Member postings for mechman48

Scrappies are your best bet, earlier this year I fell lucky & picked up a batch - 17 kilo - of brass round & square for £50... couple of months ago managed to get 7 kilo for £25 & 5 kilo of aluminium for £10. You can check daily scrap prices on 'tinternet, but brass prices are creeping up

Cheers

George

Hi Littlerick,

Welcome to the forum, I started out with one of these & there isn't a lot wrong with it as a starters machine,like you I slowly built up my tool collection so don't panic, things will come. I'm too far north (Teesside) to get down but if I can offer any advice I'm more then pleased to so just drop me a pm if you need any info/advice.

If you go back through the forum posts you will see that a couple of members have just got the same machine these past couple of weeks ... from about the 2nd Sept on. you will find a lot of info in these.

Cheers

George

The advertised 280V-F looks a good buy; I have the 250V-F & the work I have done, albeit small, has been competently handled by the machine. Although I try not to put too much doc on, I have taken cuts of 1mm using tangential tool without any bother so the 280 should handle most things easily. As for after sales, Warco have been most accommodating with the issues I had with my lathe, & WM 16 Mill, & some tooling that I bought so they are fine in that respect, cannot comment on Chester / Amadeal as have had no dealings with either.

George

Ady

Unless you plan on doing a lot of angles I would stick with maintaning a flat surface, you may have a problem with locking the angle plate in the horizontal plane as the cutting forces may shift it slighty & you can end up with undiscernable angles where you don't want them.

I made my own riser block a few years back to suit the CL500 & put a machined tapped clamping plate on top for fixing the vice & or workpieces to suit. Simple channel or I beam would do, mine had the height set to 100mm (approx) & I found I ended up raising the mill head to allow drill chuck & drill to clear the top of the block so you could make yours 75mm high,or whatever size to allow as least extension of the mill head as possible.

The brown marks are grease that I have used since having put it away after upgrading, will find a use for it on my WM 16 eventually...the top was machined level & then I hand scraped it to a decent level of flatness...

Cheers

George

Ady

I think this is a ref. to your post of 2/9… in which you have received a number of responses to your questions & IIRC I also mentioned that you would need to get a machine block to allow you to mill without lowering the quill a long way.

“another item I suggest is the cast iron riser block that fastens to the cross slide as this will keep your mill/drill spindle at its shortest extension, otherwise you may have to lower your spindle to reach the vice/job which will reduce rigidity even though there is a spindle lock”.

Vices I used were … Clarke ctv 25b tilting vice & Clarke 4” drill vice cdv 40c which were capable of what I needed for the CL500.

Check back & see there are a number of responses from other members, Oh & by the way a belated welcome to the forum.. enjoy

Cheers

George

Chris

What mill are you getting?

ER 32 collet sets come with up to 20mm dia cutter collets, have you bought them separate? could end up more expensive buying them individually?

Rotating tailstock center !

Regards

George

Hi Ady

I had one of these before upgrading to separate mill / lathe. they a realy solid piece of kid but very hefty weightwise so before you lift it onto your bench I would remove the mill head & just lift the lathe section first, unless you have an engine hoist, remember to balance it out if you lift it all in one. It does have four lifting bars that slide in/out of the lathe bed casting so use these.

If you have got it from Machine Mart then they supply a MT3 milling cutter (indexible type,4 cutters- optional extra) I suggest you get this, it is ideal as a fly cutter. another item I suggest is the cast iron riser block that fastens to the cross slide as this will keep your mill/drill spindle at its shortest extension, otherwise you may have to lower your spindle to reach the vice/job which will reduce rigidity even though there is a spindle lock. M/Mart do sell a collet set - optional extra again but if you can afford it I would go for a ER32 collet system, max' cutter 20mm, the ER 25 max' cutter is 16mm. IIRC the draw bar is 10/12mm but, sometimes comes with a 3/8 BSW bar so double check..

It should come with a 3 jaw chuck, but you will need to purchase a 4 jaw as well (extra again), fixed head & tailstock centres, MT4 & 3 plus a basic kit of carbide tipped brazed lathe tools (Chinese quality… ??? replace these with decent indexible tip tool asap), rotating centre, faceplate,fixed & travelling steadies etc. …all extras! See Machine Marts web site under ‘Metalworking’ for all the extras you may (will eventually) need, plus other buyers reviews.

