Search Results for 'arc euro'

[Les Jones 1Participant @lesjones1]

I have an R8 ER25 chuck for my Mill and an ER25 lathe chuck for my lathe with a set of ER25 collets all from ArcEuro Trade. I have had no problems with them and would recommend them.

Les.

[MadMikeParticipant @madmike]

I bought ER32 collets and chuck from ArcEuro Trade of this parish. Great product, great price and wonderful friendly service.

Normal disclaimers etc, simply a very satisfied customer.

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

Siddeley: Connectors from readout difficult to fit to scales and insecure.
There are a type of scales in the same range of values not suffering from this problem because the display is remote and the cable has only one connetor to connect to the display. I think they are called iGaging. See please ***LINK*** .
You can see here ***LINK*** the cable coming out beneath of the "cursor" box so the oil doesn't flow in by gravity.

The old-style connectors were useless. I just soldered teh wires in place and filled the hole with hot melt

Siddeley: Scales sometimes 'froze' and wouldn't start working again until the battery was removed and replaced
Never happened to me with these scales.

I find that when remote powered they are very sensitive to glitches on the power lines especially on power up. I keep meaning to fit 10uf capacitors in the battery compartments.

Siddeley: Update rate on the scales was very slow, it was neccessary to crank the wheels on the machine in a tortoise like fashion to avoid overshooting.
Never happened to me with these scales.

There is a 'fast' option that can only be activated remotely on most scales. This updates about 10-20 times a second – I find it easier to use normal speed and go gently!

Siddeley: The 'off' button on the scales was really a 'standby' button and the battery was still being drained.
Not verified. So, no opinion.

This is so the scales do not 'forget' their setting when switched off. Think of it as a blessing! Cells should last a year or more unless thetemperature gets close to zero (when the discharge rate soars).

Siddeley: General 'glitching' from display and from scales – blank readouts, refusal to zero.
Never happened to me with these scales.

Probably transients on the cables again – make sure they are routed away from motor/control box/switches/fluorescent lights.

Neil

[dcostaParticipant @dcosta]

Hello Siddley,

Siddeley: Connectors from readout difficult to fit to scales and insecure.
There are a type of scales in the same range of values not suffering from this problem because the display is remote and the cable has only one connetor to connect to the display. I think they are called iGaging. See please ***LINK*** .
You can see here ***LINK*** the cable coming out beneath of the "cursor" box so the oil doesn't flow in by gravity.

Siddeley: Scales sometimes 'froze' and wouldn't start working again until the battery was removed and replaced
Never happened to me with these scales.

Siddeley: Update rate on the scales was very slow, it was neccessary to crank the wheels on the machine in a tortoise like fashion to avoid overshooting.
Never happened to me with these scales.

Siddeley: The 'off' button on the scales was really a 'standby' button and the battery was still being drained.
Not verified. So, no opinion.

Siddeley: General 'glitching' from display and from scales – blank readouts, refusal to zero.
Never happened to me with these scales.

Note 1: I have no connection to Arc Euro Trade
Note 2: Have you read my answer to your message I let in your personal mail box in the forum?

I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
Dias Costa

Edited By dcosta on 20/12/2012 15:11:48

[Billy MillsParticipant @billymills]

Arceurotrade do spare plastic gears for the C3 minilathe for £2-£4 each, they also do a metal set for a bit more, don't know if they will fit your machine but they are very much cheaper, all mod 1.

Billy.

[Chris ParsonsParticipant @chrisparsons64193]

Thank you everyone for the advice – I have now bought a litre of oil from Arc Euro Trade (HLP 32 Hydraulic Oil) which is what they seem to recommend for 'small' Sieg lathes (not sure whether mine is small or not?)

Useful advice though, I'll desist using grease (including Copaslip) and make sure I know where all the oil ports are so I don't miss any out

Good news about possibly not having to do a strip down but I will lift the covers and do an inspection just in case.

I do have a box of 'scavenged' metal but may buy some known stuff to get me started and practise on (live in Exeter, anyone know of a good local(ish) supplier?)

