Warco WM14 mill, jammed drawbar

Hi All, I have a new warco wm14 mill which works fine but have just put a new boring tool holder into the machine, done some milling now can not get the thing out. The 10 mm drawbar will turn but the boring tool arbour turns with it , its loose in the MT2 shaft but does not want to undo, any help would be nice, there is nothing to hold onto at the arbour end without damaging a brand new item. any thoughts, regards David

Sometimes the threads in tooling can be rather suspect and you probably have this problem. The only solution is to grip the tool (should be able to do this without damage ) and undo the drawbar with a bit of muscle. Try running a tap down the MT end to clear any problem with the thread.

Doug

Hi David,

Off the to of my head without seeing the setup:

1. Place a ring spanner on top the draw bar and allow it to rotate against a hard stop with a soft packer so it doesn't chip the paint that comes off easily then try to get hold of the boring tool with both hands and unscrew.

2. Does the boring tool have a scalloped bottom end which could fit in between the jaws of a vice, loosley, again with soft packing but not clamped? I'm guesing you have a vice of some kind on the milling table. Lower the tool in between the vice jaws just to stop it turning, as I say not tightened and undo the draw bar.

3. If the tool has the usual 3 holes in the bottom do you have a couple of pieces of scrap bar or stock that you could put in the outer most holes, then lower the head of the mill so that these pass between the vice jaws loosely and undo the draw bar,

Ed.

Hi David

A block of wood on the table and and and slap the boring bar head down on to it to wedge the morse taper into the socket and the undo the bolt.

I suspect that the thread may be damaged.

You Can remove the head of the bolt by drilling a small hole in the centre of the bolt head and keep increasing the drill size until the head falls free

A ring spanner on the head may be needed Wired or duct taped in place or a second pair of hands to stop it spinning.

Or as suggested hold the boring head in the vice this will not unscrew the boring head from the arbor and drill it off.

Eric

Could well be you have put the 3/8 drawbar into the 10mm thread of the boring tool & jammed it. Once you've freed them off run a tap down the boring tool. I assume that with the WM14 there were two draw bars supplied, imp & metric, just ensure that you mark one or the other to identify which it is, sounds silly I know but we all do silly things at one time or another, there's been many a time I've ended up saying 'Oh sh1t'

George

+1 George. I got caught by that a long time ago. It has stuck in my mind ever since.

Roger

Thanks for all the help. I put a vice around the boring head and was able to unscrew it from the jammed drawbar, no real marks on the arbour, then found that the all new metric mill from warco had a 3/8 imperial drawbar fitted , so it all jammed up. Silly of me to think they could do that. I am now going over some threads with dies and taps cleaning them all up. The drill chuck supplied with this metric machine has a 3/8 whit, thread just to confuse me. The WM 14 Mill is great, worth the money. David

Good job David

I have metric and imperial draw-bars with my WM16 as supplied. I get a bit confused remembering which one goes with which tool and always have to check M10 and 3/8BSW are similar.

Ed.

A way to provide near permanent identification as to which drawbar is which is to drill and tap the end of the hexagon part to secure a collar on top marked with the sizes. Collar diameter needs to be a bit less than the A/F of the hexagon so as not to interfere with the spanner. Half inch or so deep sounds about right to me. I'd use light alloy and hit the letter punch really hard to get deep M and W markings then fill them with different colour paint. Red & black? Three or four letters spread round the circumference so you don't have to spin it to read it. Maybe put deep grooves between the letters and fill them with paint too. Polish the alloy so the markings really stand out.

If you can arrange your storage system so that things needing different threaded drawbars live in different places. However you will have to accept that whatever you do the gremilns will ensure that you get the wrong drawbar sometimes.

Clive.