dore westbury mk2

so some people know ive been after a mill for a while , ive been offered a dore westbury mk2 , and whilst i know it has its downfalls (round column) its cheap at £175, or should i wait and purchase one of these.....

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or i have been watching these also

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the xj12 from amadeal is a lot cheaper plus great customer support. the 'same' from warco isnt the same - it has different electronics and a less powerful motor. The electronlcs in the clarke jobby are notoriously prone to failure. I state these things from first hand experiance rather than armchair observations!

BUY THE MILL AND SELL IT TO ME FOR TWICE THE PRICE

I have a Mk1 dore westbury and also had a mill similar to the one in your first link. I know which one I prefer by a rather large margin.

Can't see why a round column should be a problem. It isn't a 5hp+ Cincinnati. I did think that the dia was too small when I bought it but it gets round that by the other parts weighing rather a lot. The 2 morse spindle nose is a bit of a limitation best handled with 2 morse collets when max rigidity is required but there are other bits and pieces about that can be fitted.

I've recently noticed that the bearings on mine are self lubricating - looks like it's time to put some oil in the gears on top.

If I had a bit more space I would buy one of these - subject to them being as good as they were some time ago

John

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The Dore Westbury is very cheap at £175! snap his arm off. I know because I just paid a lot more than that for a Mk1. It's a lovely little machine!

whilst i would love new machine im very fond of old technology, ie the steel being better and it has more character about it

also concerned that the xj is a metric machine and everything else i have is imperial including measuring equipment.

they can order an imperial version but it will take 4 months to arrive , i think for the work i need it to carry out the dore westbury will be fine , even if it needs a light rebuild, but there is always doubt in your mind if you are buying the right model.

Grab the Dore Westbury, if you don't like it you will easily get your money back. Then you can take your time looking at other machines while using the D-W.

I have never come across any one that is unhappy with them Mark other than the person I bought mine off. The slides were too loose, the vice inadequate and end milling with a dull slot drill wont give a decent finish. I suspect he thought I was a mug buying it but chucked in a home made rotary table and the little DW dividing head.

My only beef with it is no means to finely adjust the spindle alignment to the bed. I reckon I have got it to within a few tenths of a thou by knocking up a screw jack to adjust it. The table has been face milled though which means it isn't precisely flat, very close though. If it was out the other way I would shim up the column.

The one similar to your first link came of a similar person. Same problems only more difficult to set up and in need of a bit of titivation in places.

Thought I'd add that he didn't like the dividing head because he thought it should be able to do every possible division.

John

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Edited By Ajohnw on 26/02/2016 22:15:21

Edited By Ajohnw on 26/02/2016 22:16:12

i would never part with my Mark 1 Dore Westbury. £175 sounds an excellent bargain!

cheers,

julian

I have the mk2 that I made from the kit, works very well if you do not try to think it is a bridgeport.

Fitted a poly vee belt in place of the plastic drive and that makes a vast difference. Snap it up at that price, try it and if you are not satisfied sell it for at least double what you paid with no trouble.

I'd buy the DW in a heartbeat at that price.

Mine has aluminium pulleys and no drive slip problems so far.

I wonder if anyone has ever put the epicyclic gear in. To be honest I have wondered why it is there.

Personally if reasonably well made I think they are ideal for people who lack space like I do. Can't say that I have ever pushed it hard but there is more than enough power there to feed a 1/2 cutter 1/2 deep with a moderate feed rate. Too fast a feed and vibration may be a problem. It's not variable speed either which I personally think is a big plus on a miller. It's pretty easy to change speed and torque at the cutter does what it should as the speed is changed. I'm going to try a 100mm face cutter on it at some point. I'm uming and arring about the best way to mount it. It has lots of points and I don't expect to be able to take deep cuts with it but don't see as that matters really.

I've been wondering if the cheap 12v geared chinese motors could be used for a power feed on it. I'd guess they quote stall torque though.

John

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Like Ian I found the design belt system the weak point of the machine, IMO conversion to Vee belt would be a big improvement when milling or drilling above 1/4".

I only built the head which was installed in the overarm sockets of an old Taylor Horizontal only mill, mine had an MT3 spindle and I did run the geared head but only to check it ran OK, a bit noisy but valuable speeds for some work.