Got the message about the safety aspects too – I have a vertical bench drill and always wear special safety specs, even when cutting wood with power tools but worth mentioning, thanks (they magnify and replace my reading glasses so I can't forget them – as I can't see what I doing <g&gt

Hope you all have a great Christmas

Chris

[Ketan SwaliParticipant @ketanswali79440]

Raymond,

With the greatest of respect, there is a lot of stereo typical myth.

A lot of the branded tooling you see DOES come out of China. Some of it also DOES come out of India, including the ROHM stuff. If you take the Rohm stuff for example, I have been in Chinese and in Indian factories where their stuff is made. I have also been in factories where M&W measuring stuff is made, and I have been in factories where the other high end gear you refer to is made. Some of it is in certain component form. Some of it is in finished form. In most cases, depending on how critical the part/product is, the final finishing or inspection is either done back in the brands respective homeland, or it is allowed to be packed in the origin country. If you read earlier threads, you will find comments about non-disclosure agreements.

There after, a lot of marketing spin takes over. A lot of the said stuff you may not see on the hobby engineering market, as hobby engineers simply wont pay for it, as/or there is no need for it in a hobby environment, which is non-production based. this myth is not exclusive to British engineers. Indian and Chinese engineers also think like you.

I have seen certain carbide tooling come out of specific exclusive (means expensive) Chinese factories, come into Europe, only to be exported back to China through a trading company because of a branding. To prove a point, I got very angry with a team of engineers in the SIEG CNC machine plant one day and asked them to use a particular carbide end mill on a work piece, to prove my point of a particular Chinese carbide end mill being better than a particular western branded piece of s**t. I told them that the end mill which they had just tested was Chinese, only after they sang praises of how good this particular 'presumed western' end mill was!

Still, there is a 'faith in consistency' issue, which is understandable, and which is something that premium brands are able to maintain successfully. This is understandable, becasue in a production environment, the finished product needs to be consistent, resulting from known reliable consistant brand tooling.

Ketan at ARC.

Edited By Ketan Swali on 16/12/2012 11:41:47

[Raymond AndersonParticipant @raymondanderson34407]

DC1, How right you are about starting with a chinese lathe I still have my Warco GH750 which is about 12 years old now and it is still performing great to this day. I did replace the single phase motor with a 3hp Siemens unit fed with a Eurotherm 650 vfd. and the only thing hat has ever "gone" on it is the halogen bulb after about 7years. Is it as good as my other lathe, DSG 17T? of course not , but then the DSG [second hand] cost far more than the GH750 did new. Same with my Chester lux mill 7 years old and still accurate and going strong. But I understand where the original poster is coming from, re substandard parts, that is in no way acceptable. It should not be up to the user to modify parts to get them to fit what they were designed for.[or supposed to be designed for]. It all comes down to lack of quality control at the end of the day that's why parts are made with tolerances of fit.

Chinese TOOLING now thats another ball game,worse than useless, NEVER skrimp on tooling/workholding thats my motto.

Regards,

Raymond.

Edited By Raymond Anderson on 16/12/2012 09:40:46

[David Clark 13Participant @davidclark13]

Hi There

I was lucky, about 10 years ago I bought a brand new (second-hand) Myford ML7R from a chap on Ebay for £1,750.

I did not win the auction, a chap in Ireland did. I missed the end of the auction for some reason.

(Before I new how to snipe a bid.) I emailed the seller and said if the auction sale fell through to contact me.

The Irish chap backed out when he found the cost of shipping the Myford to Ireland.

I got the lathe.

However, if I could not have afforded the Myford, I would happily be running an Arc Euro Trade C3.

It would do all that I need.

Yes, I might have to upgrade bits and pieces but I would have a sound machine to do this on.

Regarding a gear with an undersize bore, I think it would be very forward looking of the supplier to supply it undersize so the end user could bore it true to fit his machine rather than send it out with a pronounced wobble.

regards David

[dcostaParticipant @dcosta]

Hello Ketan (and all the others).

