Review on Grizzly Industrial G0768-8 Variable-Speed 16" Benchtop Lathe - Professional Quality Results! by Cody Michels

There are a few non-obvious things about this lathe. You can move one of the belts to change the spindle speed between high and low ranges- I was thinking that this would be better than the plastic gear used on mini-lathes (which tends to break). However this belt change is not easy. You need to remove the side panel to access the belt and adjust a set-screw, OK. But very annoyingly, you must also remove the back panel with the circuit board on it to loosen a nut which holds a belt pulley in place. This is not an easy or quick operation. I was thinking that the low belt position would be good to increase torque at low spindle speeds, but there is a label which says that you should not run the motor at high speed for long and suggests to leave the belt in the high speed position.Others have pointed out the bad design of the compound rest locking screws, but there is more: notice that the compound hand-wheel has two handles, preventing quick single-handed rotation. This is because the compound leadscrew has no proper bearings (just a hole in thin metal) and the mating threads are right in the steel of the sliding part of the compound. There is enough play that the handwheel binds if you try to rotate it single handed. I think this design is inherited from the G4000 9x20 lathe. The cross slide design is better (there is a long hole to keep the leadscrew straight, and brass threads set up to be deformed slightly from a set-screw for backlash compensation). I think the smaller mini-lathes also now have a better design- notice that they have a chrome hand-crank for the compound.Like most mini-lathes, the cross slide and compound wheels are marked as 40 mils per rotation, but it uses metric lead-screws, so this it's really 39.37 mils per rotation. I don't think this is a big deal, but think it would be better to mark the wheel in .025 mm increments to match the screw.The main carriage wheel moves the carriage one inch per rotation (I mention this because it's not documented).A minor point is that it is all too easy to crash the carriage into some sheet-metal covering the motor. The issue is that during work you are focused on the tool post, chuck and front of the lathe, so it is not so obvious that this interference exists in the back. You should put some tape on the bed to mark this position in the front.When you buy a chuck for the tailstock, get a normal MT#2 arbor, not a short one made for mini-lathes. The issue is that the arbor needs to be long enough to be ejected by the tailstock wheel.I bought this lathe because it's a step up from the mini-lathe, and seems to be a good value with the included four-jaw chuck, face plate and rests. Keep in mind it's still a cheap tool, including these accessories. Even so, it's still a step up. It's nice that this lathe can easily make reverse threads with the reversing gear-box on the front. This lathe seems to be a version of the Weiss VM210V lathe, which now has a version with brushless motor (eliminating the high/low belt speeds) but also sadly without the reverse thread gear-box. I want the brushless and the gearbox :-)Another good point is that the brushed motor of the G0768 is very quiet. From what I can tell it's better than the Sieg SC4 brushless (I don't know why the SC4 is so loud).