Warco Mini lathe

Evening all, I'd like to start by letting everyone know I'm brand new to metalwork and require some advice on my mini lathe.

I took delivery of a new mini lathe from warco this weekend and have noticed something that doesn't feel quite right. When I move the carriage up and down the ways I've got a bit of a tight spot about 100mm away from the chuck. It's not like it completely binds up but I can instantly notice it and have to apply more strength to turn the hand wheel.

I've began to disassemble the lathe anyway to remove the shipping grease. I've removed the leadscrew and the apron and it feels about the same when I move the saddle by hand over that area.

Any thoughts and advice would be great.

Suggest you try running the saddle as far towards the tailstock as possible and see if it repeats.

If there's a single tight spot it suggests a fault in the bedways grinding, or a problem with the rack or its fixing..

If it repeats, the pinion engaging the rack probably has a concentricity issue. This happened on my Warco after starting feed on a locked saddle - the pinion shaft bent before I could stop it. It ran tight every 3 turns of the handwheel. Eventually I found the problem and cured it completely with a crowbar, but in a brand-new machine it would have to be a warranty issue.

Warranty issue... contact Warco.

George.

Good luck with that now you have pulled the machine apart, may just have needed a slight adjustment of the gib strips that hold the carrage to the bed.

Edited By JasonB on 16/07/2018 20:21:17

Thanks for the reply's everyone.

MickB1, It moves nice and easy everywhere besides what one spot sadly.

JasonB, Access is extremely limited on the front saddle plate without taking off the apron so I don't see any other way of adjusting it without some disassemble. It is a well documented process for example Frank hoose has a series called "Adjusting the saddle plates" on youtube.

My gut tells me it's a bed grinding issue, as MickB1 suggested, so I'll get in touch with Warco tomorrow.

Hi Jack which model is your Warco mini lathe..?

Might just be a matter of running a dead smooth flat file or a fine slipstone over the bed ways on all surfaces to knock down any burrs etc?

It's a v-flat bed and it's very unlikely to be an issue with the top surface.

I would adjust the gib strips that work under the front and rear surfaces of the bed as Jason suggests.

These should not be super tight, under normal turning forces they take virtually no load.

If the tight spot is less than the length of the strips (about 90mm from memory) I would expect adjustment to get rid of it, as it's probably exacerbated by one adjuster of the gib strip being too tight.

The check for a problem would be measuring from the top of the bed to the bearing surface underneath, front and back.

Neil

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 17/07/2018 11:19:24

Yeah I agree with Jason here. I have a very similar lathe and they are perfectly capable of making good work, but you do have to fight the fit/finish a lot of the time. I have a similar issue and believe the gib strips need adjusting as well.

But do remember it's brand new, so if you can't get it sorted soon, do contact Warco quickly. There is no need to pay for something you're not happy with.

If you do keep it, something I'd recommend doing is replacing most of the adjustment screws and nobs with something that wears a bit better. There may be a few small parts like these that you find are easier to just re-make and make better yourself than constantly fight with / wear out in no time - It's definitely worth the effort further down the road, makes the whole process a lot more enjoyable.

Remember the class of lathe you are dealing with! A slight bed tightness will not be a major issue (unless you physically cant turn the leadscrew by hand at that point) and is easily fixed as pointed out above. There are various blogs that set out how to do this, depending on how serious the issue.

The first thing you should in any case is remove the apron and put a backplate on it to prevent swarf getting in, because if you don't, the first time you use the lathe, swarf will jam the apron gears and you will probably need to remove the apron to clear it anyway. Setting the carriage gibs on this type of lathe is a major PITA (you do in fact have to unbolt the apron and shift it out of the way).

Also, to avoid future frustration, I suggest you also check the tailstock taper and horizontal/ vertical alignment thereof.

To make you feel better, I purchased one of these ubiquitous CMLs from another supplier and here is a list of the fixes required before deemed fit for use:

• Burr on saddle causing rocking needed to be lapped and removed.
• Leadscrew mounted at an angle causing tightness at end of travel, needed holes in one of the blocks elongated to be set to run true.
• Tailstock taper not fully cut, therefore not holding taper tooling securely (how it passed inspection was probably by jamming the test taper in and wiggling it about until it gave the desired reading!). Used a MT2 reamer to sort, but resetting the alignment was quite tricky.
• Cross slide nut way too tight, could not back off with grubscrew, eventually found the nut was too deep and had to file a few thou off the top.
• The speed changing yoke unscrewed itself very quickly, or so I thought, but when I dismantled the headstock I found that they hadn't even bothered to put the grubscrew in - it had been working on friction!
• Motor not mounted correctly to vertical or horizontal axis of the headstock shaft (would lead to premature belt failure).
• Slight tightness in bed in the centre section as per, but will see how bad this is after a year, or when I get around to making some taper gibs for the saddle, whichever is the sooner!