I live in Portugal and here I do not have access to most of the products related to the hobby that you can easily find there in England, as you probably know.
Reason why I have purchased from British companies like RDG Tools, Arc Euro Trade and Chronos some thousands of pounds of supplies and tools in the last four years having no reason to complain from any of those companies.

However, lathes and milling machines, for example, it makes no sense to buy them in England, for reasons like support, shipping costs, etc..

So, when I wanted to buy a milling machine, I found a supplier here in Portugal and bought a mill from the Optimum Machines brand. Interestingly, when I searched for information on the source machine I was buying, I was informed that the company Optimum Machines (from Germany), has in China, Yangzhou, facilities dedicated to quality control of the products it purchases in China and knowing this has increased my confidence in the quality of the milling machine that I wanted to buy.
Do you think that this scheme helps to improve, in general, the quality of products that the company sells?
Do you think that this scheme can make a difference to the quality?

After 5 years, I must say I am very happy with the milling machine I bought from Optimum.

If you are interested in confirm the information on the Optimum Machines premises in China, please see ***LINK***.

P.S.:
1 – If some nuisance like the one reported by Alan Smith happened to me, that would be enough to break my trust and therefore I would no longer shop from that company. There are some items that I bought those companies, (e.g.: a collection of 21 ER25 collets), which I have not yet used, and it would be terrible if I found out, when use them first time, they have the wrong dimensions or are not concentric.
There are some people on the forum who only spend money on the hobby.
There are some people who make money and also spend money on the hobby. Perhaps this explains, in some cases, the tolerance for imperfection of the products offered by the market …
2 – I have no connection to the company Optimum.
3 – Please don't say I'm the "odd one" in the forum just because I don't think like you. I'm entitled to that and it doesn't guarantee you that I am wrong.
4 – Please be sympathetic to my poor English.

Best regards
Dias Costa

Edited By dcosta on 15/12/2012 23:51:46

[magpieParticipant @magpie]

Alan (just the once) I have read the thread, every word . Not fit for purpose would sujest to me being sold a volt meter to find a gas leak. Every item of the type you are talking about, that i have bought in recent years has been adequate for model engineering,if not strait from the box, then with a very small amount of finishing. I have been into modelling since the age of eight when i had my first meccano set and i am now 72. I own a Chester DB10VS lathe, a Chester Champion 20 V mill, an Axminster X1 mill with the Arc Euro long bed conversion,a Chester 6×4 bandsaw, a Chester 24"multiformer, do i need to go on? If you would like to see the kind of work produced on these machines then please take a look at the "fibre optic clock" thread. Another old saying has just sprung to mind !!! IF THE CAP FITS WEAR IT.

Cheers Derek.

[Ketan SwaliParticipant @ketanswali79440]

Posted by Lambton on 14/12/2012 09:13:17:To their great credit Arc Eurotrade recognise this by openly offering "as received " machines or at a higher price ones that they have cleaned, inspected and adjusted in the UK to their satisfaction. All other suppliers appear to send everything out "as received" and deal with any quality issues only when the purchaser complains.

The main reason that British manufactured model engineering products have vanished is our collective desire to only pay low prices with the demise of Myford being a good example.

There is an old saying "the quality is remembered long after the price is forgotten"

Hi Lambton,

Arc no longer deserves this credit. Arc has stopped the preparation service for most SIEG machines, in the past two months. Reasons for this are as follows:

During the past 11 months ARC has been observing that customers are demanding lower prices. I for one would insist that these machines are fit for purpose, for the price the hobby engineer wishes to pay. For this point, I gladly welcome legal challenge from anyone who wishes to put money where their mouth is.

I understand and respect the need for lower price, based on budget. However, during this year I have observed language from certain competitors who suggest the following to make a sale: "the reason why ARC offers a preparation service is because their machines are not of good quality. Our machine does not need to be prepared because our machine is of a better grade". This statement is marketing B**S**T. All Chinese machines as received are of similar build and quality when compared like to like. However, when you are new to the hobby, who or what do you believe?

