WARCO WM-250 lathe family and WM16 mill - 001

The drill chuck supplied with the mill is the one to use... you need to check whether the draw bar thread in the end of the arbor is either 3/8" imp or 10mm... use the drawbar to secure the drill chuck into the spindle MT.. my chuck came with 3/8" imp thread, fortunately Warco supplied both versions of the draw bar, I have since bought a 0.5 - 8mm chuck & a J2 /MT2 arbor with a 10mm thread specifically to use on my mill therefore keeping the metric drawbar in situ & all my collet chucks are metric thread anyway.

Don't get into the idea that a chuck slipping on the taper is a safety factor per se.. albeit tapers will slip ( hence the safety idea ) they are primarily for driving through friction & any slippage indicates that the taper needs to be firmly pressed against its mating partner, or you are putting too much down force onto the drill/cutter.. not good... again this will force the tapers to match, but if they are not spotlessly clean & no burrs etc.... or the tapers have some damage on the faces....?. If drilling you should be following the drills cutting action through the material with only firm pressure, the drill will let you know if it's drilling correctly, or when it's not, providing you have the correct speed for the size drill.. & plenty of lubrication. Any slippage on tapers will invariably damage the mating tapers, don't ask how I know.. I am presently building up a set of small drills for Brass /  Aluminium where I take the cutting edge off with a diamond hone.. stops the 'grabbing' effect...  pls excuse the granny & eggs implication.. unintentional .. promise.. just wish to help... I'm sure others will offer other advice too... looking forward to pics of rear t/post.

George.

Edited By mechman48 on 07/01/2015 11:08:46

Thanks George I can always rely on you for informative answers, actually the supplied drill chuck and the er25 chuck fit the supplied draw bar threads I've had both mounted on the drawbar so all is fine, Warco also supplied the imperial drawbar which may come in handy sometime regarding the drilling press I never tapped the drill chuck firmly home on the arbour or even stuck the assembly in the fridge etc so providing I had a light touch on the handles no problem anyway thanks again all points noted

I am contemplating purchasing , either a Warco 250 or the 280, but would very much appreciate the imput of someone with knowledge and experience, who would enlighten me as to the benefits , if any , of the 280 having seperate leascrew and feedshaft, compared to the 250 , where these functions are reduced to a single shaft.

Myford owners reading this and feeling unwell are excused from taking part , but thanks for reading it.

Hi, I've had a 240 for just over a year now, and I'd definitely go for the 280 if starting over.

It's just a chore swapping change wheels between thread cutting and power feed each time (in a perfect world I'd like a screw cutting gearbox, but I think just having the second shaft would go a long way).

On the 280 & 290 the leadscrew and feed shaft are both driven by the same set of gears on the banjo so it makes no difference, you still need to change from a gear train that gives a fine feed to one for threading and then back again.

Only advantage of having teh two is that the leadscrew and nut won't get worn as it only comes into action when screwcutting. Really need to weigh up how often you are likely to be screwcutting.

J

Oh! Thanks for clarifying that, not as useful as I'd previously thought then..

On a somewhat related note, the 240 is advertised as having a left hand threading facility, but I've never worked this out. I can't see how I'd physically fit an additional idler into the gear train without some modifications. Has anyone done this on the 240?

Thanks, Jon.

I thought it already had a pair of 40T gears that acted as a tumbler reverse or 40 T on the spindle and a second 40 T as the tumbler

Edited By JasonB on 20/01/2015 19:56:26

Just been outside to check again and you're right. Not sure how I'd missed them before, but on closer inspection, I see there are actually three tapped holes near the spindle. By using the other two holes I can get both plastic 40T gears in place. Couldn't see for looking I guess... Thanks!

If you are reading this George I believe I have cured the oil leak from my WM250 saddle gear box. I removed the drain plug from underneath and wrapped a few twists of PTFE tape round the threads approx. 48 hours ago and it looks like I have a fix. Hope your leak is as easy to cure on your WM250.

Rik

PS. Had to find an answer as I am changing from oil coolant to soluble oil and I did not want to get quantities of oil in the mistic.

Hi Rik congratulations on fixing the oil leak, I'm interested on why your switching to soluable oil? I went the other way I changed from soluable oil to neatcut the main reason being I never seemed to be able to remove all traces of the oil from the ways, evrytime I moved the carriage traces of oil would follow. I don't bother now I'm using neatcut I'm just hoping it adds to rust protection of the lathe. I'm using one of the "Safer !!!!!!" Oils so no residual smell

Hope you don't mind all the questions, bet your going to make me worry about the use of neatcut!!!!!! I

Thanks for the update Mike will keep this in mind when I service mine in the summer. Intrigued in your hint about ' mistic' I assume this is a fine spray coolant system..do you have any dwgs of set up?

Cheers

George

George it was me with the mistic. Its what we used to call the soluble oil / water mix years back when I was working in the tool room. Lathes and mills used milky stuff but grinders used a clear solution, either way it was all known as mistic. Using the term outside of a tool room or machine shop could cause puzzlement - think druids and shamans.

Another common term used for soluble oil / water mix is "suds" but unlike mistic "suds" is not used when referring to grinders which only use mistic

Mike - I am swapping to soluble oil after two years of using "Neatcut" because I have relocated my workshop to new and bigger quarters which unlike my old workshop are double glazed, insulated and heated (and yes George, it is VERY cosy). Rust now is no longer a problem so using cutting oil to prevent it is no longer necessary. I prefer mistic anyway as it is less messy. I used to wear thin vinyl gloves when using cutting oil for health reasons but the oil would rot up to four pairs a day. I intend to continue wearing them but I don't think mistic will have the same effect. Bear in mind that I was using the oil pumped so there was a lot sloshing round.

