Maybe some people can add some notes about Tom's lathe

Ok Tom has chosen a lathe. What I would like to add is the next question is where to buy it or similar from. Versions vary

This one for instance and others in similar ranges have a screw cutting indicator - even on the metric version or so the page suggests. I'd check.

**LINK**

It also has a conventional AC motor and inverter fitted as supplied. I" bore too.

For some reason screw cutting indicators are often lacking on this general range of machines especially on metric ones. Odd as it can be done and saves reversing the lathe at the end of each screw cutting cut. Some come with 2 gears to fit to the indicator to allow more pitches to be cut like this.

Is the axminster one better or this one better than that. Pass. The only way to find out is to use one.

No more comments from me. I'm away for a while.

John

-

Edited By John W1 on 26/10/2015 10:35:41

I'm in no position to advise on what lathe to buy, but just pointing out something I don't think anyone has mentioned yet, but I really can't be bothered to plough through all the previous thread to find out.

I've no idea where Tom lives, but why not try and visit whoever is selling a similar style of lathe to that which he now seeks.

i.e. Tom lives near Leicester, then personally visit ARC Eurotrade, Warco if you live in Surrey, Axminster if you live near there etc.

If there is no wild rush to purchase, how about waiting until January and visiting the London Model Engineering Exhibition; That way Tom can directly compare some of the various offerings.

If Tom lets us know roughly where he lives, perhaps some friendly local will invite him over for a cup of tea and a demo of their similar machine.

I'll start it off, I'm in Sheffield but can only offer a play with an old, quite worn Myford, which probably won't help much; I can offer a wide variety of tea and coffee though

Tom,

I looked at the Axminster SC4 last year but finally plumped for a Warco WM250V. The Axminster looks to be a good machine, what put me off is they use a brushless DC motor/controller combination whereas Warco use a conventional 3 phase motor and inverter. If the brushless motor goes phut, it is considerably more expensive to replace than the conventional motor. Also Warco is close to me and I have other machines from them with which I have been very happy, one being an 11 year old GH1330 lathe still going strong and no major problems over that time.

Hello Gents ...

First off, I'm actually a bit annoyed as I sit here trying to remember in detail what I took some time to write in response to your posts, which was not a short piece of text, but which now has completely disappeared, only a few moments ago after I clicked the "post" button, and immediately after that the "bookmark" button. Drat, the auto-save on the forum seems either to be unavailable, switched off, ineffectual, or not implemented. I'm usually careful about these things, so it's my fault, and I'll be more "switched on" to this in future.

Anyway, to begin again ... I live in Prestwick, Ayrshire, where to the best of my knowledge, outside Glasgow, there are no clubs for hobbyist mechanical engineering. As I said before, however, I do have my two good friends who are mechanical engineering ... dare I say, experts! I have however not fully 'tapped' into them (excuse the pun)!

John W1: You've thrown a spanner in the works, because now, due to the link you provided, I'm very interested indeed in the Warco WM250V lathe. It fits very well with the spec that I realistically hold as desireable, and it looks just the ticket. I'll be delving into studying this lathe with great enthusiasm. Thank you very much for this, I really appreciate the guidance.

peak4: That's good advice where you suggest that I visit the London Model Engineering Exhibition. I would for certain if I could, but unfortunately, London is not a day-trip away, and anyway, any money I have must go into other things, as is being discussed here. If a chance does come up to go to that exhibition in an affordable way, then without doubt, I'd go. I'll speak to my pals here and see what they're doing, or not doing about that event. Thanks also for your kind invite for a cuppa, I do appreciate that. If you're ever in my neck of the woods, then right back at you, you'd be welcome any time for a cuppa, some home baking, and a long chat. The same invite is extended here to all you guys.

Graeme W: The fact that you plonked for the Warco WM250V lathe over the SC4, is something that gives me confidence as my investigation closes in on a target. Thank you for saying what you have and boosting my impression that I'm following a good path.

To the moderators: In addition to still feeling rather miffed at loosing for no apparent reason, the long post I just spent a good bit of time typing out (could that have been a forum software glitch?), I would like to ask this ...

Is it normal for threads that are closed by a moderator, to also be removed from the forum? I ask because, after looking for the original thread that I started a couple of days ago, I now cannot find it. This is unfortunate, as throughout that thread there were multiple instances of sage advice, which I intended to read over once more. Is it therefore the operational policy of this forum for closed threads to also be deleted?