I mentioned this in some other thread a few months ago, after returning from the Harrogate show. At the said show, ARC managed to sell new machines to customers who had bought from us before and were upgrading. We managed to sell new machines to customers who had come by recommendation. However, we did not sell a single machine to any new customers who did not know us. I got to know more clearly about these comments a few months later when some of these people came to us for spares.

So, these are few of the reasons why ARC has stopped the preparation service.

Ketan at ARC.

 

Edited By Ketan Swali on 14/12/2012 16:18:47

[LambtonParticipant @lambton]

"Frankly, my opinion of the Myford lathe is that it is overpriced and overated!"

Agreed. I have a Myford super 7 which has some quirky features and limitations (e.g.spindle bore) but it is a quality product that, until they went bust ,was supported by the makers who offered a wide range of spares and high qualty accessories. Being brought up at work with Colchester lathes I recognise the shortcomings of the Myford which after all is only a development of a 1947 machine aimed mainly at the amateur and educational market.

RDG has supplied a wide range of tools and accessories for the model engineering market for some years catering for the entry level or bottom end of the market. They are only responding to the demand from model engineers for affordable products that may not be of top quality. Similarly Lada cars were not of very good quality but had a loyal following of customers who could not afford anything better.

Now that they own the rights to the Myford name etc. it can be argued that RDG have a moral obligation to supply goods, sold under the Myford name, to be the same quality as "Nottingham Myford". At the Midland Model Engineer Exhibition some of the good on offer at the Myford stand were obviously genuine products but others were apparently Myford badged RDG products – most probably of Far Eastern origin with packing labelled Myford England. As I have said previously now RDG own the Myford name they are not doing anything illegal by calling any of their products Myford. We just need to be clear as to what we are buying.

There is nothing wrong with Chinese made engineering products per se when the importer exercises proper control over the specification, quality and manufacture of the items. This works if your are Sony, Panasonic, Toyota etc. but fails if you are a small UK importer with customers wanting the lowest price possible. To their great credit Arc Eurotrade recognise this by openly offering "as received " machines or at a higher price ones that they have cleaned, inspected and adjusted in the UK to their satisfaction. All other suppliers appear to send everything out "as received" and deal with any quality issues only when the purchaser complains.

The main reason that British manufactured model engineering products have vanished is our collective desire to only pay low prices with the demise of Myford being a good example.

There is an old saying "the quality is remembered long after the price is forgotten"

[Peter HallParticipant @peterhall61789]

I think they have been superseded. I had a BV20 from Axminster about 10 years back. I found it crude and noisy, it leaked oil from the gearbox and most of the fastenings seemed to be made of cheese. It was cheap, but ultimately it wasn't worth persevering with and I sold it and moved up a bit. I think I remember reading somewhere that it was a Chinese copy of a Russian knock-off. This was not a BV25, but it may help you.

I don't know what a current equivalent will be, but Arc Euro, Warco, Chester et al. all supply similar machines to the same market sector.

Pete

 

Edit: I've just read that last paragraph back to myself and it's not quite right. The market has moved on over the last decade and the machines available now from the suppliers I mentioned are better than the equivalents in 2002. I have owned equipment bought from Warco and Arc and can recommend you look at both, and I have no reason to suppose Chester is any different.

Edited By Peter Hall on 10/12/2012 20:59:23

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

"Google is Your Friend": **LINK**

Catalogue of the Special Loan Collection of Scientific Apparatus at the South Kensington Museum 1876

"1946 Sectional Model of a Steam Engine with expansion. Paul Lochmann, Zeitz"

It looks like your friend's example may be rather old (1946 is the item number, I think, not the year).

"In 1876 the South Kensington Museum held a major international exhibition of scientific instruments and equipment, both historical and contemporary. Many of the items were retained and eventually formed the basis of important collections now held at the Science Museum, London. This is the 1877 third edition of the exhibition catalogue, which was expanded to include a 'large number of objects' received since the publication of the second edition, and which also included corrections in order to 'afford a complete record of the collection for future reference'. In two volumes and twenty sections comprising over 4,500 entries, the catalogue lists a huge variety of items, ranging from slide rules and telescopes to lighthouse parts and medical equipment. It gives detailed explanations of how they were used, and notes of their ownership and provenance, while the opening pages comprehensively record the contributing individuals and institutions in Britain, Europe and America."

