Warco lathe mill attachment

Hi All,

Thinking of adding a milling head attachment to my Warco WM250V, does anyone have any experience with this machinery who could offer advice and opinions please?

I won't be machining anything heavy duty and I use aluminium and acetal mostly with the occasional steel piece here and there. Granted a stand alone would be better but I'm restricted with space presently. Having said that if you have suggestions for a better alternative I'd be interested to hear it.

Thanks in advance your views are always valued and greatly appreciated.

Edited By Bevel on 09/09/2019 09:43:30

Edited By Bevel on 09/09/2019 09:48:34

That looks VERY much like my WM14 milling machine from Warco, but just without the table. How much is it out of interest?

The biggest problem with one on a WM250 is that you don't really have any fine feed along the length of the lathe, these work better where there is a handwheel with fine callibrated dial on the end of the leadscrew. Trying to use the carrage handle will not be very exact moth in terms of knowing how far you have moved the work and being able to apply a steady feed rate or stop at a set point.

Right I see what you mean, never really thought about that so thx.

They are currently running for just over £600. According to their ad they are the WM14 but obviously without the table.

Do you think the extra bunts is worth it?

Check that your lathe has the mill attachment on the back of the bed. I remember adverts for that type of lathe which came with or without the mill attachment, and there was a warning that the plain lathe could not be retrofitted with the mill.

 If space is at an absolute premium, then there is no point in trying to point you in the direction of a separate mill.

Edited By old mart on 09/09/2019 19:54:51

All of the WM250V lathes have the attachment points for the mill head, they also have the deeper backsplash to allow fitting without it fouling as it would on the older WM250 machines. One thing to note is that if you have fitted a glass DRO scale on the Z axis, the mill attachment will not fit.

I had a mill head for my 250V but got rid as it was of limited use and the lathe is destined for a CNC conversion.

Personally I would not go down this route and would make/find space for a separate milling machine.

Gray

I have a Warco 280 with the milling head attached, it has Warco glass scale DRO on all axes.

This arrangement is the only way I could fit it in my work shop, but it does make it awkward to use at times.

If you can, you will be much better off to have them as separate machines.

Bert

I've had a Warco WM250V for over 4 years.

For milling, I use a Myford double-swivel vertical slide that I retained from the Speed 10 I had previously. I want to buy a mill and will probably do so eventually, but my plans for this keep getting put back because I'm always finding that I actually can do what's required in the vertical slide. In that situation, the carriage handwheel becomes analogous to the knee in a vertical mill, and although the graduations are 0,25mm or approx 10 thou, you can still be accurate enough to a couple of thou if you use care.

It's very easy to set the slide square to the spindle, by locating the top face of the vice against two chuck jaws before tightening the baseplate down to the crossslide t-slots. I had to modify the Warco adaptor plate to suit the Myford vertical slide, but that wasn't difficult.

I've always questioned the rigidity of column milling attachments. I know my arrangement doesn't permit of greedy cuts in strong materials, but I think it may be better than a column attachment - and it's certainly cheaper.

In the pic, I'm boring a radius in a reinforcing segment for a ring gear. It's a dodgy-looking operation but it worked so long as I kept each cut down to 25 thou or so:-

Bevel, is it not possible to find a bit of space for a seperate mill, for another £93 you could consider the Sieg SX2P from ARC..its R8 - 500 watt brushless and I have found it to be an excellent small mill. I have mine on a 30" x 15" bench so it doesnt need too much space....just a thought.

The general comment on these additions is that they are disappointing - they lack sufficient rigidity ... However the reason I didn't buy one, and instead opted to get the separate version with base, is that the effective x space on the combination machine is very small - that little tee-slot table on the cross slide is tiny compared to a typical mill table, (and the reconfiguration to use it is annoying). Thus the effective workholding envelope is, to my mind, insufficient to be worth the effort - however if you only intend to occasionally work on small items this may not be such an issue for you.

I think there are better ways to spend £615

Guys as expected plenty of invaluable advice. Points taken from each and every one with thanks.

Stand alone it is then and I'll be sure to check out the SIEG suggested by Ron.

You will be spared the frustration of having to manage milling on the lathe, which can be extreme. Having a shortage of space can sometimes be mitigated by devious thinking, such as having the mill on a piece of 1" thick plywood on the bench, which can be fastened down for milling, and then moved aside to make more space when the mill is not in use.

 I've had a look at the mill mentioned, and it looks good, especially the R8 spindle taper.

Edited By old mart on 10/09/2019 17:45:36

Thanks old mart, space is at a premium with my layout as is but maybe a shuffle is on the horizon.