Thanks again to everyone.

Sorry Tom,,

As you may see elsewhere, it turns out that the 'disruptive postings' were the well-intentioned efforts of a lad with autism to help a neighbour that went wrong. At the request of his Dad I deleted the thread - I couldn't really see a way to remove just them and keep a thread that made any sense to anyone, as most of everyone else's postings referred to (and quoted) the 'Jim B' postings... and removing them made a nonsense of the little that was left...

Sorry for the confusion this caused, but at least it will only confuse once - keeping the thread would have kept confusing people! Unfortunately when something like this happens there's no way of 'winning', we just have to count our losses and move one.

I don't know what caused the loss of your threads, but if done just before the above post, it wasn't the result of any moderatorial actions - it looks like you 'left' the page by clicking bookmark before it had time to save your message.

Anyway, my sincere apologies that your thread got caught in the cross-fire of this unfortunate episode.

Thanks for sticking with us.

Neil

Tom Findlay:

Have you seen the review of the WM250V on:

http://journeymans-workshop.uk

Incidentally, it is interesting that machines in this market sector are sold without a screwcutting gearbox. I don't remember how prominently screwcutting figured in your plans and I didn't read the whole review to see how easy it is to change gears.

Neil

I think that what Tom was referring to was not posts that had been deleted, but a post he created not appearing (at all).

I have lost the text of replies I have typed when the 'add posting' button does not do what it should. There does not seem to be any particular cause but I'm sure I am not the only one it happens to.

One way to prevent it is to create the text of the reply in another programme and copy and paste into the editing box, if it goes wrong at least one still has the text. That's fine in theory but its a lot more faffing about and by the time a reply is submitted and visible, a reply from another person might be slotted in resulting in my reply making less sense.

Ian P

.

I suffered a slight variation on that theme, last night;

Typed my comments and hit the 'Add Posting' button, only to receive a login prompt !

Fortunately, when I hit the 'Back' arrow, my draft was still there; so I could select and copy it into a new post after logging-in.

Logically: I don't think this behaviour "should" have been possible, because if I wasn't logged-in I should not have had access to the 'compose' box anyway.

MichaelG.

I tend to write up any text into a 'Word' document; then if I needed to refer to another webpage, to put a link in etc; which invariably deletes the text in the 'reply' box I simply copy & paste back from word doc.

George.

Tom

I mentioned on the previous thread that I recently upgraded my Warco 180 to a Warco 250. There was nothing wrong with the WM 180 and indeed it served me very well, but the time came when I wanted something bigger.

I did look at the Sieg equivalent, but for me the Warco 250 was a better option because it included a power cross feed and lots of accessories. I didn’t consider second hand as I don’t have the skill set to judge and wanted the support of a retailer. Anyway, if you get the 250 you might be interested in my recent YouTube post – it shows how I got the lathe off the floor and onto the stand (The usual disclaimers apply - this worked for me but isn’t’ necessarily best practice!)

David

Edited By David Cambridge on 29/10/2015 12:44:16

Can we stick to Tom's lathe in this thread please (as per the subtitle...)

Issues of intermittent posting errors can be appended to a relevant thread or a new one started, but are usually caused by clicking another link before the page reloads.

Neil

Importers often get their lathes in batches, or a container full or something. So sometimes you get ready to buy xxx and find they are not getting any due in for some months, or they have just sold the last of the batch coming next month and won't order more for xxxx weeks. Some only display what they have in stock, Some fudge it and only tell you after you have handed over the money. Usual 'caveat emptor'.

I suggest making a big spreadsheet of all ones you find and note which accessories are included, or missing, and costs if not included. As you zero in contact the sellers to see if unlisted items are in fact included. Some vendors don't do themselves any favours perhaps if they are a bit internet shy by not mentioning parts that come as standard with most of the imports.

Another problem with internet buying is the photos are often all the same stock views but not the detail you want. We may be able to help here if it is a model someone on here has.

You all have been busy again, thank you ...

Neil: No worries, I understand, and I won't be gotten rid of that easily! Thank you for the explanation.

ega: No, I haven't seen that particular review,, but on first look at that website, the documented experiences around the WM250V seem very comprehensive. I'll take an in-depth peep, shortly. My friends up here, the two experts I've been hinting at, have both now commented to me about the WM250V lathe. I feel I'm becoming nicely clued up on the basics.