A good solid starter’s machine which I had for a few years, & you will enjoy using it, just make sure all your fastenings are secure before using it. One point I found, although I had mine mounted on a solid wooden bench, so it was quite rigid, if you get the base, this is made from sheet metal so with all that weight up top, & if you’re milling/drilling, you will get vibration, which won’t do any of your finishes/cutters/drills a lot of good, also I suggest when you do lathe work you swing your mill head around so it lines up axially with the lathe bed & lock it up, not behind, this will help to eliminate any off balance/ vibration problems.

A decent machine that will give you what you ask it to do…, If I can help any further drop me a pm. … enjoy

Regards

George

Edited By mechman48 on 02/09/2013 09:40:08

Pleaes enlighten me ..what the hell is NEO?

As far as parting off under power goes, I have always been reluctant to & always used manual when I’ve had to, mainly due to lack of confidence & not have the correct set up. I think I have now resolved my issue; I needed to have some large washers to replace the ones holding my vice to the mill table as the present ones are the large penny / patch ones, backed up with a couple of 10 mm standard washers. I decided to put my Hemmingway kit (usual disclaimer) constructed rear tool post to the test & part off some 30mm dia. BMS that I had drilled 10.5mm, I have used this tool post before but only on brass as a test after I built it.

Having set it up true& checked centre height I proceeded to part of … manually first, the cut went ok provided I applied plenty of neat cutting oil with one hand & trying to maintain constant feed rate with the other, (really could do with 3 hands here). Two washers were completed ok but the finish wasn’t the best so in for a penny etc. I went for the PXF... I locked everything down & my speed was set at 200 rpm (arbitrarily) & the federate was as set originally from day one…. .03mm per rev. the lowest setting on the machine chart. I set the leadscrew to run in reverse, actuated the crossfeed lever & set to, the cutting action was very smooth but it soon told me when it started to get tight, I could discern the swarf trying to bind in the cut, this was remedied quickly by applying a constant supply of neat cutting oil, by brush (I don’t have a constant supply set up … yet) which made cutting a lot easier. There wasn’t any noticeable loading on the motor & it did the cut well, which has done wonders for my confidence now, also the finish was much better. Still goes to show, you can teach an old dog new tricks!

The blade used was HSS 3/32, I also have a small ¼” HSS tool steel cutter that I have ground to 1mm thick blade for small parting off which I have used without any fear. I am tempted to get one of the indexible insert type parting tools, complete with holder but it’s a bit pricey at £32 (RDG) but do I do enough parting off to warrant the expense... hmmm?

First attempt at PXF parting off in years...

The remaining rag shows parallel cutting...

The two on the left were manual feed, bit of a rough finish, (the dark one is 'cos the flash didn't reach it, it's not heat discolouration)) the one on right is PXF parted off & much better finish...

I shall not now be wary of using PXF with the rear tool post on steel.

George

Jerry… Good choice

I have put down a few pointers for you when you get your machine; other members may have different items to offer, but these are what I found on my machine, 250V-F.

Check the electrics when you get it; the two main problems I found were that the change gear guard has a tab on the bottom at the back (250V-F, other machines may have it placed elsewhere), this tab contacts and operates a micro switch for the motor cut out, this tab had been bent away from the switch making it unable to start… frustrating when still in the box! The other item is check the locking collar on the emergency stop button, this is secured (on mine) by a screw acting on the locking bracket & jacking the bracket against the top of the electrical compartment casing & pulling the button down against the casing top, this had the effect of allowing the button to rotate loosely which then had dislodged one of the wires from the button hence … no workee… scratchee head… along with a lot of ‘oh dear me’ ‘tut tut’, or words to that effect!... & supposedly checked by Warcos Engineers… ?

Check all the fastenings on the machine; SHCS & bolts, these are made from the Chinese basic steel… crap!

The SHCS / Hex head bolts are stamped 4.2 which is lower tensile strength than the minimum BS3692 of 4.6… in other words ‘soft as s**t! so it doesn’t take much torque to strip threads... trust me I know! Especially the two compound slide T bolts that hold the compound slide to the cross slide, on mine I found these to have stripped very soon after a couple of angle settings on the compound, & not tightened to any excess (subjective I know!) merely snugged up. I replaced these with a couple of 8.8 grade bolts & fabricated some proper ‘T’ nuts from decent steel… EN8 IIRC. plus they were short in length stopping short of the full nut so I ensured that my replacements went down into the ‘T’ nut full length.

The change wheel gears are noisy, this was due to the backlash being incorrectly set up, (don’t think the manufacturers know what this is) I set mine up using the ‘paper method’ (which it seems a few members have used). All it needs is to place a piece of paper, which is generally about .004” thick between the meshing teeth & adjusting the banjo to nip the paper, do this with each gear mesh. The other factor is there is a lot of slop … on mine… between the ID of the gear bore & the OD of the matching banjo shaft. I am looking to reduce this by some means later on, bushings, new shafts?

