Warco 720

Still not sure it it's one of my better moves, but I've just picked up a second hand Warco 720 - Super 7B copy/lookalike, at about 1/3 of the cost of the real thing.

Does anyone have any experience of these, or even better an owners manual? Warco can't help.

Superficially very similar to its better engineered Myford counterpart, it does sport a few differences, like a roller bearing headstock.

I'm familiar with the Myford Super 7 as I already have an ageing, rather worn, non power crossfeed model without gearbox.

It does seem reasonably made, but not a patch on a real Myford, and with a number of ill thought out features;

A rack that's either too short, or too far towards the headstock, such that the saddle will wind off the right hand end, if you move too close to the tailstock.

Headstock belt adjusting screws, which rather than having nice rounded pads on the end, are pointy grub screws which cut into the eccentrics on the shaft.

And a really odd one here, many of the fixing screws are metric, though the leadscrews are imperial. I presume this points to it being made in China/Taiwan, rather than India.

This means you find odd things like this: Where the adjusting collar fastens onto the cross-slide leadscrew, at the handle end, the thread is 14mm 26TPI, nice mix of units there.

(No it's not 9/16" or 1mm pitch, I checked  )
Now I could live with the odd thread spec, but the collar which screws onto it has been drilled 14mm clearance. i.e. it slides on, rather than screwing on, though it is nicely made; The securing grub screw in it, rather than having a soft pad to lock onto the thread, bears straight onto the thread on the leascrew, chewing it up nicely, but not securing anything as it's a sliding fit, rather than a threaded one.

I guess I need to turn up a 14mm 26TPI collar nut on the real Myford; trouble is that's in Sheffield and the Warco's in Buxton. Ho Hum.

Does anyone know what other little surprises might be in store for me?

Edited By peak4 on 15/09/2016 01:56:12

Edited By peak4 on 15/09/2016 01:57:00

I believe I read somewhere that this one was Taiwanese and one of the better clones.

Pitches on lead screws simply need to be plugged into the same maths as any other to yield thread or feed pitches.

Fastener threads you don't like can be changed with inserts if you're desperate.

HPC Gears sell racks by length, replace it.

Everything you're highlighting is an easy fix and the machine will be good once done, if I could give you one piece of advice it would be fit a decent DRO and transform your life

- Nick

Thanks Nick, I was struggling to find any info on where it was made,

Yes I appreciate that the bits I mentioned are an easy fix, if that's all that's wrong from a design point of view, I'll be well pleased. It just seems odd that someone who uses machine tools, to make machine tools, does a trick like cutting a thread on a shaft, then having a plain bored collar to fit over it and locking onto the aforementioned thread tops with a grub screw.

Cheers for the tip about HPC gears, but I suspect that the current one will fit if I move it a couple of inches to the right. As far as fastener threads go, if it's threaded and stays fastened, that's good enough for me; besides which, metric threads are cheaper anyway.

Leadscrew pitches shouldn't be a problem as it's the same as an imperial Myford, and came with a gearbox fitted. I just need a couple of John Stevenson's gears for metric threads, or I could learn to make them myself; I picked up an dividing/indexing head off the same vendor.

As regards the DRO, also from the lathe vendor, I have a 2 axis one sitting in a box waiting to be fitted some time after I get the new house painted.

Fit the DRO as soon as you start using the lathe, it will change your life

- Nick

My life will be changed for me if I don't get the stuff done on the new house first.

p.s. it came with a nice new  Newton Tesla control + motor package too.

Edited By peak4 on 17/09/2016 01:22:17