my dad bought some cheap chinese piece of trash (cjm280 it was called) for like 1k euros and even that is better than this. he's got a metric + imperial gearbox. it's also very loud and therefore unpleasant to use.

That really sucks.

Sorry you had to deal with all these problems. If it’s any help, I purchased a mill that had the same high motor pitch. I had to change the driver settings to stop the sound. Some machines lock you out of the factory settings. Dig around on the internet to see if anyone else has modified their settings.

Trab, you bought a generic Chinese-made lathe with a local brand name on it. In my experience, the design of Chinese lathes is good, but the build quality is low. A generous coating of rust under the paint is normal with low cost Chinese lathes. So is holes drilled in the wrong places. You have choices - you can buy a quality European-made lathe, or you can buy a bigger Chinese lathe for half the price or less - but you will have to dissassemble it and rebuild the cheap Chinese lathe before you use it. One thing you must do: dissassemble the headstock and apron, anything that holds oil, and clean out the casting sand, metal shavings, and general rubbish the Chinese factories usually include at no extra charge.

Thanks a lot for this honest review. Quite frankly, an an european educated mechanic, having worked on european machines, buying something chep from China will inevitably result in disapointment. I went throug the ordeals of buiing a chinese mini mill in order to do some hobby projects. Now my first project is to improve that shitty piece of cast iron to a certain base level, that makes the process of "hitting dimensions" something "skill based" instead of "oriental bazar".

Well...Thank you. Now you just helped me to make a right decision. I will stay a way from this brand. I know at the end they are all chinese lathes but for 5K+ is not exceptable. I will buy an older used bigger lathe

Thanks a lot man! I was thinking about buying one. do not anymore. you just saved me few thousand EUR. And a lot of nerves!

I am really sorry for you. It is evident that this lathe machine you bought is defective and the supplier should have changed it with a new one without questions. You should have the warranty and under EU laws the supplier is obliged to give you a non defective product. Wish you good luck.

Кажется качество не соответствует цене. На фоне этого китайский WBL290F выглядит гораздо лучше и за меньшую цену. Надеюсь ты сможешь доработать этот станок и он будет приносить пользу.

Looks like an 20 year old crap!

thanks for this review!

So disappointing to experience this. Bernardo should solve this regardless from witch company you bought it. I had a bad experience with the elektonic board from a new mill. (Onother brand) I made pictures and a video of the problem. The company send me a new elektronic board. Mo doubt you'll get your lathe running well again. It will be a lot of work. I realy hope that your lathe becomes better. My respect for your efforts to get the lathe running again as it should be.

you seem to have an issue with rust, so I would like to explain something concerning rust and casting. A friend of mine used to work at Pittler in Germany as an apprentice. Pittler used to be one of the high end brands for lathes. Now when my buddy was strolling over the courtyard with his mentor he asked him what all the rusty trash was doing there. The mentor almost smacked him (it was the 60s so that was still legal) and replied that this is in fact gold in the form of steel casting: Steel casting (as pretty much any casting) needs a lot of time to "relax". Of course at pittler they would remove the rust but you cannot expect this from a cheap chinese machine, but the rust in fact shows you that they gave the casting some time to rest and relax so it won't warp on you!

"and he offered me some paint" sorry that is not what is written in the Email. On top he offered you some "naturals", which I think means you can choose some additional item and get it for free. Given that this really just an optical issue I consider that a fair deal. Also: you could have simply asked for a replacement unit and he would have had to comply given EU laws.

Wow! So you're going to keep improving that hunk of scrap iron? I wouldn't have the patience.

Ich habe vorgehabt eine solche Maschine zu kaufen ?!!! Aber so eine ALBTRAUM MASCHINE .... Nein. ! Da ist Nervenzusammenbruch und Herzattacke vorprogrammiert ! Das ist der Beste nicht weiter Empfehlungs Video den ich je gesehen habe. Danke für die gute Dokumentation . Der Einzigste der jetzt noch helfen könnte wäre die Firma Bernardo selber . SIE müsste den Schrotthaufen abholen und dir eine neue hinstellen . Dann würde ich vielleicht auch eine von dieser Firma (Bernardo) kaufen. Aber so ?? Ich brauch jetzt erstmal einen SCHNAPS 🤯

I was going to invest in a lathe from them this summer. I think I'll rather buy a cheap Chinese lathe now. At least there you get what you pay for, and the quality is better than this one

Caveat emptor.

