Considering purchasing a Cincinnati Sabre: How happy are you with your Cincinati VMC?

[MadMax]

I'm looking at picking up a 1990-2000 era VMC for a couple jobs that are coming up. I'm between a few machine makes:

-Matsuura
-Mori Seiki
-Cincinnati

I'm finding that comparably sized machines (I'm looking in the 20"ish X travel size) put the Cincinnati machines at the lower price end. I certainly appreciate the heavy duty build of boxway Matsuura's and Mori's, but I haven't a good appreciation for how well Cincinnati's perform. I notice that most of my tool and die friends have Matsuura VMCs but I haven't got any good info on Cincinnati machines.

My own jobs aren't going to be doing very heavy hogging cuts in steel so I'm open to considering other makes if I can save some dough. Can anyone give me some sense of comparison between Mats and Mori made VMCs to a Cincinnati?

How is Cincinnati in terms of service and parts supply? Are Cincinnati's well worked out? I've got roughly comparable Hardinge and Daewoo lathes. While they both perform pretty well, I certainly like some of the little tweaks that make the Hardinge work a bit better.

Thanks for your input!

[MadMax]

Anyone wish to share some of their experience with Cincinnati machines?

[Stealth XY]

I have a Sabre 1000 with a fanuc control fitted with a Kitagawa 4th axis the machine works well It seems a pretty solid machine so I dont have any complaints


good luck

[MadMax]

Thanks Stealth.

[underthetire]

Depends on what control is on the Cinci. The Mori/matsuuras are a WAY better machine in general. I worked for a distributor that sold Mori and Cinci, and even Okuma and Tree at one time. Worked on Matsuura's in the field. I always though the Cinci's were pretty cheaply built, with weldment frames, no stretching of the screws ( thats why they put scales on them), and half ass spindle lube systems. The Fanuc Cinci's actually run ok, but not like high end machines. Other controls on them are a PIA to fix, and expensive. Parts seem or at least were a problem to get, since Cinci got bought out so much. I can say without a doubt, Mori will have almost any part in stock in Dallas. We just ordered a gear set for a 1975 manual lathe, it was in stock !

[Pophamrt1]

Underthetire--that's odd, the Sabre VMC 1000 with Acramatic 850SX has been our workhorse and still holds very nice tolerances and finish compared to our Tree, Kondia and Mori's. The machine is very well built with a rigid, well dampened frame (12k lbs), has standardized Fanuc Red Cap AC servos and the Acramatic control system is very friendly and has saved our tails several times with its error code and alert systems. When there is a problem Siemen's has been a blessing, spending hours on the phone extensively guiding us through troubleshooting and repair without any charge. When we have needed parts, they've been available--not cheap, but always a day away by overnight. Overall, I'd buy the machine again, and then another. We've actually held off from buying a replacement because ours is so "well sorted" and our local counterparts are still sorting out control bugs on new Mazaks, etc. Granted, it is a Sabre and has the Fanuc AC servos so it may be a bit more reliable than the Kollmorgen versions, and I have heard Arrows were not as heavily built, but overall, the Cincinnati machines have been workhorses for us, Boeing, etc.