Ian Philips and Michael Gilligan: Right on ... but I'm certain now, that Neil and Co as moderators are on top of this issue, whatever its source. Although from my own experienced software point of view, there should be adequately specified software command buffers in place within the executing code of the program itself, so that this kind of thing does not happen. This *can* come down to the quality of the forum software itself. I cast no sneaky hints, however.

mechman48: Me too, usually, but I don't use Word for that purpose, as it has in-built formatting which one frequently has to get rid of when pasting; depending of course on the destination for the paste action. I normally use simpler things like the "Notepad" and "Notepad++" utilities, or even my email client which has a decent spell-checker built in. Here's a trick I also occasionally use ... just before posting anything that I've typed, especially text that has taken quite some time to generate or to think about, I click within the body of the text and press Control+A on my keyboard. This selects all the text you have just typed ... then, I press Control+C, which copies all of that selected text into my copy and paste buffer. Therefore, if things do go wrong, and my original text gets lost when I carry out the next action, perhaps the posting of a message on a forum, then I'm still okay, I haven't lost all my work, because the text is still in my copy and paste buffer. Therefore, all I need to do is either, start another message, click within the body text area, and press Control+V to paste all the original text in, or, you can open up something like Notepad and do the exact same thing there, where then of course, you can save that file locally under a name of your choice, ready for future use. As I said before, I should have known better, but there you go!

David Cambridge: A helpful video, with humour, thank you. I'm getting keener and keener on the WM250V. And crucially, as I said above, my friends up here are encouraging me along that line, so I'm getting close! It seems you've got more room than me in your workshop space, but at least I've got access to the lifting power of some strong lads!

Bazyle: I take note of what you say, and it's important to pay heed to what box-shifters at every level can get up to. Thank you.

Altogether, gentlemen, I'm starting to feel it "in my water" that I should go for the WM250V lathe. I'll let you all know what happens about that. Thanks again for your interest and all your help.

Tom.

There is one other useful feature on that warco lathe - the ability to change the feed rate without messing about with change wheels. I've no idea what the range is but if done sensibly it can be very useful. Sometimes the finest feed available doesn't give the best finish and a faster feed can often be used for roughing things out anyway.

Personally I would also stress the screw cutting indicator especially if it will cope with a range of metric pitches. While these can be done by reversing the lathe at the end of a cut to get back to the start again the indicators do allow the work to be done a lot more quickly and are a lot more convenient anyway when working up to shoulders etc. It's even possible to use them for that on pitches where the lathe has to be reversed.

John

-

Tom

I have the WM250V-M bought in 2012 whilst at the Harrogate exhib' along with a WM16 mill; a RR it certainly isn't but neither is it a post war Skoda ( pre VW buy out ) & am quite satisfied with what I have asked both of them to do, you could do worse; there are a few niggles to look out for but hey what piece of equipment doesn't have any, I have done a couple of mods on mine which have proved beneficial to date which I have included in my albums if you want to look see. IMO worth the the bucks.

George.

Careful, Skoda have an engineering reputation to match RR and have made some outstanding lathes! The problem with the cars was their specification, not their engineering (they won the RAC rally 17 years running).

Fancy one of these Skoda lathes in your workshop?

Wasn't inferring their engineering products were poor quality, was likening it to the Skoda car I had... 1000cc load of rear engined ...! even after an engine rebuild it wouldn't pull up a 1-12 incline, actually had to reverse up... the shame of it !, went on a trip to the lakes one year, had to call out the AA twice in the week to get me going again... electrics!... body work was like their proverbial WW2 tanks... solid, just the engine couldn't handle what it was asked to do... power to weight ratio ?, & poor electrics ... maybe it was a Fri. teatime job... needless to say it didn't reign long in my household, much to the delight of the family... certainly can't deride Skoda's quality today , just missed out on getting a low mileage Yeti 4x4 model last year by an hour.

p.s. lathe is a tad too big for my garage

On a more down to earth level Skoda make the best revolting centres bar none.

(they won the RAC rally 17 years running).

Only because the only other thing in the same class was a welding trolly

Edited By John Stevenson on 29/10/2015 22:47:29

I wouldn't get too hung up about a screw cutting indicator - you can make on out of a bit of cardboard and a drawing pin.

Nice video David, looking forward to some more episodes for Halloween.