Watch a vid on colchester making lathes. They use a lot of filler

I can only imagine how disappointed you must have been to unbox a shiny new (and quite expensive) lathe only to find out that it was so badly designed and put together. I admire your gentlemanly restraint in the way you have related the experience, and thank you for sharing this so that others can make informed choices when buying a new tool 👍

I scanned the comments to see if you are stuck with this machine, it appears you still have it. I have completely given up on new small Chinese lathes. I've owned 3, the last was a Precision Matthews 1127. I put a couple hundred hours into that machine fixing all of the little and big problems. In the end it was a useful machine, and I sold it last year for a tidy profit (!!!), considering I bought it in 2020 just before prices really started to rise. I found it overall a negative experience and was glad to see it go. To be fair, PM was very concerned about my satisfaction, even offering to take the machine back. I would gladly do business with them again, but not with Chinese made offerings. i appreciate nice machines having used the very best, and have owned some very nice ones - Moriseki, Emco, Sheldon R13, etc. I currently have a friendly old Logan 14, not perfect for me, it's looking for a new home. I would love to get an Emco V13 or a smaller Weiler, but these are rare in the US. There are Emco Super 11 machines floating around but I'm not in love with those somewhat noisy usually metric gearhead machines. My fall back would be an older Taiwan machine in the 500kg 12-13" swing range. Not exactly what I want, but sometimes these pop up cheap. I won't pay $13,000 for a new Acer or Atrump. The PM Taiwan stuff is cheaper but also lower specification, and I'm a bit hesitate to go with a slime'd down machine. You are in Denmark? It seems like there are a lot of nice Weiler manual machines for sale down in Germany. I even thought of going there and finding one to import. That plan collapsed in the awful 2021/2022 situation. I do think you should find a machine with the quality built in. The problem I had with the PM1127 was you can only do so much to improve it. The gears, shafts, and stuff that is not readily improvable, you will never get past. The machine will always be a disappointment.

i was looking to buy one of their lathes but no no no not anymore

Der Anschalter funktioniert gut.😂😂😂😂 Bernardo 👎=Chinardo. ⛔⛔⛔⛔⛔⛔⛔

Wow. That lathe was truly in a horrible state. Had you not gone in there to grind the taper on the spindle mount that lathe would be totally useless. What a shame.

The backplate must have been painted without any surface oil removed or any treatment ro the surface, to start with...

After watching most of the video and having used 20+ yo Taiwanese machines I appreciate your persistence but feel sorry for you spending that much money and your time.

KZfaq likes to show us videos of lathe beds being cast in the ground in Pakistan by men in sandals and then I see this. A new nearly 5000$ lathe that looks like this.

I was contemplating buying one of these but not anymore

Whatever good you find on this lathe, the bad nullifies it. If this happened to me, I'd be mad as hell about it and it would be my mission in life to send it back for a full refund. It is an utter disgrace that substandard Chinese machines are now the norm and we let them get away with it. If this was a car, rest assured no one would buy them. As a machinists myself of 45 years, there is no way in hell I'd buy a Chinese lathe. You are better off restoring an old one. The Univ where I work, they bought a Baileigh milling machine which is a copycat of a Bridgeport. This mill is a piece of crap! It's an outrage that machines are being made so badly and then you have to spend time and effort making "upgrades" to fix them. It's depressing as hell that products being made today are crap. Fuck these Chinese made machines!!

Well welcome to the club. It's so sad that any one can get scammed so easily this days. You just buy and hope you get lucky and receive what you paid for.

