Member postings for Roger Vane

I’ve owned a Warco VMC for a couple of years now and am generally very pleased with it. Your post raises a couple of interesting points.

Vibration

I haven’t experienced any problems with vibration in the head.

Think the key to overcoming the potential vibration problem may be down to selection of the ideal spindle speed – there are huge gaps between available speeds on the VMC and therefore the potential for vibration if the speed selected is not suitable for the job in hand.

The information plate in the belt cover lists spindle speeds (50Hz motor) as 190, 270, 480, 560, 1000, 1180, 1379, 1800 and 2100. Based on experience with my old Warco Minor mill, I felt that the spindle speed range offered by the VMC was not really suitable for my requirements – there are no available speeds in my critical range of 560 – 1000 and the bottom speed of 190 is far too high when using a 3” slitting saw.

I overcame the problem by ordering the machine with a 3 phase motor with the aim of fitting an inverter to provide variable speeds. As I wanted an R8 spindle and imperial graduations I had to order the machine as a ‘special’ with a delivery time of around 6 months – this approach saved me the cost of buying a new 3 phase motor to make the conversion. I purchased an inverter and remote control station from Newton Tesla – fitting was very straightforward using the wiring diagram supplied.

Was it worth the wait? – it certainly was. Do I suffer from vibration problems? – no, as any potential problems are controlled by simply reducing the spindle speed (at the turn of a knob).

Other advantages include:

• No time wasted changing belt positions (a real pain). My machine is set to 1180 rpm and I’ve only changed this briefly a couple of times in the last two years. That was for machining cast iron using a 2.5” shell mill (full width) taking a 1/16” cut – the motor simply couldn’t provide enough torque at the very low speed selected and the cutter slowed down.
• A much lower spindle speed – low enough to tap ‘under power’ using the ‘jog’ facility (with the 1180 belt setting).
• Infinitely variable spindle speeds.
• Very good torque characteristics.
• An increased spindle speed at the top-end of the range as the inverter produces close to 60Hz maximum.

Based on my experience of the VMC, I can recommend that it is a very worthwhile conversion that you might like to consider if it’s not too late. I have found that it puts an ‘already good machine’ into a totally different class.

The only real issue that I have with this machine is lack of height between the spindle nose and the table. The Warco specification for this is 13.5” whilst mine is only 12.5” – a full inch under specification. This is very restrictive, especially when using their excellent DH-1 vice and a 13mm keyless chuck.

I have spoken to Roger Warren of Warco on a couple of occasions regarding this problem. He has told me that he is looking to offer a 4” spacer as a retrofit option to existing VMC owners on the Warco database. The last time that I spoke to him was at the 2010 ME Exhibition, at which stage he was having difficulties sourcing the spacers.

Other owners that I’ve spoken to would also like to increase the capacity of their machines, so this appears to be a real issue.

I can only suggest that owners of VMCs who feel that this is a problem contact Roger Warren direct and push this matter forwards. Let’s have some ‘people power’ to resolve this problem.

Hope that these comments help.

Hi Fred,

Quorn or Stent? Let me start the ball rolling …..

I too had the same dilemma – I wanted a small T & C grinder, but was it to be the Quorn or the Stent? In the event, I chose the Quorn and completed construction over a period of several years. The Stent as designed is a fairly crude machine whilst the Quorn appears to be far more sophisticated. 

Was this the right decision? Although the Quorn will carry out many operations, particularly with special attachments, I have become increasingly frustrated with it. The main reason being that, apart from movement along the bed bars, other movements involve the generation of arcs rather than straight lines and therefore there are no graduated linear scales.  This makes it very tedious to use (for me anyway). The Stent on the other hand has normal linear movements and graduated scales.

I had decided to stick with the Quorn until I read an article by Charles Woodward in MEW 137 (April 2008), in which Charles appraised both machines and described how he had modified the original Stent design into what might be termed a ‘Super Stent’. This is well worth reading and may help you to make the final decision.

Charles has now written a further series of very helpful articles, currently being published in MEW. There has also been a series of articles on using the Clarkson in recent issues of MEW and as the Stent is based on the Clarkson, these too have been very helpful.  

My problems were resolved, and I decided to build the Super Stent, but with a few more modifications of my own – primarily to utilise the Quorn principle of interchangeable wheels and maybe some of the tooling (as I already have these). This now involves some more redesign, particularly the spindle which needs further ‘beefing-up’ due to the hole required for the drawbar. Detail design work is now well under way for the main assemblies, and I hope to start cutting metal shortly.

Overall, my own opinion is that properly ‘tooled-up’, the Super Stent is the better option, although I’m sure that the two machines will compliment each other, with some jobs being better done on the Stent and some on the Quorn. Hope that this helps - what do other people think?

Prices – a shock here I’m afraid. I bought my Stent casting set from Blackgates in July 2008 just after a price increase due to foundry costs – cost of castings and drawings was around £320. I believe that Quorn casting prices are very similar.

Regards.