My new Sieg SX3.5DZP problem

Hi

I was really excited to get my new mill the other week but was very disappointed to find paint flaking off the head. In fact when my neighbour helped me move it into my workshop he asked me if it was secondhand!

I have been in contact with Arc on several occasions and they got some paint manufactured so I could touch it up. Unfortunately having received the paint, it doesn't match the original colour despite it being made to the same colour code. Having found more paint coming off the other side of the head I contacted Arc again. I appreciate that this is a difficult issue to resolve and all they could do was to offer me to return it to them at their expense. These machines are heavy and it had been a real effort getting it into my workshop, and I couldn't face going through all that pain again. As such I had no option but to decline their offer.

I've purchased loads of stuff from Arc in the past and have always been very happy with the quality of their products. In fact lots of people contact me regarding equipment shown on my YouTube channel and I have always recommended their products.

So, the purpose of this post is to advise others who purchase this mill to check the paint finish out before moving it off the pallet and into your workshop. That way it will be easier for you to get Arc to take it away and avoid disappointment.

It's a real shame that I've had a bad experience with the most expensive bit of kit that I have ever purchased for my workshop. I will now have to find a paint supplier who can make some paint to match the original. ☹️

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Halfords used to do that service.

There may well have been a primer paint issue. See it from time to time with cars as well. We had an Alpa grinder that a paint issue. The paint came clean off the steel. It was stripped back to metal and re filled and primed then repainted. The repaint work like any good paint should have. The primer was called PA10 etch primer. May be a banned paint these days. It was a rust red colour primer. The finish paint was a 2 part paint, but not a car paint. It was sprayed on. I was told that the car paint was sensitive to the coolants etc and the machine paint stood up to the coolants better. For some reason I thought it was an epoxy paint, not a cyano paint like the cars use.

I understand the cause of the paint problem has been identified and is limited to a small batch of machines.

The problem with touching up even with paint mixed to the correct RAL code (3002 in this case) is that many things can affect the finished look of the paint. Obvious will be were the two paints actually true RAL 3002, one only needs to search that colour on google to seem many shades. Primer will also affect how light or dark the paint looks, red is quite transparent so affected more, film thickness will come into it too. Sheen levels will affect how the paint looks under light with the Sieg red being low satin sheen. Then there is application, the Sieg machines have a slightly textured sparyed finish which a touch up brush will struggle to replicate causing the surface colour to look different.

A chip match should more closely replicate what is on the machine but even that paint will be affected by all of the above. If you do go out to buy a chip matched colour I would suggest getting it in a rattle can rather than touch up bottle.

Edited By JasonB on 30/06/2020 12:13:05

Thanks for the suggestions.

From what JasonB suggests it looks like this is turning out to be an absolute nightmare. A brand new machine and I'm now going to have to take all the stickers off, take it apart, strip the paint off and respray it all. I didn't appreciate that I would have to go to all that trouble through no fault of my own.

Extremely unhappy!

They matched up the Colour of my last car perfectly, I just took a copy of the Colour number from the label on the car door & they made up 2 rattle cans for me,I believe they still do it.

George.

I was suggesting that spraying the affected area would hopefully give a better finish than brush not the whole side of the machine. Should be able to feather it in at the edge and simple masking beyond that to be safe. If you have an airbrush you could try spraying what you already have.

Paint is peeling off every day I use the mill and I've decided I'm not prepared to spend time and money trying to fix something that should have been right in the first place.

I'm going to bite the bullet and get my neighbour round to help me get it back into the pallet. I'm contacting Arc to arrange collection and a refund.

Thanks for all the comments.

Lighting can also make a big difference to paint colour match. I used to own a red car that looked fine in daylight - under sodium street lamps a door and rear quarter showed as a completely different colour to rest of the car.

It an effect called metamerism. A match under daylight, may not be a match under fluorescent lamps, or LED for example.

You can only get a match under all lighting, if your paint uses the same pigments as the original (basically that will be if it comes from the same source).

That's on top of the effects Jason mentioned.

Also good red pigments are VERY expensive, so cheaper ones tends to get used. That means you ned lots of coats to build up good coverage of red (which Jason also mentioned). Red paints fade a lot for the same reason.

Thanks again for the comments.

Machine all crated up and being collected tomorrow.

Cheers

Andrew

It is sad that this has happened to you. The model you have does read as been a damm good piece of kit.

Steve.

Yeah Steve - it certainly ticked all the boxes for me. Really gutted that it has to go back, but I can't contemplate stripping the head down and trying to do a proper paint job on it. If it had been just one area of the head I would have lived with it, but it's clear that the whole head is affected.

I've purchased loads of stuff from Arc and this is the only major problem I've encountered. Arc do provide excellent customer service and I feel very sorry that they have been let down by the Sieg factory. If it had been a component failure I'm sure we could have worked out a solution and it would have been rectifyable. Unfortunately Arc have been placed between a rock and a hard place. I hope that they can recoup the cost from Seig.

I now need to look for an alternative for my Farm Boy build but I'm really struggling to find something that fits the bill... decent size and capacity but not too large and heavy (less than 200Kg), R8, DRO, power feed on x-axis.

All the best. Andrew