Member postings for Tom Findlay

Aye, nae problem whit sae ever, Michael ... in fact, I thank you again for your interest and willingness to chip in

Tom.

Actually, Michael, I've had this review pointed out to me before, by user 'ega', before all the stuff about Skodas crept into this thread. I read through it, learned some things from it, and made a few notes for myself, where as a result, that experience contributed to my current decision to buy that particular Warco lathe.

I really appreciate your input ... thank you.

Tom.

Okay, John ... I really appreciate the time that you and others have taken to outline your views from your own experience, all of which have helped very much in my decision-making process. Also, from within all of this, it was *you* who sent me down the route I now find myself on, where I am able to come to a final decision. Therefore, as things stand, the timing being dependent on some other outside schedules, I am going to purchase a Warco WM250V lathe, together with some of its main accessories, these being the bits n bobs which I am also now having some help to decide upon.

I've heard and read enough now about the Warco GH550 for me to put that to the side at this time. Everything considered, I do not feel that a more beefy solution such as this would be the best for us to have here.

And finally, I have indeed requested from Warco more information on the WM250V, and I am waiting to receive that. The question of it being a 'true metric lathe' is one I will take up with my experienced friends up here in this currently windy and wet, but rather bright area of the Scottish lowlands!

Thanks all, again ...

Tom.

Thanks again, chaps ...

mechman48 (George): I've reached the stage where I think you're absolutely correct .. ye makes yer choice, pays yer money, and ye takes yer chance! One thing I've learned here is, as a beginner in all of this, I shouldn't set expectations of myself that are realistically out of reach at this time. It seems to me that the machines discussed here as potential solutions in my quest for a first lathe, all have their individual pluses and minuses, and that most of them, with the appropriate learning on my part, would serve the function I have in mind, very well. Expansion and refinement can be something to consider in the future.

Bazyle: Thanks ... I see the logic in using a spreadsheet to compare machine specifications, but to be honest, my organised notes are serving me well in that same purpose. The inverter drive, to my mind, is the way to go; I believe that type of prime-mover and its control system will support my needs very well. In terms of screw-cutting, I do not see myself doing an unusually large amount of that. However, the type of screw-cutting I do see myself doing -- hopefully with frequent success -- will predominantly be in metric sizes, and restricted to the smaller end of the thread, diameter, and length scales. This impression I have fits with the scale of fabrication and the odd repair job that I've been involved with up till now. I will, however, want to do other things, of course. But those things, if I do need help, would be the subjects of forum posts, further down the electricity bill.

John W: The SPG website, yes ... I did note their lack of information, which of course allows for sales and marketing wriggle room later on. I've seen these things many times before. Good point about the speed differences, and I agree with your conclusions on that. I also note the other things you commented on so, thank you. What I have done in the meantime is, I have dropped a note to both Warco and SPG, asking them to comment on each others products, the WM250V and the SP2129. I got a reply from SPG, but I'm still waiting for one from Warco. Here is what I got back from "Brian" at SPG ... (comments welcome) ...

Thank you for your interest, you are not able to compare the WM250V machine with the SP2129 as SP2129 is a much larger spec, the machine we sell near to the WM250V is the SP2124 lathe @ £960 delivered.
We leave you to choose the machine you buy, all machines from China are O.K if they are prepared for you, it is just a matter of who you decide to trust with your purchase. The difference between WARCO & SPG TOOLS is the price you pay.

As to your link to the Warco GH550 lathe, it looks just great, and I wish I understood the implications of what differences a Gear Head Lathe brings to this party -- I'm beginning to feel some heat so, is this another fanning of my flames, I wonder? I'm just not in the position to judge the GH550 at the minute, but I am now very interested.

A couple of last things to mention ...

To all who have contributed in answer to my original plea, I wish to assure you that I have indeed read all of your contributions, and where recommendations have been made, including personal items of operating advice, I have looked into all of those.

I'm going away for a few days, maybe more, so I won't be around. No doubt I'll have something to say soon after I get back, though.

Cheers to all ... Tom.

To all ...

With my favoured target at this moment being the Warco WM250V lathe, do any of you experienced fellows have anything to say about that machine in comparison to the SP2129 lathe from SPG Tools?

Thanks for the additional comments since my last reply.

Tom.

You all have been busy again, thank you ...

Neil: No worries, I understand, and I won't be gotten rid of that easily! Thank you for the explanation.

ega: No, I haven't seen that particular review,, but on first look at that website, the documented experiences around the WM250V seem very comprehensive. I'll take an in-depth peep, shortly. My friends up here, the two experts I've been hinting at, have both now commented to me about the WM250V lathe. I feel I'm becoming nicely clued up on the basics.

