Lathe cross-feed drive?

[Jerry WrayParticipant @jerrywray14030]

Is a separate drive for the lathe cross-feed worth the extra money?

[Jerry WrayParticipant @jerrywray14030]

I am looking to buy a new lathe, perhaps the Warco WM 280V-F or the smaller 250 or their equivalents from other supplers.

The 280 has separate drives for the cross-slide but the 250 take its drive from the leadscrew.

Do others have views on whether paying the exrta cost is worth while?

Jerry

[Anonymous]

When I was looking for my main centre lathe a separate power feed drive shaft, and cross feed, were both on the 'essential' list. I bought secondhand, so the cost factor wasn't so much of an issue.

Regards,

Andrew

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

Jerry

If you can afford it get the 280/290V-F I've got the 250 & it's fine for my needs,I don't have any probs selecting between saddle & cross feeds. IIRC these weren't available in their present form when I bought mine..or else I totally missed / didn't see them at Harrogate last year, plus budget constraints.

Cheers

George

Edited By mechman48 on 25/08/2013 23:24:18

[Thor 🇳🇴Participant @thor]

Hi Jerry,

I agree with George, get the 280/290. In addition to a separate feedshaft and leadscrew, the bed of the 280/290 is much wider than the 250. The 290 also has a larger bore (38mm).

Thor

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

The 280 has always had the two shafts, mine is about 4yrs old now and was one of the first Warco had.

J

[Jerry WrayParticipant @jerrywray14030]

Thank you to the posters who have replied with their experiences and comments. I must admit that you have confirmed what I had already almost decided upon. It's always good to get your own conclusions reinforced.

Looks like I shall have to work how to get a machine of this weight up;to bench height now.

Thank you

Jerry

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

Jerry

Do you kow any one with a engine hoist, or you could hire one for a day? I bought one VAT free from M/Mart as I had to move my other machine about while I converted my garage, managed on my own to lift Lathe & mill onto stands without too much hassle… or do you know a rugby team near you

George

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

I used an engine hoist crane from the local hire shop to get mine onto the stand. Also stripped it of excess weight, Just wind the carrage to the tailstock end to help balance

 

Edited By JasonB on 26/08/2013 09:17:30

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

Here's how I did mine…

Just required a little help with the lathe from SWMBO…

George

[Jerry WrayParticipant @jerrywray14030]

Mechman, Jason,

Thanks for more suggestions, I have a 1 tonne chain hoist and my garage was built with rafters which are actually floor joists so sghould be capable of taking the 230kg weight, but I am not sure if that would be steady enough, and of course its not manoeverable.

Seems like an engine hoist is favourite, I can hire one locally for about £35 a day. That's insignificant against the cost of the lathe.

I'm admiring how level your workshop floors are! Mine is level overall but it's a typical builders surface of the eighties; concrete laid and levelled with a board on edge, so small ridges. Perhaps self-levelling compound in that area, or large feet on the stand.

Looks like I'll have to be on the phone to Warco tomorrow!

Thanks again

Jerry

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Some of the above didn't quite address the original question so I shall deviate too. Power cross feed as opposed to longitudinal feed may not be used much so might not be bought by hobbyists if it was an optional add on at £100. Once designers had worked out how to build it in easily it became like electric windows in cars – £10 to fit no options and add £100 to the price,

The 280 does not have a separate drive motor for it just a clutch off the main drive shaft. It would be much better nowadays to provide it using a separate motor and especially a stepper to take it part way towards a CNC fit but you don't get an option for not having it – it's an 'electric window' above a certain size fo lathe.

The separate drive shaft is a different question. Very small lathes use only the leadscrew for both screwcutting and power longitudinal feed so not so good for wear (though perfectly adequate for hobbyists really).
Next upsell to solve the wear issue with power to the rack traverse gear is clever engineering to get the power off the leadscrew. This is good ecenomical engineering and perfectly adequate for even 90% of production machines but didn't add enough to the price to be used in a production sales catalogue.
So the production upsell is a separate feed shaft. This is where the accountant came in and wanted to push profit by not doing it properly. So the extra feed shaft is rotated by the screwcutting gears making it noisey and doesn't always go as slow as desirable. However '50 feed rates' looks good on the brochure even though you only use 3 of them.

So finally if you buy your cars based on the way the windows whizz up and down you should have power cross feed figure in your selection of a lathe. Otherwise all the other aspects are more important and you will probably get it thrown in for 'free' anyway.

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

Warco do two versions of feet for your machine stand… item # 5560A – 60mm dia. & 5561A – 80 mm dia. @ £4.60 ea.. I have the 5561A size for my mill stand which has given me an extra 2" in height, the stands tend to be on the short side so if you're 6' 12" you'll have backache, seem to be made for the chinese height. I'm a short a***e myself but still really need to have the extra couple of inches… (ooooooh you are awful! &nbsp… height wise!

G

[Russell EberhardtParticipant @russelleberhardt48058]

Couldn't agree more with you Bazyle.

I have had a lathe with power crossfeed for about 20 years and I don't suppose I've used it more than half a dozen times. Once for skimming the faceplate and a few times for making chuck backplates. Useful for big facing jobs but (for me) they are few and far between.

Russell.

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

PXF – essential! Apart from smooth and easy facing cuts, I think it is George Thomas who recommends in his articles on a rear parting tool holder that PXF should be used for parting to ensure a slow and steady feed. Since reading that, and having a rear tool post, I have always used it and never had a jam. Also works fine with the inserted-bit tct parting blades in the front tool holder.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Strange, I use mine every time I use the lathe and would not be without it now

Oh and the 280 does not use a clutch to engage the feed, just a gearbox with forward, neutral or reverse.