Adjust your gib strips as these are made from the above mentioned steel, not cast iron, & are just strips of plate with the angles somewhat ground on & they don’t ensure that the gib screws fit, it seems that their idea of dimples is to ram a pistol drill down the tapped hole irrespective of the strip being in the correct location or centralised, followed by three or four black SHCS with lock nuts on. I will replace these later if I can get hold of some thin enough CI, or poss’ Phos’ Bronze/ Brass

Hopefully you get a machine that has had better quality control applied, never the less now I have tweaked, adjusted, replaced etc. I have a very reasonable ‘hobby machine’ that does what I have thrown at it, after all, ‘you don’t get a rolls for the price of a mini’, other members may /may not have had similar issues, so I assume they may offer additional tips, anyhow the main point is … ‘enjoy’

Cheers

George

Ditto Bogstandard2 (ughh americanisms) I only use the socket marked with 0, even turning the chuck to reach it !

George

If your tools are more MT3 orientated then get MT3... silly to spend sorely needed cash when you can mix & match between machines. I use MT2 between lathe & mill tailstock / spindle with only the headstock having a MT4, for which I have a MT4 collet holder.

George

Rick

For your info... from Hemmingway kits, this is what I bought...

Rear Tool Post for Larger Lathes Ref: HK 1071

Price: £49.30 (Including VAT at 20%)

One of George Thomas' simplest and most elegant designs, the Rear Tool Post, with its indexing turret, has become a vital addition to all Myford lathes for the past 30 years. And now, Hemingway is pleased to announce a new version, based on the work of both G H Thomas and E Riley.

Suitable for lathes with up to 3 ½" between the cross slide and centre, the kit includes the main casting and all material to complete a substantial Rear Tool Post for your Boxford, South Bend, Atlas, Chester, Harrison, Myford 254, Colchester, Warco, Grizzly. Plus many more. The Rear Tool Post is designed to engage with either a single T slot or a pair of tapped holes towards the rear of your cross slide. The turret is designed to accept a parting blade and an additional inverted tool up to ½" square. Picture shows the tool post armed with an inverted carbide insert holder and HSS chamfering tool.

Cheers

George

Jerry

Don't be fooled by my garage floor, it still has the original taper(run off) as built, its just that the floor paint (garage floor paint) is fairly thick so making it look smooth, (photos decieving & all that) what I did was to lay a thin pad of leveling compound where the lathe & the mill stand so they would both have a reasonable level base to sit on, the remainder is as is. I put the feet I bought under the mill stand & levelled that off to bubble & digi level, plus giving me the extra 2"... . The lathe seemed to have sorted itself out re level (again bubble & digi) so have left well alone.

George.

Try moving your chuck round one hole on backplate, see if that improves chuck runout,then another if not, try & pick the best position with minimum runout & mark chuck & plate with match marks... centre pop or 0

George.

Warco do two versions of feet for your machine stand... item # 5560A - 60mm dia. & 5561A - 80 mm dia. @ £4.60 ea.. I have the 5561A size for my mill stand which has given me an extra 2" in height, the stands tend to be on the short side so if you're 6' 12" you'll have backache, seem to be made for the chinese height. I'm a short a***e myself but still really need to have the extra couple of inches... (ooooooh you are awful!  ... height wise!

G

Here's how I did mine...

Just required a little help with the lathe from SWMBO...

George

Jerry

Do you kow any one with a engine hoist, or you could hire one for a day? I bought one VAT free from M/Mart as I had to move my other machine about while I converted my garage, managed on my own to lift Lathe & mill onto stands without too much hassle... or do you know a rugby team near you

George

Jerry

If you can afford it get the 280/290V-F I've got the 250 & it's fine for my needs,I don't have any probs selecting between saddle & cross feeds. IIRC these weren't available in their present form when I bought mine..or else I totally missed / didn't see them at Harrogate last year, plus budget constraints.

Cheers

George

Edited By mechman48 on 25/08/2013 23:24:18

JasonB/Thor... thanks for the tip.

Rick... I made mine from a Hemmingway kit as I couldn't find one to buy either (non available for this machine) but had to modify fixing from that described in kit plans & the blade angle left too much sticking out to meet centre height causing blade to flex (not rigid enough) & parted off pieces to have concave /convex sides so have used ordinary parting off holder inverted in 12 mm slot on other side of block ... lot more rigidity... works a treat now. Will post pic of alternative holder set up... when I find it ! other pics in album 'Rear tool post', will do write up on process later but pics will give you good insight.

Cheers

George