Ian Philips and Michael Gilligan: Right on ... but I'm certain now, that Neil and Co as moderators are on top of this issue, whatever its source. Although from my own experienced software point of view, there should be adequately specified software command buffers in place within the executing code of the program itself, so that this kind of thing does not happen. This *can* come down to the quality of the forum software itself. I cast no sneaky hints, however.

mechman48: Me too, usually, but I don't use Word for that purpose, as it has in-built formatting which one frequently has to get rid of when pasting; depending of course on the destination for the paste action. I normally use simpler things like the "Notepad" and "Notepad++" utilities, or even my email client which has a decent spell-checker built in. Here's a trick I also occasionally use ... just before posting anything that I've typed, especially text that has taken quite some time to generate or to think about, I click within the body of the text and press Control+A on my keyboard. This selects all the text you have just typed ... then, I press Control+C, which copies all of that selected text into my copy and paste buffer. Therefore, if things do go wrong, and my original text gets lost when I carry out the next action, perhaps the posting of a message on a forum, then I'm still okay, I haven't lost all my work, because the text is still in my copy and paste buffer. Therefore, all I need to do is either, start another message, click within the body text area, and press Control+V to paste all the original text in, or, you can open up something like Notepad and do the exact same thing there, where then of course, you can save that file locally under a name of your choice, ready for future use. As I said before, I should have known better, but there you go!

David Cambridge: A helpful video, with humour, thank you. I'm getting keener and keener on the WM250V. And crucially, as I said above, my friends up here are encouraging me along that line, so I'm getting close! It seems you've got more room than me in your workshop space, but at least I've got access to the lifting power of some strong lads!

Bazyle: I take note of what you say, and it's important to pay heed to what box-shifters at every level can get up to. Thank you.

Altogether, gentlemen, I'm starting to feel it "in my water" that I should go for the WM250V lathe. I'll let you all know what happens about that. Thanks again for your interest and all your help.

Tom.

Hello Gents ...

First off, I'm actually a bit annoyed as I sit here trying to remember in detail what I took some time to write in response to your posts, which was not a short piece of text, but which now has completely disappeared, only a few moments ago after I clicked the "post" button, and immediately after that the "bookmark" button. Drat, the auto-save on the forum seems either to be unavailable, switched off, ineffectual, or not implemented. I'm usually careful about these things, so it's my fault, and I'll be more "switched on" to this in future.

Anyway, to begin again ... I live in Prestwick, Ayrshire, where to the best of my knowledge, outside Glasgow, there are no clubs for hobbyist mechanical engineering. As I said before, however, I do have my two good friends who are mechanical engineering ... dare I say, experts! I have however not fully 'tapped' into them (excuse the pun)!

John W1: You've thrown a spanner in the works, because now, due to the link you provided, I'm very interested indeed in the Warco WM250V lathe. It fits very well with the spec that I realistically hold as desireable, and it looks just the ticket. I'll be delving into studying this lathe with great enthusiasm. Thank you very much for this, I really appreciate the guidance.

peak4: That's good advice where you suggest that I visit the London Model Engineering Exhibition. I would for certain if I could, but unfortunately, London is not a day-trip away, and anyway, any money I have must go into other things, as is being discussed here. If a chance does come up to go to that exhibition in an affordable way, then without doubt, I'd go. I'll speak to my pals here and see what they're doing, or not doing about that event. Thanks also for your kind invite for a cuppa, I do appreciate that. If you're ever in my neck of the woods, then right back at you, you'd be welcome any time for a cuppa, some home baking, and a long chat. The same invite is extended here to all you guys.

Graeme W: The fact that you plonked for the Warco WM250V lathe over the SC4, is something that gives me confidence as my investigation closes in on a target. Thank you for saying what you have and boosting my impression that I'm following a good path.

To the moderators: In addition to still feeling rather miffed at loosing for no apparent reason, the long post I just spent a good bit of time typing out (could that have been a forum software glitch?), I would like to ask this ...

Is it normal for threads that are closed by a moderator, to also be removed from the forum? I ask because, after looking for the original thread that I started a couple of days ago, I now cannot find it. This is unfortunate, as throughout that thread there were multiple instances of sage advice, which I intended to read over once more. Is it therefore the operational policy of this forum for closed threads to also be deleted?

Thanks again to everyone.