WARCO WM-250 lathe family and WM16 mill - 001

Rik/George,

My HBM 290 is not leaking oil from the apron (or gearbox), at least not yet. What kind of oil do you use to refill?

Regards

Thor

Hello Thor - I bought 5 litres of Castrol EP-90 manual transmission fluid from a boot sale for a couple of quid and that is what this lathe gets - it might not be right but it lubricates better than foundry sand.

Rik

Hi Rik,

I have been thinking along the same line, an APGL 4 manual transmission oil. I can get it in small quantities (1l). The recommended Mobilgear seems only to be available in large quantities.

Thor

Thor

From my previous post:

'Checked oil levels in gearbox & saddle; both were lower than what is recommended so refering back to 'Grizzly' equivalent machine manual..BF20L who suggest ISO 60 grade oil, checked on Google for SAE equiv' .. SAE 20, so bought a litre of Engine oil SAE 15 - 40 & topped both up. Will use for a couple of weeks then drain off & replace all with new SAE 15 - 40 as no idea what the manufacturers put in originally!

Other than that transmission/gear oil would suffice, typically from Halfords (usual discl'  IIRC EP70 - 90 (ref.Rik)

George

Edited By mechman48 on 18/09/2013 10:03:48

I have found that the boring of deep holes on the WM16 to be an uncomfortabe task particularly as I suffer from bad cramps in my fingers. A slow two handed controlled feed with that little grey fine feed knob is not an enjoyable task.

Decided today that I would make the job easier by knocking up a very basic prototype aid in the form of a larger hand wheel to fit over the millers knob.

Hub is MDF bored out for a nice gripping fit on the knob and the ally tube handles are a tight push fit in their holes with added superglue.

If this turned out OK - and it has - I had intended remaking it with an ally hub, a proper job, but as this works OK I'll wait until it falls apart (I have a feeling it won't.

Rik

Hi Rik,

nice handwheel, using the fine feed knob to move the quill down is not easy on my old fingers either. I usually use the coarse feed handles though.

Thor

On my X2, which has a smilar arrangement, I find that the length of the main capstan arms is so great, that I can adjust the head position to the limits of my DRO, however. it is very easy to overshoot.

I had planned to put a handle on the fine feed knob, but I might copy your design instead.

Neil

Can I ask a question to all you guys with a WM-16 milling machine. Have any of you had to disassemble the machine to enable it to be moved and manhandled on to a bench/stand, and how practical is this?

Thanks.

Ian

Hi Ian,

when I got my milling machine - a slightly larger version than the WM16 - I removed the head from the column.The rest of the machine could then be moved using a sack trolley/truck. The head on my milling machine is around 30kg, so be careful. We were 2 when I hoisted my milling machine onto its stand. David White has a review of my milling machine, he also describes how he disassembled (and assembled) it. He removed both the table and the column, since I hoisted mine onto the stand I didn't do that. I would suggest you don't do the lifting alone, hoisting with a chain hoist or similar can be done alone, but two persons is better/safer.

Regards

Thor.

Edited By Thor on 23/09/2013 18:21:40

When I had my WM16 delivered my next door builder neighbour and his burly labourer popped it up on to its stand (an old kitchen cupboard) with the greatest of ease.

Not so the WM 250V-F lathe though, that took three blokes.

Rik

I hoisted my mill onto the stand using an engine hoist & a 1 ton sling wrapped around the head, butted up against the column, with everything locked up tight, & a little help from Finance director (SWMBO). The same method applied to the WM250.

no damage done whatsoever.

George

Edited By mechman48 on 23/09/2013 19:00:25

I am planning on buying a rotary table at the Leamington Spa show this week. Only thing that puzzles me is that there is a 2MT in the centre of these types of table. What would I fit in there? All of the rotary tables I have used in the past have had a simple parallel bore for clocking up purposes.>>

WARCO have cautioned me not to try to use anything bigger than their 110mm dia. HV4 on my WM16 mill (I'll find out exactly why at the show). What I'd really like though in order to take advantage of the table width is a low profile 8" dia. job but have not seen anything like that advertised any where - it might be prohibitably expensive but I can dream can't I?>>

Rik>>

Rik,

I use a Vertex HV6 on my WM-16, and I'm glad I didn't go for anything smaller. The table has a 2MT in the centre, and it's ideal for taking a chuck adapter. The ability to unscrew the chuck from the lathe, complete with job, and screw it to the rotary table, and then back again, is a facility I use over and over again.

Even with the chuck mounted on the rotary table,+ job, there's usually plenty of clearance from the cutter.

Phil

~~I have almost completed the installation of the economy WARCO DRO scales on my WM16 mill and would like to point out that not all jobs like this are as simple as one might think.