You can view the catalogue online and the list includes The Locomotive engine "Rocket" and Stephenson's Model of the "Rocket" supplied by G.R. Stephenson.

Further googling shows your NZ archives hold information that orders were sent to Paul Lochmann of Zeitz in 1880 and duly executed.

He may well be the Paul Osker Lochmann born in Leitz, Saxony, Prussia on Christmnas Day 1848. Father: Lochmann, Johann Gottfried(~1820 – ) mother: Stock, Elise Agnes(~1825 – 1870)

Looks like he may have bee an early professional model engineer: "Paul Lochmann, Modellmaschinenfabrik in Zeitz,"

I'll leave anything else for you to discover yourself!

I will be pleased if there's as much a record of my deeds in 130 year's time!

Neil

Edited By Stub Mandrel on 07/12/2012 20:33:28

Edited By Stub Mandrel on 07/12/2012 20:38:35

Edited By Stub Mandrel on 07/12/2012 20:46:40

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

Hi John,

I have a Clarke CL300M and an ld-style X2 from Arc Euro Trade, both non-cnc, just DROs on the mill.

What sort of work do you want to do? There are lots of pay-offs so you can get a cost effective solution if your needs are straightforward, but if you want new, big, accurate, powerful and everything perfect out of the box – start saving!

Neil

[joegibParticipant @joegib]

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 27/11/2012 18:43:43

That's a very neat little Hacksaw, Joe

Can't quite make out the name on the top … could you please advise.

Thanks

MichaelG.

Hi Michael,

The machine was a no-name Taiwanese import sold by Graham Engineering under their 'Alpine' badge.

I picked it up new for £60 in the mid-80s. I don't remember seeing any of the other purveyors of far-eastern machines selling them and they didn't remain on the market for long. Indeed, I've since only encountered one reference to this pattern, a Canadian guy who reported acquiring one on an American site recently. I suspect they were quickly eclipsed by the cheapo bandsaw machines that were appearing on the market at the same time. Sadly, the only comparable hacksaw machine aimed at hobbyists now on the market seems to be this one from Sieg:

Sieg Hacksaw Machine

At around £400, something like double the price of a basic bandsaw, I doubt whether they're flying off the shelves, though.

My machine is very much no-frills — no dashpot to control descent and a crude auto-cutoff (as arm descends, a bolt head on a bracket knocks off the toggle switch!). Still, it's reasonably light (40/50 lbs), quiet and can handle 2"x 3" blocks or 3" rounds though slowly (an hour or so for those dimensions). It's quicker than me though. Not to be compared with your BCA perhaps, but it's the only machine in my workshop whose loss would cause a real crisis.

Joe

[NJHParticipant @njh]

Hi Hubert

Yes – THIS is from the ARC catalogue. I've done it but, if I remember correctly, they are pretty tough!

Cheers

Norman

Edited By NJH on 20/11/2012 19:34:05

[Hubert BloomParticipant @hubertbloom29516]

Has anyone tried modifying the length of the digital linear scales on sale from arc euro trade?

If I trim one of the bars will it still work?

Many thanks

Hubert

[Hubert BloomParticipant @hubertbloom29516]

I'm looking at the quick qhange tool posts for the Seig Super C3.

The one that arc auro trade recommend for the SC3 has only got a taper on one face. Does this mean that you have to ratate the whole tool post to do boring work? If so, is this not a pain in the backside?

Has anyone tried to adapt the series 100 quick change tool post from arc to fit the super C3. (It's part no 090-070-00405 on **LINK**&nbsp. The heights seem roughly compatible. The C3 has an M10 centre post and the above tool post has M14 so if all that is needed is a custom post with M10 at one end and M14 at the other then this would be easy enough to make. Any thoughts?

