Warco GH600

Hi Gray,

They are off Ebay. I think they are a clone of the originals.

I do not know if I can post links on here, but a search for Heavy Duty Machine Levelling Castors will find them.

I made a bandsaw stand earlier in the year to see how good they are, and they worked well. It is a pain to wind the feet up and down so they are not a solution for anything you expect to move regularly, but for a machine that you may have to move occasionally I think they are ideal.

Thanks for that Brian, I'd spotted that the spurious gear (as opposed to a spur gear) had 48 teeth, as referenced by the splash-back diagram, but it also referenced a 42 tooth gear, and I had no idea where that was. The threading indicator explains it all (unlike the diagram, or the manual)

Cheers

Jed

I have had a good week...

Steel for bases arrived:

The bases were made and bolted to the cabinet.

Covers and guards were removed and steel was clamped under the lathe for lifting handles.

With help, the lathe was then lifted onto the cabinet:

It is good to see it on there.

I also purchased some grub screws and nuts to replace the bolts that hold the chucks on. Now there is no guessing which hole to use and fiddling with allen keys. Much easier.

Edited By Ian Thomson 2 on 11/08/2019 13:40:06

Nice work with the base. Puts my concrete slabs to shame :D

In the absence on a proper manual....

How many oil points can owners of the GH600 lathe count?

I make it 15 including the one on the chuck. Have I missed any?

I was going to use way oil in these for lubrication unless there is a good reason not to?

Also putting this onto the gears as it seems sticky enough not to fly everywhere too much.

A bit of an update in the casters: The lathe is now in the final position with feet wound down.

I have adjusted the feet to remove twist using a cheap Engineer's level.

If I push the lathe backward, there is a very slight wobble on the rubber feet - probably to be expected.

It is very little movement, and the lathe appears to return to no twist when I stop pushing.

I will evaluate over the coming weeks if this has a noticeable effect in use.

I am sulking You have more than me ( 13). and a bigger handle on the gear change . I agree , the manual is a waste of paper. It spends some of its Time discussing the speed control potentiometer !! At least the manual that came with my Warco Major clone made me laugh. It started with "Please not to be installing the complex machine in the sunshine place "

Warco say that their headstock oil is fine including the gearboxes and apron .

Brian

Probably translated by the same person who wrote that "It is raised by a water buffalo" aka Hydraulic Ram!

Not unique to the far east.

Many years ago, a German made pencil sharpener operator manual said "Sharp points, unobjectionable upon pencils are"

Howard

While you are counting your ball oilers, can you find the cross-slide lock?

Is it at the bottom of that hole on the left hand side of the cross slide?

I tried poking in one of the supplied allen keys and it didn't reach the bottom.

If it isn't there, where is it?

There's a cross-slide lock??? I found the compound lock, but I didn't realise there might be one for the cross-slide (stop laughing, it's my first lathe). If there is, the combination of a lock and power feed spells trouble...

Cross Slide lock should be on the right hand side , Three cap heads , Counting in towards the bed the first two are for the apron the third , closest to the bed it the lock. Turn it with the allen key. Well that's the theory .Mine tightens up does not enough to firmly clamp the slide !

Also note that I have advised Ian and Jed to remove the screw at the end of the cross slide feed screw. It acts as a stop to prevent the slide winding off of the thread but it forms a hard stop. The system has no shear pin on this axis . The gear on the feed screw is held in place by a roll pin . I considered changing it for a shear pin but felt that the shaft diameter was a bit small to drill out for a larger diameter pin.

Brian

Brian is Brian of very little brain ( again )

The cap head locks the carriage not the cross slide . Th comment about the lack of a shear pin on the cross slide feed still stands

I would hope there is a lock.

I think there are loads of opportunity for disaster. Wouldn't this be a similar risk to the lock on the carriage?

My guess: this is it, but it could be a backlash adjustment:

I would have expected it to be on the other side though.

I will investigate tomorrow, unless someone knows?

Just done some measuring . The blind hole shown is JUST above the level of the top of the dovetail so even if it went through and was tapped it would not lock anything. It would however act as a drain for any cutting fluid going into the left hand T slot since it opens out into it before going deeper in .

Brian

If I am not teaching Granny to suck eggs, the two tappings in the yellow paint of the front of the Saddle, are to take the travelling steady. On my BH600 lookalike, they are plugged with short M8 capscrews to stop swarf getting in, and causing problems when the steady is needed.

I notice that the Tee slots run across the Cross slide, where the BH600 and its clones have the Toolpost fixed, and two longitudinal slots, at the far side. Both systems have their pros and cons. Having no end stop, the Cross Slide can run off the end of its Leadscrew, so no fear of a clash between the PCF and a stop.

Howard

The arrow in Ian's picture refers to the hole in the Cross Slide not the two steady fastenings . Having had a good look at the set up this evening. Tthere is no provision for a cross slide lock.. It would need to be on the right hand side and exert pressure on the gibb strip. Easy enough to fit . although its would need to be only just proud of the surface if it was not to interfere with the allen key used to lock the carriage as is the case with the gibb adjusting screws on the WMV 280. The two T slots fixing the compound slide allow it to the positioned further to the rear allowing the cutting of tapers on the end of anything held in the chuck .

Brian

I will see how I do without a lock before I start drilling holes in my new toy.

As I am not anticipating any milling using the lathe, I expect I will be okay without a lock.

I need to get a couple of grub screws to plug those 2 holes.

You can see in my picture above that there is some swarf.

So far I have only turned a bit of aluminium, but first impression of the machine is very good.

Thanks everyone for the advice, and Brian for helping me make up my mind which one to buy.

I didn't last very long shimming tools in the tool-post that came with the lathe, and ordered a qctp from Arc Euro...

**LINK**

There was a helpful article in MEW detailing how the tool-post was fitted to a Chester lathe. My lathe has a different kind of compound, but it was still helpful to get an insight into how the tool-post was fixed.

**LINK**

Here is the GH600 compound - it has a fixing post that is M10, and has a shoulder at the bottom that is wider (22mm from memory)

The tool-post fixes via a 16mm rod, and it comes with a base-plate that the rod screws into. I believe the idea is to machine the base-plate and slot that into the compound, but my compound has no t-slot...

So instead I cut the 16mm rod to an appropriate length and drilled a deep hole that was internally threaded M10 at the end....

This screwed down onto the compound post. Next, I had to bore the base of the tool-post so that it cleared the 22mm shoulder.

That was no fun at all. My mill was struggling with the cheap boring head and chattering like crazy. I got there in the end, and the surface finish is rubbish, but it's a better fit than the original tool-post holder.

And here it is fitted...

There was one last problem. Some of my tooling was still above the centre-line, even with the holder at its lowest setting, so I had to mill a few millimetres from the bottom of the holder.

It all appears to work as expected. My nerves were shot after drilling the rod and boring the tool-post, as it was my first time doing those kind of operations, and any mistake could well be costly. But I am happy with the results.

Jed

If you don't mind me saying so, you have much more than desirable tool protrusion with that setup in the penultimate photograph, and are only clamping the insert holder with two screws, which is because you have to pull the tool holder out to clear the other tool holder dovetail on the tool block.

If you turn the toolpost 90 degrees and use the other tool dovetail, you will have around 10 mm or more reduced tool protrusion, and a more rigid setup, with correspondingly better results.

Be interested to see how you get on with it.

The arc model 222 wedge option is one of the toolposts I have been considering.

Can you confirm that they are made of steel?

Is there plenty of material for machining?