First and (I wasn't thinking) it did not occur to me that the scale bars need to be parallel to the top of the table to get the best accuracy. OK, it seems obvious now but Michael the fitter at WARCO made the penny drop for me. Using a clock from the table sorted that problem out and the X scale was fitted without to much trouble.

Y scale was a b**tard. First thing identified was that the scale was about 6mm to long. Had read that this can be got round by hack sawing to length. OK, so here goes with a new ,expensive German bi-metal blade I went for it. Half way through the very tough scale it decided to work harden itself and I had to resort to an ALDI version of a dremmel fitted with an elastic wheel to finish the cut.

Next, marked out the holes for the scale on the machine casting for the 6mm fixing screws and using a 3mm pilot drill attacked the casting. Zilch........all I did was remove the paint! The casting, front and rear was as diamond ----- "chilled" is not sufficient to describe how hard it was. An hour or so later using the ALDI dremmel thing loaded with a 3mm diamond burr I managed to plunge in to approx 4mm deep and this was enough to allow the tapping drill to get a bite and find the soft stuff - phew!

Fitted the scale and found the supplied bracket for the readout sensor was unusable. Spent the next two hours making and offering up an ally fixing bracket to replace it. Finally got it right and it was time to drill the third and final hole in the casting to fix it. Would you believe it? The bl**dy casting was chilled again! More diamond grinding and eventually drilled and tapped for the fixing screw.

Last job was to fix the XY remote display to the top of the 'lecrix box and connect the USB cables to the scale sensors.

Hefty slap to the forehead as I realised that the USB plug in the X reader was going to foul on the base casting and damage either the cable or the reader.

In order to overcome this prob I will have to use a 90 degree USB thingy which I have just ordered from a UK Ebay website only to be informed that it will take up to 10 days to be delivered from somewhere in the Orient.

Having been retired now for two years I had hoped that "stress" would be something that yuppies suffered from - looks like I was wrong.

Rik

Was unable to edit the previous post but must add that in failing to drill the casting at the rear I attempted to use a carbide tipped drill which at high speed, bent at 90 degrees and ripped the rubber ways protector to shreds - some cheap rubber car mats from the pound shop might sort it OK.

Decided to make a tailstock fitting to attach a digital tyre depth gauge to my tailstock, to get a better reading for depth drilling, a lot of members will have something similar no doubt. Used some ally from my scrapbinium box, some neodiminiminum...? .... 'earth' magnets & some epoxy resin. It gave me a chance to use my rotab' for the first time since I got it a year ago so it was a learning curve as well as making something from my 'toduit' list.

The only addition to the digi gauge was to fabricate a small steel plate on the back of the gauge at the front end which had 4 small magnets epoxy glued on & 6 smaller stacked magnets at the rear end (2 stacks 3mm x 1mm) this was then just placed onto the tailstock. I glued a 6 x 1 magnet onto the back of the clamp which when attracted to a small magnet I'd fitted to the stem of the gauge sometime earlier gave an extra strong magnetic pull.

One less item on the list...now what's next?

Cheers

George

Edited By mechman48 on 29/10/2013 20:00:42

Edited By mechman48 on 29/10/2013 20:26:31

Novel way of using a depth gauge George, let us know how you get on with it.
I have made an improvement to your bed stop design. The "piggy backed" piece of ally is secured by 2x 5mm capheads.  I can now use a DTI without removing the original threaded stop.

Edited By Rik Shaw on 30/10/2013 16:14:26

Edited By Rik Shaw on 30/10/2013 16:15:07

I like it, thanks for the update, much prefer to see nice large digi' numbers though what with my eyes and all, nice mod never the less, will keep in the memory bank... memory bank ! ... where's that, & what interest rate are they paying?... ho hum, retiree's humour .

George

Hi Rik,

I like your "piggy backed" bed stop solution, it's on my "to do" list.

Thor

~~I had to return my new QCTP to WARCO as the locating bore had been machined oversize.

Today I have received a replacement from them and the bore is now the correct size although I had not expected they would send me out someone else's QCTP which bears obvious signs of use i.e. deep scratches and various dings. The thing that bothers me most though is that when locking the post into position - and I mean TIGHTLY - I can still grasp the block with both hands and turn it anti-clockwise albeit with difficulty.

I had not tried the hands turning test with the original block but I do know that when I tried cutting a knurl some weeks ago by plunging in with the cross slide (ally was the material) the knurling tool pushed of because the block was rotating anti-clockwise.

I would mention that it is not a case of the threaded hole in the clamping handle bottoming out on the top slide thread - it has plenty of spare threads. Also, I have blued up the base of the QCTP block and rotated it on the top slide - it shows that it is mating up OK

Anyway, I can always revert to using the standard tool post with its spring loaded locking pin to do future knurling but it still bothers me that the QCTP can rotate in this way. Your comments would be most welcome of course.

Rik