I have been slowly tooling up over the last year, I brought a 11" swing warco lathe and a VM32 mill with DRO. What I have discovered is these are the cheapest parts as i'm buying more tooling to use on them, eg, collets, parallels, bits, hss stuff, inserts etc.
As for quality, yes, they are 'ok'. Push them hard enough and they flex, however these are hobby machines not industrial, and you have to treat them as such. My lathe or mill will happily remove material to a depth of say 0.2 all day long, but try and take off 0.5 or more and it struggles, but I have time to do multiple passes. Accuracy is often mentioned as lacking on Chinese tools, and on the lathe I agree as the slides are sloppy and are more of a guide. Saying that, when I was practising and using a mic I was getting within 0.001 of where I was aiming for. On the Mill, I have a DRO that goes to 0.005 and I work off that and i'm looking to fit one to the lathe.
My lad uses the tools extensively as he's about to go to uni as a mech eng and so far has made a simple beam engine (compressed air) and is working on a flicker engine. For me, I have been making parts for my stationary engines, most of which required threads and the lathe has done with job. Quality of my work is down to my inexperience (threads are a bit rough) but overall I have been very pleased with my Chinese tooling.
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