AS someone from Austria, i can guarantee you this is not Austrian quality and whoever sold you this piece of junk and then told you "paint it yourself" definitely doesn't give a shit and never got any costumer really complaining and this would never fly with almost ANY manufacturer because they can get in a lot of legal trouble and they know it. As someone who works in a foundry i have to guess these lathes are outsourced in China.. We get some inclusions here and there but a casting so rough you have to use filler? idk.. If i were you i would have told them to get this right or you will contact your lawyer. Consumer rights are pretty strong in Austria. And yet you still went up and beyond with trying to fix it, i simply wouldn't have let them push me around like that. Honestly whoever thought it was a good idea to slap Austria on this piece of shit was stupid af. (In most cases, guarantors guarantee that a product shall be free from defects for a certain period of time (generally between one and five years). Should the product stop working within this time, the Guarantee claims undertaken by the guarantor in the Guarantee policy can be asserted against him/her (repair, replacement, reimbursement of purchase price or other remedy). If the manufacturing company guarantees the shelf life for a certain period of time, then it is regulated by law that consumers shall have an immediate claim for improvement or replacement of the item against the manufacturing company during this period. In contrast to Warranty claims, it is not relevant for the assertion of rights from the Guarantee whether the defect was already present on delivery of the product or whether it occurred subsequently.)

I commend you for truing up the chuck. I think my anger would have over come me at that point and would have pushed the lathe into a lake. Best of luck with the modifications.

If you can get to the settings of the VFD, it can help to reduce the high pitch noise by changing the switch frequency (if it has such setting). You can loose a bit of power but you probably don't need full power most of the time.

Thx for your Video. I bought a Paulimot PM2700. I think all these Chinese low Price Lath´s are at the same bad Quality. 1700 Euros and 40 hours of modification. My wish is also never bougt these machine. 20 years before these machines are realy better. On my mail to Paulimot, i got an answer, in my mind i think they believe we are all stupid and nobody send the machine back. My new lathe is bild in 1956 an this one is used condition 500% better than the new Paulimot. We can only buy those machines if we are able to do al lot of modifications by oure self. All the best Ralf

what a fucking joke! i would be soo mad!

Dreadful, a lot of Chinese imported lathes have issues. But certain importers do insist on good quality control... Bernardo are not one of them I'm afraid.

Servus Ich habe beim gleichen Händler meine drehmaschine gekauft ( lz 700 vario) und war bis auf eine delle am unterschrank ( die vor dem auspacken nicht sichtbar war) sehr zufrieden Habe das ganze bei latu angegeben und habe sofort einen tausch oder eine gutschrift angeboten bekommen

A long time ago I have purchased a small lathe made in Russia in early 1990s or even perhaps during the last days of Soviet Union. It had some rough edges, but it wasn't nearly as bad as your machine.

That is sad. It would appear that the German's are worse than the Chinese, which I thought was the very bottom of the barrel. Absolute crap. They should be ashamed to let anything that bad go out the door when it should have gone in the trash.

looks used to me been there done that

You did a great job making this video, I feel sorry for you, this lathe is badly built as you've pointed out. I have a similar lathe built by Optimum, the machine isn't perfect but I'm extremely happy with it, for the price I paid. I was impressed with the repair job you did on the spindle, I have no doubt you'll get your lathe running really well, I'll keep a look out for any updated videos you may do.

The worst part was that polish and pitting on the topslide. You couldn't fit anything in those milling slots with confidence. It looks like someone attacked that topslide surface with a flapdisc. A clear indication this lathe was allowed to rust, then tarted up for sale. What an awful brand.

Thank you sir! I was just about to buy either Bernardo Proficenter 880G or 900. Now I know I should stay away from this crappy brand.

One word, Damatomacchine!!!

I almost went for a Bernardo lathe, but thanks to you I didn't press the buy button. I felt sorry for you when I watched your other video. Thank you so much for showing what Bernardo really is. (your other video kzfaq.info/get/bejne/jL1po5V82tvdlZc.html )

12.20 All professional lathes have safety clutch that slips when things go wrong. Two of my lathes have safety clutches in main drive and feed. Small Saimp has safety clutch in main drive gearbox and shear pins in feed and thread. That small belt is safety feature, belive it or not.

Recently i have obtained new addition to my workshop, Saimp lathe built in Padova in 1958. It is completly silent, precise, has all thread pitches, universe apart from Bernardo.

Gday, the build quality of this lathe is absolutely disgusting to be honest, I’d send this back for a full refund and look for another brand, it’s definitely not up to spec mate

It looks to me that they also painted over a thin layer of oil. This paint flaking is typical when oil is painted over. You can paint over oil when powder coating as well. In both cases the paint will badly flake off. It will smoke in a powder coat oven, so it’s easy to see what’s happening.

Bernardo has lost my business. I watched your other video and couldn’t believe how customer service treated you, Shame on them.