Ok, I'll bite - what did you end up getting Jeff ?
One of these, except half that money and with more tooling.
It's a South Korean licensed clone of a Mori Seiki. Super beefy- for perspective, it's almost a full ton heavier than the bigger Grizzly, the 16x40 0509G. Weight is good!
http://item.mobileweb.ebay.com/viewitem?itemId=190717399984The tooling included several good chucks... 9-10 Aloris toolholders... a custom oversize steady rest.... the most intriguing is a 10" 6-jaw Buck chuck that they threw in towards the end of the deal. Those things are well over $2k new. I haven't used it yet- needs a backplate. It has a nice 10" Bison Set-Tru that I use all the time, and a 12" 4-jaw I've mounted to practice dialing in barrels with. I'm buying a chunk of steel to make a spider chuck to use instead. That'll be interesting- basically machining an A1-6 backplate, complete with a subtle taper to mate with the spindle nose. But, that 12" 4-jaw is a b!tch to wrestle on and off and I'm not getting any younger.
Deep headstock on these machines. I made a tool that reaches in from the outboard side to engage a muzzle and then allow precise adjustment.
