Hi Ross,

Congratulations with your new lathe and milling machine. When setting up your machines it is preferable to have a flat and level benchtop, the lathe bed should then be without twist. An ordinary carpenters level will be of some help, a more accurate/sensitive level better, that is what I used on my lathe. I also made some adjustable leveling feet and then followed Harold Hall's advice on setting up a lathe to turn parallel. I made a 30mm dia. test bar with two collars following Harold's advice. The test bar is also centre drilled at each end so I can use it to adjust the tailstock.

Thor

Forgot to mention that if you don't want to do any actual cutting of your test bar, you could use Rollie Dads method.

Edited By Thor on 20/05/2018 17:33:24

Nice!

I've never bothered too much about level, more bothered by stability.

Enjoy!

Jim

If I am not mistaken the WM250 is essentially the same machine as my Chester DB10, and if so there is little you can do to adjust the bed as the mounting holes run laterally (along the lathes length) rather than across the lathes width which would assist in untwisting the bed should you need to.

I got around it by mounting on a very sturdy bench with a solid metal surface, luckily that was all that was need with mine to turn parallel cuts.

One mistake I made early on with my WM250V was to engage longitudinal feed on a locked saddle when I'd meant to engage crossfeed. That bent the pinion that engages with the bed rack and snapped one of the keyed bushes in the headstock geartrain – without breaking the leadscrew shearpin. Warco sent me a new keyed bush immediately, but the bent pinion gave me a difficult tight spot every third turn of the carriage handwheel. At first I shimmed the apron to reduce engagement, but 18 months later discovered I could straighten the pinion with a standard crowbar!

Just be aware, and take care. I've found it a good machine.

You need the 'toe' end of the crowbar, not the end with the deep 'U' bend and forked tip.

Run the saddle 2/3 to 3/4 of the way towards the tailstock and stop at the tightest spot – where the pinion's at its highest.

Place the toe of the crowbar against the top of the pinion shaft, with the shallow bend bearing against the underside of the l/h nearside saddle retainer. Lever up carefully to push down on the pinion – try the saddle handwheel to see if it's reduced the tight spot. Reposition and try again until the saddle runs smoothly.

Obviously don't use excessive force. Hope it works for you. So far as I can tell it's completely cured the problem on mine.

Oh, and my crowbar's 18 1/2 inches long. The previous owners left it in the house.

Edited By Mick B1 on 21/05/2018 09:44:10