I have just finished moving contents from the old workshop and lots of kit has had to be cleaned from oil and clinging swarf so I shall not regret its passing.

Whilst on the subject of mistic, in one place that I worked long ago the capstan section setter was a little old Geordie who loved his crusty cheese roll at morning tea break. When the hooter sounded tea break end he would remove his teeth and wash them under the mistic flow on one of the lathes then blow'em out with an air line - honestly, I'm not joking! Funny thing was he only ever did this on one particular blokes capstan.

One day we were having a laugh about it and I asked Geordie why he only ever used Rodneys machine to dunk his dentures. He gave me a pained look and replied "Hygiene of course" ------ and he meant it !

Rik

Apologies Rik; did apologise via my tablet earlier on this p.m. but it seems that what is written & posted via tablet doesn't synchronise with web site on pc... can any techno geeks explain..? I can well remember 'Suds ' when I did 'my time', as you say a milky substance that if I didn't wash off splashes on my hands after mixing /topping up a batch used to give me a rash... maybe just me. I still have half a litre of a later product 'Cetus 9'.. green stuff that could be used neat or mixed, plus half a litre of some 'red stuff' which I have used neat, other coolant I use is WD40 for ally on my lathe & mill as I'm sure a lot of other members also use.

George

Thanks Rik on info I'm only applying cutting oil with brush and that leaves quite a residue so understand where your coming from, it does take quite an effort to clean the machine down. I also wear vinyl or even latex gloves to keep the stuff off my skin, unfortunately my garage/workshop isn't as good as yours or George's insulation wise I've given quite a lot of thought towards improving it maybe if I could give the machines a rest I might get round to it!!!!

Rik, & others with WM 250 & WM 14 - 18 range, a good link for machine mods & some other interesting items

**LINK**

Cheers

George.

Hello guys,

Has anyone converted their WM-16 to CNC or in the process of doing so? The things I would like to do are pointing me more in the direction of needing this e.g. I would like to mill(engrave) letters, numbers and features into parts. I also have a recurring back problem that I hope a CNC setup can help alleviate. Even bending over the lathe for an hour or so starts it off (due to see the Doc in about 20 minutes).

I've been looking at the kits available on Ebay for about £150 for PSU, 3 x Nema 23 motors, breakout board and motor controllers. these are from abroad. The kit in the UK is ridiculously expensive and probably the same stuff?

Thanks for any thoughts on the conversion process and these kits.

Cheers,
Ed.

Ed - this looks like the same machine as the Grizzly G0704 or my King Canada KC20VS. They can come with different table lengths.

I did a CNC conversion from a kit, lots of stuff on my blog on it. blog is cnc-for-model-engineers.blogspot.com - heres a link: **LINK** Look for keywords "KC20" or so on the search box on the top left hand side.

The latest Model Engineer, Mick Knight gives his opinion that the conversions are not worth the money (using my words - mag not beside me right now) but I don't agree. I have a KX1 mill (with LinuxCNC controlling it, not the Arc standard setup) and it's a fantastic little machine, but the larger mill, with larger cutters just chugging away while you do something else is also a fantastic gift. (even if the "something else" is doing the kitchen washing up!)

I no longer have a "pillar drill" but use my "KC20VS" milling machine as a drill when required.

I've thought about it a few times and would love to do it. In fact I have already converted an XY table to ball-screws and stepper drives and have all the electrical driving hardware already packaged to drive it with (3-axis). That was relatively easy though - I had a working mill (and lathe) to make the parts.

The problem with converting the mill though, at least for a create-it-yourself approach, is that you lose the use of the mill while you are doing it. That implies using a kit like this perhaps based on your specific mill or the acquisition of a set of drawings based on your mill so that you can make the parts before stripping the mill and have a reasonable assurance that the parts will fit. Use of a second mill would work too of course.

The other thing that's stopping me personally right now is the physical side of things. I double if I'm up to handling the weight of things like the table - otherwise I would have done at least a ball-screw mod before now. That's what actually induced me to convert the XY table - it's a lot less massive and could actually be mounted on the mill table (albeit with considerable height loss).

I have my own views on CNC conversion, which I am not going to air here, nor do I have any comment on the electronics. However, based on my experience of engraving on a CNC mill I suspect that you will be sadly disappointed if you try engraving without altering the spindle speed.

Some years ago I spent some time trying to engrave 5mm high letters in aluminium (6082) using single lip engraving cutters running at maximum spindle speed, ie, 5100rpm. I broke many cutters before I gave up. I eventually managed to get the jub done using a 3 flute 60° chamfering cutter, but even then I broke a couple of them. Before the CNC mill I had a Taylor Hobson engraver and that worked fine, but the spindle was running at around 18000rpm. So to engrave successfully I would suggest that you need to consider a spindle speed in the range 15000-20000rpm.

Andrew

Andrew - spindle speed and engraving is, as you have suggested, a bit of an issue. The little KX1 I have does "ok" on the engraving tests I have used. Spindle speed is around 7,000 rpm, so is better than many conversions. Attached is a picture taken from a "photoshopped" photo of a casting on a Canadian locomotive for a 7-1/4" model - first engraving tests from this engraving newbie.

Have also seen really nice work done on a Sherline CNC; small work envelope but a really nice little machine. Work was for a 3-1/2" gauge locomotive.

In my experience, the overseas engraving cutters work quite ok.

Certainly, the machining centres at work are incredible, but some cost more than a lifetime salary. You chose well with your Tormach, even if it is a stepper based machine, and has not yet been upgraded to the Mesa 5i25 card yet. (or, has it, and your articles were written before the change over?) Does Tormach still sell their spindle speed doubler?

Would have liked to get a Tormach 770, but am missing the vertical room to fit it, which is why for my mill #2 I went with the manual machine conversion. Life is certainly interesting - John.