But apart from all that, the lathe was OK! So if your only issue is a slight tightness in the bed, you are doing well!

Be interesting to know what the error rate really is on these Lathes. Mostly they seem to be fit and finish failures rather than horrendous flaws but some people, like Martin, find several issues while others find none. Two faults on mine; the tail-stock end leadscrew bracket was slightly low (I didn't notice for ages), and the hole for the HI/LO gear change detent was too shallow. After breaking the headstock gears (entirely my fault) I had the whole lathe apart and didn't find anything nasty.

I'm guessing that 10% are excellent, 10% are dogs, and most are somewhere in between. But as we don't know how many are sold, or how many people experience problems, it's a mystery. The number of rejects can't be outrageously high because the trade supports several suppliers in the UK. Most purchasers must be getting value for money.

Dave

I think there is also something to be said about the demands of the user... Mine is a basic basic machine but I was doing very basic operations with it. Just using a 3 jaw and only holding the work once - never needed to remount it. I've never turned between centers either. And the work I was making definitely required a lathe but the accuracy was never that critical for me. I imagine there are a lot of other users out there like me who by similar machines with very little knowledge of them and get by, just because they don't demand much of them. For that reason I guess they serve their purpose well. And of course, they can be tuned in really well if you're committed to the cause!

Another thing to check is the gear rack that the apron handwheel gear meshes with - I have seen one that wasn't seated properly and caused some binding .If it does end up being a bit tight because of a bed grind issue - provided the top surfaces are not stepped ( if the grind on theses surfaces looks nice and uniform they are most likely ok ) it could just be a burr on the underside ( sear ) where the gib strips run so i light hit with a small oilstone will sort that out . Remember a bed will wear the most ( usually ) in that first few hunded millimeters from the chuck as this is were most lathes cop most of thier use so it isn't the end of the world - provided the lathe is machining round and parallel i wouldn't have a breakdown over it .

A lesson to be learned for the newcommer - before you go pulling a machine apart to " clean it " wipe the rust proof gunk of the sliding surfaces like the bed or the dovetails on the mill then a bit of oil on them for lube . Go over the machine looking for any obvious faults and test its operation , it is also worth checking some basic adjustments like the gibs and adjust as needed - any faults like tight / loose spots will show up . At least then if the machine is a lemon you should nave no issues getting it replaced by the supplier - once you start ripping it to pieces you run the risk of voiding the warranty .

Jack,

If you intend to keep the machine, check if this stiffness 'repeats' itself after specific distances. If so, then follow some of the advice above.

Else, if the problem is isolated to that spot, then look at that area under the bed, where the rack attaches to the front of the bed. See this link, picture 30 shows it being removed. See if there is any swarf present behind the rack in this area, and or any high spot/burr in the bed casting in this area Pictures 84 - 91 and deal with it accordingly.

Ketan at ARC.

Edit: Just noticed that XD 351 said similar.

Edited By Ketan Swali on 17/07/2018 15:06:58

I read and watched just about everything I could find on the minilathe before buying one. It did leave me thinking that it was going to be a case of would I be lucky and get a good machine or not. I had seen everything from Very good, Good, Excellent "with some extra work and tuning", OK and Bad down to Rubbish "dont buy one" .

Fortunately it looks as if I was lucky as the lathe seems to have been well set up at the factory. The only things I have done so far (fingers crossed) is centre the tail stock and adjust the rack to make the carriage handwheel smoother.

Ron

The numbers are big. I'd guess more mini lathes sold than any other design, also bought largely by beginners both of which can be expected to mean a lot of 'issues' being raised. The first 50 years of Super 7 and ML7 lathes used about 160,000 serial numbers. I suspect vastly more than 3,200 mini lathes are sold each year across all markets. I doubt the number of 'dogs' is anywhere near 10%.

Also there are several manufacturers, each with different approaches to QC.

This is further complicated by multiple importers who request different specs, some of whom will reject sub-standard machines that others may accept.

Add into that some machines failing QC at the factory may be bought up by third parties be sold after varying degrees of remediation.

Finally, there is ongoing improvement by the better factories. Not just in spec, my late 90s mini-lathe had a slight but measurable error in the cross-slide alignment, which I eventually corrected once my skills were sufficient. This issue was recognised in a few places at the time with suggestions of a 'dodgy batch', it certainly doesn't seem to have recurred in the 2000s.

All of the above.

I think the last point is particularly strong.