Emgee

I built the epi-cyclic gearing into mine when I made the Mk 2 version about 25 years ago. It hasn't had a lot of use admittedly, but I was able to use that to easily drill 20 mm diameter holes in steel, with drip feed coolant. There was no fuss or distress with two nice curls of swarf coming out of the holes; even on break through there was no snatching or other such trouble

The job was quite impossible to fit on the lathe, the only other source of a slow enough spindle speed in my workshop. So I for one had cause to be grateful I bothered to include it.

It would be equally useful in cutting large diameter holes with hole saws where the load has to be constant on a slow speed rotation

Regards

Brian

My guess was MT2 drills Brian but hadn't tried it. Also I suspect old style very low speed fly cutting flat surfaces on cast iron especially with larger diameters cutters. It would probably sweep a 5" rad at least with ease. I've seen some indication that relatively low cutting speeds can help shapers give a pretty good finish.

I wonder how many other millers allow items bigger than the table to be machined at least in part.

John

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Hello John,

You are of course quite right, that drill has a 2 MT shank. The D-W mill itself has a 3 MT socket, I specified the largest on offer when I bought the kit and I am still using round belts, albeit the plastic versions you can join with a hot strip of polished hacksaw blade. The motor is an old Brook Crompton with ball bearing spindle I picked up in a farm sale for £2----it had a broken cast iron foot having been dropped so it had never been used.

My wife thought I was mad at the time, but I said wait and see! A fabricated foot was welded up in steel salvaged from a leaking oil storage tank and it has done sterling service even since

Fly cutting as you observed is good at those low speeds, but with a light feed only, it is not difficult to stall the cutter if you get impatient.

Brian

I think mine was built from plans. The table just has 2 hefty T slots down each side so I need plates to mount some things on it. It's fitted with an early 1/2hp huge Brook's. My Peatol with a 1/4hp motor would cut through 3/8" mild steel plate with a 3/8 end mill on it easily. Also handle a woodruff cutter for 1/8 thick keys to full depth. I have used that on the miller.

When I bought it the motor was mounted on the rear of a plate at the back but being short of space that way I moved it to the front side and changed the belt length. It's offset to one side though making adjusting the angle of the head awkward. My jack for that is a bit of all thread with a slot in the end to suite the motor plate. I could do with something more flexible - maybe a longer length of all thread at an angle rather than vertical with spherical rod ends at each end but ideally it needs something better than that to allow full head movement.

There's a screw jack inside the column for raising and lowering the head - The handle is on the wrongs side for me as it just clears the bench. That drives the jack via bevel gears. It would be hanging over the end of the bench if it was on the other side.

He ( probably) also made a rotary table and a dividing head. Both were well made which encouraged me to buy the miller. The rotary table casting had distorted a bit so the worm couldn't be taken totally out of mesh. It just about caught, thou's. When I relieved the casting a little it cracked. Still usable but an interesting factor concerning the quality of the castings from a certain supplier.

One "problem" with them is the draw bar, on mine anyway which is a 1/4 whit. When I buy fittings I buy the largest draw bar size and and some all thread to match. Drill and tap that and loctite it into the fitting.

It has one mistake that I am aware of. The drill wondered a little when the spindle was drilled for the draw bar. I should relieve it a bit at the socket end really but it doesn't really cause any problems. I'd guess the draw bar flexes a touch.

John

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I'd go for the Warco Major as suggested near the top, it's also available to buy under different names too.

Michael W

I think it gives circa 1 3/8" extra travel across the table compared with the DW so a bigger version of the major would be better really - if they are still available. Not much extra really but probably brings it into the range of a 6" rotary table in their usual form, maybe bigger. My rotary table is 110mm. I suspect a 5" could be fitted to it - depends on fixing holes. 6" might be tricky as they usually come.

John

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I owned a Mark1 and enjoyed using it,the drawback with it is repositioning the head after raising it.I have an SX3 and bought a laser centre finder for it ,if I had a DW now I would buy the laser centre finder and one would not have to lower the head to centre on a punch mark.For that money go for it.If replaced by another mill it will make an excellent bench drill.I wish I had kept mine for this purpose.

Frank