Re: grizzly or harbor

I'd buy the Grizzly over anything from Harbor Freight. HF used to make a
Grizzly sized machine but the one you linked to is much smaller. I've had
nothing but problems with HF and their tools. I honestly believe many of
the seriously flawed Chinese designs end up at HF. It's like: "Oh well,
the handles fall off and the table isn't anywhere near rigid enough, so
let's just sell 'em to Harbor Freight!". I have Chinese HF machines with
motors that run so hot (even under light load) they stink up the shop but
have nowhere near their rated power. If something breaks, you might wait
forever for parts (literally).

The Smithy models and Shoptask are in a different league but they're also a
lot more money. If you want to do CNC, the Shoptask or one of the Smithy
CNC models will put you way ahead. I'm honestly not sure what to think
about Smithy vs Shoptask. The non-censored Shoptask forum on Delphi has
some fairly unpleasant things to say about Shoptask and the folks who
own/run the place. The other (Shoptask run) forum has tons of deleted
messages which is also a bad sign. Smithy is the bigger company, they have
more models, but they do seem like they're playing catch up in some areas.