dore westbury mk2

I have a Dore Westbury mk2 with a collet chuck screwed on to the Myford nose and it has been fine and I also have a much bigger milling machine with a DRO and I would be sorry if I had to sell the Dore Westbury as it still is a useful tool. At £175.00 you can not go wrong. Not forgetting there is quite a large clearance between nose and table.

Bob

Edited By Bob Brown 1 on 27/02/2016 19:32:32

Hmm its going to be a 6 hour round trip to collect it

Good decision, Mark.

MichaelG.

Looks like it's a wise choice, mine has the long table but yours should give many years of service.

Bob

hi. John, yes the cheap Chines motors are ok for table drive, made mine from a plan on the web.

Forget the site, but it was a me one.

Bought a spare motor just in case, still in the cupboard.

Interesting posts, what is the difference between the mk 1 & the mk 2 please?

Graham.

There is a write up here **LINK**

Bob

Essentially the castings on the mk2 were beefed up, probably to make it more stiff.

On the table feed motors could I ask which Chinese motors. It would give me some idea of what to buy. I can manage the rest myself.

There is a lot of variations. My Mk1 has the same size castings as the MK2. On that version some people claim that the main difference is a better return spring on the quill - me I always say I don't want the better spring as the worm feed for milling stops where I put it and no need to clamp the spindle. There may be with some cutters on.

Personally I think it's a hard machine to replace. The warco one I posted a shot of wont do much more really in practical terms. The DW will more or less fully machine it's 6 1/2" x 14" table in one head setting but can machine that sort of width over a wider range of widths. There is also plenty of headroom under the spindle - too much really probably with the standard column really well extended unless light cuts are taken. Some have an even longer column. I think the long column is mainly intended for drilling.

Mine has a column lift I haven't seen on any others. Just a simple jack screw driven via bevel gears.

It sits on what was a cupboard with 2 draws over it. As I wanted it bench mounted I cut the cupboard off. The draws keep the pulleys well over my head height - good idea as there isn't a guard.

The rotary table that was designed to go with it is worth looking at too. Unlike many the worm is carried in a frame and swings side to side to engage and can be set up for zero play. It could easily be fabricated out of mild steel plate. Unlike some it can't be stood on it's side in it's original form. The dividing head is neat too but personally I would enlarge the size of the plates and use B&S hole counts but the original ones are pretty well thought out and doesn't need so many holes drilling.

John

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Edited By Ajohnw on 01/03/2016 10:52:57

Thanks for the replys "hollowpoint" & Bob much appreciated.

Graham.

I use a trolley jack on a shelf under the bench to raise and lift the column, they are less than £20 so you can afford to leave it there all the time. The head can be raised and lowered with a couple of strokes of the handle.

And again ive had my time wasted ! He no longer wants to sell it and has changed his mind , what a complete joke.

Mark, he's probably aware now after reading this topic that the machine is worth more than £175 and does not want to ask you for more, your mistake was not taking the offer when made.

Emgee

**LINK**

Thing is i did say yes straight away as it was the cheapest id seen and as it took him 3 days to reply to an email i thought that would be the safest bet .

Just really annoyed , as i hate time wasters.

Been offered the link above at £400 but again unsure

Been offered the link above at £400 but again unsure

I am on my 2nd one of those - and only on the 2nd because I was given a complete new base FOC (right place, right time !) and bought a new head & column assembly cheap (again, right place, right time !) so had effectively a new machine for very little outlay. My original used one was sold to a friend for what I paid for it.

Pros : good capacity for footprint, easy speed change, head keyed to column, head adjustable to horizontal, ejecting drawbar, 2MT tooling

Cons : geared head not exactly quiet, short quill travel (40mm or so), no quill fine feed.

The column & head lift out of the base & the two parts are just about managable single-handed. Looking at the link provided the speeds are different to mine, but that may be a speed plate for 60hz motors. They have a fibre gear early in the gearbox that can shed teeth, so check that it runs OK. Both mine have slight X-Y squareness errors - the first one was a bit worse at about 0.003" over the Y travel (5.5" IIRC), while the current one is about 0.002". I have yet to get the scraper out to sort this. The bracket that holds the column to the base is adjustable side-to-side with grub screws & fore-and-aft with shims to get the column square. If you get a bit too enthusiastic with the feedrate the head can push out of true, but I only did this the once early on (too used to industrial stuff !). I use 2MT collets to hold cutters with minimum overhang.

The lack of quill fine feed isn't much of an issue - the quill feed has an adjustable depth stop & I usually work by bringing the quill firmly against the stop and locking it, then using the head feedscrew to touch off the top of the job. Release the quill clamp. retract the quill and move the job from under the spindle, apply required downfeed with the head leadscrew and clamp the head, then bring the quill back to the depth stop & clamp. As the head is keyed to the column, there is no loss of position moving it.

I have no regrets having bought this (these) machine(s) & will be keeping the current one regardless. I would guess that the reason they disappeared (this model was offered by many sellers at one point) was cost of production. I think you would struggle to get another machine as capable for the same money.

£0.02

Nigel B.

Mus t admit I have no idea about the current value of dore westbury's. All I would say on this one is probably less than the heavier casting versions. There are in practice more than one of those.

When I looked at the link I thought OK Emco but then noticed copy. It would need checking carefully watching for excessive noise etc and play in various places.

There are currently a couple of what are probably Taiwanese round column belt drive ones on ebay at the moment that might come in budget but again they would need checking. These are what model engineers used to buy if they hadn't enough room for an industrial machine. The larger ones also finished up in workshops.

Personally when buying a machine off ebay I would want to use paypal just in case. It can take a while to find out what's what with a machine.

John

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Edited By Ajohnw on 02/03/2016 19:45:57

The Dore Westbury is a very versatile piece of kit. Ok you need to be a bit gentle sometimes. it isnt a production industrial machine. Mine has never failed me in 20 odd years, and was 3rd hand to me.

I suspect there is quite a premium on them re re-sale price these days as very few come on the market.

Sorry that Mark missed out on a potential bargain

cheers,

julian

It's interesting that Nigel has one of the Emco look a likes. Part of what I posted was down to worries about gears. It might be best to remove a plate from the machine and have a look. At the selector forks as well. One of Emco's lathes can have a problem in that area - cracks that are hard to spot as the forks were not made of metal.

The only thing that would worry me about the belt drive machines is bearings in various places. The Taiwanese were fond of fitting unhardened bearings in various places. Also slide wear. Unfortunately I don't know of anyone who has owned one. The person I bought my DW off was going to buy a larger version of one of these. Some may have been built in China. They were all described as mill drills, interesting that. These days they would probably just be called millers.

It was interesting looking on ebay for millers. I was fascinated by a really old one with no quill which isn't much of a problem really that came with a dividing head and a rotary table - all needing some work. It might have plain bearings in the head which could be a problem.

John

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