My new lathe a Warco 918

Hello Ron,

Looks as if the lead screw drive has been modified to give you reverse. The 4 bolt mod seems to have been done as well.

I modified a 920 for a friend and I incorporated a Gibralter tool holder. That stopped a lot of the tool movement! The VFD mod also gets you well below 100rpm, so screw cutting isn't such a nightmare.

Nice one ,

Andrew.

Hi Andrew,

Yes the lead screw has been modified to give reverse and a well made heavy duty 4 bolt compound mount/swivel base added. It seems as though adding the 4 bolt mount is the first mod people do to 918/920 lathe. The lathe still has the low, medium and high pulley combinations and checking with a digital tacho the low is 49 - 357 rpm, the middle is 85 - 940 and the high 96 - 1849. The bottom end speeds can be turned down a touch more but I set them to what I thought would have some decent torque. To test I tried quite a heavy cut with the low setting of 49rpm and there was no indication of a stall, so thats promising.

What does surprise me is the spindle drive belt is only a 5mm Polyflex but it obviously works fine.

Ron

As well as the Burnerd 4 jaw the lathe also came with the original Chinese 7.5 inch slim style 4 jaw which apparently is not good. What is good however is the casting is very true, I put it up and clocked it and the face is good to 0.001".

So I am thinking rather than chuck it into a corner never to be used and being a slim style it could be a good candidate for conversion to a face plate. The jaws could be sliced horizontally giving one parallel and one stepped clamp from each jaw, it would mean making up some shouldered fixing bolts/nuts but that should be easy enough. A couple of mounting slots could be milled into each quarter of the face and one or two tapped fixing holes.

Worth a go I think.

Edited By Ron Laden on 10/07/2019 08:11:36

The lathe in its final position mounted on the riser blocks and tray, I,ve lost some bench space but it is the obvious place for it to live.

I will gain back a bit of bench when I sell the mini lathe, not keeping both so will put it in the classified,s.

Looks suspiciously like a good bargain with all the accessories. Think of what it would cost to buy the ER chuck and collets, apart from the QCP, steadies, live centre and drill chucks!

Hours of enjoyment await you!

Howard

Thats what I thought Howard and of course the bonus of the Burnerd 6 inch 4 jaw, I checked on line and they are around the £400/450 mark and the one with the lathe is like new. Thats why I couldnt understand that despite its age its in really good condition with a VFD drive, the mods and all the tooling and there was no interest, before I phoned I thought it would have been snapped up, but no, maybe I,m missing something.

Ron

Hi Ron

Seems like you picked up a nice piece of kit. Looks to be in very good condition and you got LOADS of stuff with it ! Don't think I would worry too much about the age of it if it has been looked after well. and no bits are missing or have fallen off. Remember what they say "The older the fiddle, the sweeter the tune "

You appear to have enough stuff there to get going right away, so get stuck in !

And yes, it was worth the trip ,forget about the roadworks ! Good luck and happy turning.

Its my first time with ER collets, would I be right in thinking that the correct fitting procedure is to first fit the collet into the nut, (you can sort of feel it clip in) and then fit the nut to the chuck body, checking its correctly seated..

Ron

Edited By Ron Laden on 10/07/2019 19:15:06

Edited By Ron Laden on 10/07/2019 19:21:54

Ron

Spot on.

Thanks David, it probably seemed obvious but I thought I would check as I read a while back about seating/clamping problems someone was having and that was something to do with the way they were fitted.

Ron

The lathe spindle runs in taper roller bearings, they are original and still feel very good. I can just access the inner faces by removing a plate and would like to give them some lubrication just to be sure they are not drying out.

I have read all sorts about lubricating taper rollers, some say oil, some say grease (but not too much) some say they need frequent lube others say not. There is no provision for oiling other than an oil can from inside the head cavity, so it been a dry head I assume grease which I could push in with a finger. The manual has a lubrication plan but there is no mention of the spindle bearings.

How do you guys approach spindle taper rollers.

Ron

Looks nice Ron. Unless it’s hiding in the pictures somewhere one of your first mods could be to make a carriage stop.

For automotive wheel bearings taper rollers are grease lubricated and need a small endfloat, but for machine tool use they need a preload to maintain accuracy.

Excessive preload will, as you may expect, cause failure, as will poor or no lubrication.

Maybe the compromise between oil and grease would be a gear lubricant like SAE 90 or SAE 140?

My BL12-24 manual quotes the bearings as being C7210 and C7211, but does not specify type, or what preload, if any, should be applied. The recommended lubricant appears to be a fairly thin oil such as a SAE30.

Any comments from importers on preferred types and grades of lubricant, and extent of preload for various types of rolling bearings?

Hopefully, correctly adjusted and lubricated bearings will be extremely durable.

Howard

There should be two ball oilers on the top of the headstock. The grizzly manual specifies ISO 32 oil (equivalent to SAE 10W) I used to use a 10W/50 motor oil.

The Grizzly manual can be downloaded here

Russell

At an angle; I find a couple of beers beforehand helps with getting the optimum angle.

My lathe uses Gamet super precision opposed roller bearings. The manual says nothing about lubrication, and there are no oil points for the bearings. The geared headstock is filled with an ISO68 hydraulic oil, which splash lubricates the spindle gears. I assume the same oil must also lubricate the spindle bearings. The manual gives the spindle torque needed for correct preload and how to measure it, and then strongly advises against even thinking about it. I've never touched the bearings in the last 20 odd years.

Andrew

Thanks guys,

Russell my lathe doesnt have the two oilers as shown in the Grizzly manual so maybe my machine pre-dates the Grizzly version. Actually I noticed the lathes date on the serial plate Aug-96 so 23 years next month, older than I thought. Also I cant quite see how those oilers on top of the head can work, if the bearings are fitted like mine then a hole down from the oiler would come up against the outer face of the bearing which is pressed into its machined mount so a dead end so to speak. The oil wouldnt be able to travel anywhere, I can see it would if the bearing mount had a keyway type channel cut into it. The oil would then run out over the ends of the bearing, some of which would then get into the bearing.

Anyway its oil can to the ready me thinks.

Ron

I agree. The only downside with this lathe is the need to slip belts for speed changes, that’s easily overcome these days though by fitting a new 3 phase motor and invertor. With that job done are there any modern lathes of a similar size that can match it?

Ron, do not worry about the age of your machine. I have an Excel branded 14"x40" lathe made in Taiwan in 1996.

Second hand when I bought it and has done a lot of work over the last 8 years in my ownership. No accuracy problems but I did have to make a new cross slide, partly due to wear mainly due to abuse by former owner. I wanted to beef it up and add tee slots so a worthwhile mod.

1960s Raglan 5"? Almost certainly cheaper, for a start!

.

Does that ^^^ qualify as modern ?

... I thought the Raglan was evidence that 'they don't build them that good these days'

MichaelG.