Thanks

Hubert

[TerrydParticipant @terryd72465]

Hi,

there are several major suppliers for machinery and tools etc. All have an online presence and produce print catalogues, as a starter there are: Arc Eurotrade; Warco; (these two advertise on this page – see ribbon to right of here), and Chester; and of course Axminster themselves sell a lot of metalworking equipment. There are other smaller suppliers who offer similar products as most are made in China.

For materials etc there are many smaller suppliers on line such as Blackgates, Reeves 2000, Macc models, Model Fixings etc etc there are too many to mention in a short message.

Regards

Terry

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi Simon, IMO it's choices really, I don't really think there is a king at all. I think it's like anything else, that is it's best to shop around. However, you can get a free catalogue from Arc Euro Trade and then shop online with them, click on their ad at the top R/H column.

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 17/11/2012 10:39:02

[RJWParticipant @rjw]

Thanks Ziggar and Ian, it seemed a reasonable deal to me too, especially having since checked the cost of Applecare, I need to find out which OS it's got on it though, it may not be Lion, so maybe some room to chip the price down a bit!

I've been checking values on eBay, and there are plenty of iMacs with 20" & 21" screens for under £500 but with Intel core duo CPU's, the later iMac's (2010 onwards) with core i3 & i5 CPU's with 21", 24" & 27" seem to be anything from £500 to over £1K, a couple also have long periods of Applecare left and offering a courier service, so I'm keeping an eye on where they go!

Just found too that the later models dual boot ok into Lion and Win7, so a handy dual boot option with all the Windows stuff I've got here!

I'm a bit torn whether to go for the end of breed of 17" Macbooks though or an iMac, I don't really need the same portability if updates can be done away with, or can use a reasonable 3G connection, or even stcik with dial-up, I only bought a laptop because lugging around a hulking windows desktop, monitor and keyboard rig (note- on Win XP), was too much of a pain, and with a 6 month gap over winter, I didn't want the hassle of leaving a pc out in France with all the pain of installing gigabytes of updates on it from an external drive as soon as we arrived!

These iMacs though are a different ballgame, I recon I could shove one in a box and lug it out there just as easy as a laptop, which only sits on my desk anyway at either end unless in France and searching for WiFi in a car park!

Neil, I wish I shared your experiences with updates recovering, they've bricked my pc's a few times over the years, but thankfully they always create a restore point before installing, although on more than a few occasions I've had to run those from a rescue disk!

A sizeable percentage of windows updates are to stitch up security holes that the Black Hats have found and exploited, others are described as 'improving functionality' or 'Issues', it's great that Microsoft go to the trouble of putting these updates out on a frequent basis to keep our pc's trundling along, but how much of it is because they rush out OS's before they're fully sorted and then let the end user be the test pilots and find all the glitches, I've often felt that my pc's are Microsoft test beds because they're always calling home and sending data to Microsoft websites (check your firewall data logs), but it's at my expense, which in France on dial-up gets damned irritating And expensive, but they never offer me big discounts on software, eBay is Always cheaper!

Yesterday (14th Nov) there were 18 updates installed which took an hour, plus the following others: 1x 13th, 1x 5th, 1x 2nd, 1x 31st Oct, 1x 26th Oct, 4x 25th, 2x 20th, 1x 17th, 38x 16th, 1x 15th, 14x 14th, & 19x on the 11th!

I'm not going back further than that, but you get the idea, I think most windows users never look at their update logs to check just what has been installed or failed to realise how much of their bandwidth is being hogged by them!

BTW of the 38 updates on the 16th, 14 on the 14th and 19x on the 11th October, no less than 52 of those 71 update downloads were Failed updates and had to be re-downloaded, most of the failures were due to it choking my dial-up connection causing it to trip out, and despite me killing updates in windows services, and even though Windows updates were showing stopped in services, I found half a dozen web url connections to Microsoft updates in my firewall activity monitor, and each were showing downloads in megabytes of data, work that one out!!

All the time I was on-line, I was paying €1.35 an hour, and I got bugger all done of what I needed to do such as Emails, because I couldn't even get into my webmail half an hour after I'd logged into my ISP's servers!

