GregG]

This would just be for hobbyist use.

[mbwatch]

@GregG Did you ever end up buying this lathe? Nobody wants to be the first. The price of a Sherline does not seem far off what these are going for without the milling, collets, and countershaft (is that thing a countershaft?)

[tomh207]

@mbwatch I don’t have a sincere lathe but I did look into them when I first got into this and was looking at doing the BHI DLC qualifications. The sincere has been sold, rebranded and boxed, as a vector for more money. All the sincere stuff I have seen is that they recommend their expensive version of an industrial sewing machine motor so does not need the extra torque that a counter shaft would give a domestic sewing machine motor. What you see that I think that you think is a counter shaft is for getting power to a milling attachment on the cross slide.

 

Tom

[GregG]

17 hours ago, mbwatch said:

@GregG Did you ever end up buying this lathe? Nobody wants to be the first. The price of a Sherline does not seem far off what these are going for without the milling, collets, and countershaft (is that thing a countershaft?)

No, I ended up going with a Proxxon FD 150/e for a few reasons.  First, Proxxon has a U.S. branch.  So if anything goes wrong, I just call them, and it's easy to work things out.  I've emailed their support people before and called their hotline, and they're very responsive.  If the Sincere failed, I'd have to communicate through eBay (or worse, AliExpress) and start worrying about sending a large, heavy item back to China... not fun.

Second, while the Sincere is more watch-oriented, there's no guarantee that I'm going to be doing watch parts only, so I'd pigeon-hole myself into only being able to make small parts.  The FD 150/e is a more general machine.  It accepts ER11 collets, which are very accurate, inexpensive, and I only need a handful of them to accomplish the same range of diameters as an entire box set of WW collets.

Next, afaik, the Sincere does not have zero-adjustable handwheels.  The FD 150/e includes it in the base price.

Speaking of price, I was able to purchase the lathe, and the accompanying MF70 mill for half of what it would have cost to buy the Sincere combo (not including the cost of the motor for the Sincere).

The Proxxon does require a little bit of dialing in here and there to ensure everything is centered and square, but it's pretty fast to do, and you don't need to do it every time.

Edited January 16 by GregG

[SwissSeiko]

1 hour ago, GregG said:

Speaking of price, I was able to purchase the lathe, and the accompanying MF70 mill for half of what it would have cost to buy the Sincere combo (not including the cost of the motor for the Sincere).

Wow thats a great price on that mill. But its just a little too small for me. Let me know how it works for you! I think ill go with sherline for a mill. Or taig, since I have their lathe.

[GregG]

56 minutes ago, SwissSeiko said:

Wow thats a great price on that mill. But its just a little too small for me. Let me know how it works for you! I think ill go with sherline for a mill. Or taig, since I have their lathe.

It is robust enough to create at least a mainspring barrel:

That was a first attempt, and I didn't have the barrel clamped down properly, so it skidded around and roughened up the edges/bottom.  But otherwise for a first attempt on a machine like that, I'm pretty impressed.

[SwissSeiko]

16 minutes ago, GregG said:

It is robust enough to create at least a mainspring barrel:

That was a first attempt, and I didn't have the barrel clamped down properly, so it skidded around and roughened up the edges/bottom.  But otherwise for a first attempt on a machine like that, I'm pretty impressed.

How large of a piece do you think you could do? Could you do an entire main plate?

[GregG]

From a size perspective, yes, you could fit several main plates easily.  From a robustness perspective, sort of.  I mentioned that for the lathe, certain things needed to be dialed in before you can do accurate work.  The same applies to the mill.  The X and Y axes have a fair amount of wobble in them.  It's fine for rough work, but too much to build an entire main plate. 

However, there are tension screws that you can adjust to decrease the play.  If you turn them tighter, they press on a brass bar that slides inside the dovetail joint to hold the axis more firmly.  From the factory, they aren't set too tight.  You can tighten them, but then of course the handwheels will become harder to turn, and you run the risk of prematurely wearing out the ways.

[Dell]

On 1/15/2025 at 10:12 PM, tomh207 said:

@mbwatch I don’t have a sincere lathe but I did look into them when I first got into this and was looking at doing the BHI DLC qualifications. The sincere has been sold, rebranded and boxed, as a vector for more money. All the sincere stuff I have seen is that they recommend their expensive version of an industrial sewing machine motor so does not need the extra torque that a counter shaft would give a domestic sewing machine motor. What you see that I think that you think is a counter shaft is for getting power to a milling attachment on the cross slide.

 

Tom

I have a Jack industrial sewing machine motor running my Pultra P type and I can’t praise it enough as even at slow the torque is good, although I did convert it from foot operated to potentiometer.

Edited January 18 by Dell
Forgot something

[tomh207]

1 hour ago, Dell said:

I have a Jack industrial sewing machine motor running my Pultra P type and I can’t praise it enough as even at slow the torque is good, although I did convert it from foot operated to potentiometer.

I did see that on your videos @Dell. The ones sincere/1set tout look pretty much identical to the Jack and other equivalents but for several times the price.

 

Tom