Even with a sensibly priced 3G connection and data allowance, I'm damned if I'm going to stump up my hard earned cash to see most of it being sucked out by windows updates, we came back from France a week early, and if we'd still been out there, yesterday's 120+ meg's would have seen me bolting yet again for another freezing car park sortie to get them out of the way, a 20 mile round trip at €1.55 a litre for unleaded for which I'd use around 4 litres of fuel, €6 just to be able to get online, it's beyond a joke!

If a Mac can do away with all that crap, it'll pay for itself inside a couple of years just in savings on dial-up and WiFi hunts!

John

[brickyParticipant @bricky]

Hello George.

I have a SX3 and it dose all that I want and is a sturdy and reliable machine with an R8 spindle.The service and assistance that I have received from Arc Eurotrade has been great and for me couldn,t be bettered.

I hope you find what you are looking for.

Francis

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

Ketan;

I applaud your loyalty to your Co & have no qualms with Arc Euro, in fact I have had a very good service from said co. re tools etc previously purchased, & will use them again as I find your prices very competative & delivery is v.good so no probs on that context. Re. my previous comment 'not bothered' I inferred that this was the case because at the exhibition there was a distinct lack of staff i.e only 'yourself' available, &, judging from visitor comments at the time, IIRC, 'where are the reps? I can only state my opinions as noted at that time, whilst I noted at the time the SX3 seemed a sturdy machine & I was of the intention of seriously looking to purchase one, the percentage of visitor comments & lack of 'availability' of your 'sales staff', & who it seems, by your own admission,'that you were the only one' were more inclined toward the CNC products on display & was very apparent.

In this present 'economic climate' everybody is looking toward making savings .. 'profit margins' as best they can, & as a 'MEW afficianado' I understand this aspect, but at the end of the day we are "amateurs" most of us cannot or do not look to 'production line technology' & can only afford 'manual machinery or second hand equipment, most of us look to constructing a 'Stuart 10' as a marvellous achievement, myself predominantly. My choice of other machinery was based on the aspect that there were 'more staff' who gave me more 'informative information' & could offer a better 'show deal that of Arc Euro..'at the time' other 'agents at the show provided at least 3 (IIRC)members of staff on hand at any point in time for customers queries..& they were inundated, myself included, in fact It was difficult to get close to a 'rep' to ask a question. Whlist I appreciate that Arc Euro purchase their machinery from the same companies albeit under a different colour dressing it would be appreciated , from my point of view, that more of your staff should have been on hand to offer advice & answers from prospective clients,if you do not have more staff available at these exhibitions (a major selling opportunity) again, that can only lead to the queston of 'are you bothered' May I quote..

"Regarding your question about 'negotiable' prices at shows, this is usually up to the seller. George mentioned earlier that he managed to get a package deal from Warco at the Harrogate show. On the other hand, we did not have a package deal for similar sized machines at that show, but it did not mean that I was 'not bothered', as per my earlier reply.

The position on price and deals changes from time to time. The deal that Clive may be referring to for an X3, was probably in September this year. There was another deal in October for various machines. There are no special deals or packages at present for the Super X3s. It is uncertain if and when price/package deals will be released for any machines from ARC.

ARC is not attending the show at Alexandra Palace next year. We are also uncertain if we will be attending the Harrogate show. However, you may be able to find deals at the show depending on which seller wishes to do what ever deal they want. Apart from ARC, at the Harrogate show you will probably find at least four dealers who you can talk to and review their range for your requirement".

'The above comment to me seems to 'infer' that.. ' if you don't like it you can lump it' !!!. … Could I be wrong?

Whilst I have/had no intention of besmirching Ketan or Arc Euro per se, if they want to maintain their standing in this competetive market then they should look at establising a higher profile at these high profile lucrative exhibitions & establish a more relevant & progressive marketing approach to todays clients… 'we the 'amateurs'.. not hi tech sales targets.

The above comments were made without malice or forethought of any intent whatsover to the aforementioned co.or personel,purely on the basis of personal observations at the time.. & I look forward to future dealings with Arc Euro trading Co.

Mmmmh… maybe OTT?

With respect

George