[Russell EberhardtParticipant @russelleberhardt48058]

mmm.. never tried it for parting. Must give it a go.

Russell.

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

Jerry

Don't be fooled by my garage floor, it still has the original taper(run off) as built, its just that the floor paint (garage floor paint) is fairly thick so making it look smooth, (photos decieving & all that) what I did was to lay a thin pad of leveling compound where the lathe & the mill stand so they would both have a reasonable level base to sit on, the remainder is as is. I put the feet I bought under the mill stand & levelled that off to bubble & digi level, plus giving me the extra 2"… . The lathe seemed to have sorted itself out re level (again bubble & digi) so have left well alone.

George.

[Jerry WrayParticipant @jerrywray14030]

Thank you all for your contributions.

Things are becoming clearer. It's great to see that, so far, no-one has said anything against these larger Warco machines.

This morning the Devil took me over, the 290 had been mentioned so I spent some time considering the pros and cons of that. It's just about within reach of my budget, but I cannot really see me using DRO and the 5MT headstock taper suddenly made me realise I was getting into a fair sized machine.

I have been involved in a machine shop where big items (jet engine casings) rule the roost. and that seems to be getting me into everyday work. Added to which I can see how the temptation towards machining centres, G-code, Solidworks, high speed horizontal boring, etc. etc. comes about. This is supposed to be a hobby after-all, part of the 'fun' is using manual techniques to achieve results. Just pressing a button and letting the machine get on with it is not for me.

So having weighed everything that has been said I have, subject to a good night's sleep, settled on the 280 V-F.

Jerry

[OuBallieParticipant @ouballie]

Power crossfeed when parting off every time, after manual feed to knock off the high spots.

The Q-Tip makes parting off a pleasure now, having given up years ago after far too many dig-ins, busted blades et al.

Geoff – Getting over a bad patch after treatment.

[Anonymous]

Posted by Jerry Wray on 26/08/2013 19:25:16:

This is supposed to be a hobby after-all, part of the 'fun' is using manual techniques to achieve results. Just pressing a button and letting the machine get on with it is not for me.

Surely that's exactly what powerfeed is; push the button and let the machine do the work.

Andrew

PS: I use my power crossfeed almost every time I do a facing cut, as well as for parting off.

[Gray62Participant @gray62]

Would not be without power X-feed. Use it all the time for facing cuts and parting off. I use HSS parting tools and have never broken one using the power feed, anything up to 75mm is a breeze with the standard feed rates.

CB

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

When I changed lathes, ten years ago, PXF was a MUST.

The Myford Super 7 Sigma was my choice until I found the cost AND that PXF could not be fitted.

I use it pretty much all the time.

Whether you CAN have PXF will depend on how big a lathe you can accomodate.

My lathe is an Engineers Tool Room BL12/24, very similar to the WARCO BH600, or the Chester Craftsman.

Warco offer the BH600 in Imperial or Metric form. I think that Chester only offer the Craftsman in Metric form. The BL12/24 is basically Metric but is dual dialled, and so suits me as an Imperial Luddite who infrequently uses Metric.

I have never been brave enough to part off with PXF, despite having madeand fitted a Backtoolpost, so can't comment.

But for Facing, my view is that PXF is a must.

A personal slant is that I am extremely happy that the lathes listed above have a separate feed shaft, as I was used to as an Apprentice, and do not use the leadscrew to power either sliding or facing feeds.

As another aside, I made a 80T 1.25Mod gear for the Norton Box on the BL12/24to halve the feedrate, which meant repositioning the closure for the backgear cover. It is a worthwhile modification, allowing, using slow speeds and sharp tools, with lubrication, superb finish.

Hope that this helps a little.

Howard

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

Jerry… Good choice

I have put down a few pointers for you when you get your machine; other members may have different items to offer, but these are what I found on my machine, 250V-F.

Check the electrics when you get it; the two main problems I found were that the change gear guard has a tab on the bottom at the back (250V-F, other machines may have it placed elsewhere), this tab contacts and operates a micro switch for the motor cut out, this tab had been bent away from the switch making it unable to start… frustrating when still in the box! The other item is check the locking collar on the emergency stop button, this is secured (on mine) by a screw acting on the locking bracket & jacking the bracket against the top of the electrical compartment casing & pulling the button down against the casing top, this had the effect of allowing the button to rotate loosely which then had dislodged one of the wires from the button hence … no workee… scratchee head… along with a lot of ‘oh dear me’ ‘tut tut’, or words to that effect!… & supposedly checked by Warcos Engineers… ?

Check all the fastenings on the machine; SHCS & bolts, these are made from the Chinese basic steel… crap!

The SHCS / Hex head bolts are stamped 4.2 which is lower tensile strength than the minimum BS3692 of 4.6… in other words ‘soft as s**t! so it doesn’t take much torque to strip threads… trust me I know! Especially the two compound slide T bolts that hold the compound slide to the cross slide, on mine I found these to have stripped very soon after a couple of angle settings on the compound, & not tightened to any excess (subjective I know!) merely snugged up. I replaced these with a couple of 8.8 grade bolts & fabricated some proper ‘T’ nuts from decent steel… EN8 IIRC. plus they were short in length stopping short of the full nut so I ensured that my replacements went down into the ‘T’ nut full length.

The change wheel gears are noisy, this was due to the backlash being incorrectly set up, (don’t think the manufacturers know what this is) I set mine up using the ‘paper method’ (which it seems a few members have used). All it needs is to place a piece of paper, which is generally about .004” thick between the meshing teeth & adjusting the banjo to nip the paper, do this with each gear mesh. The other factor is there is a lot of slop … on mine… between the ID of the gear bore & the OD of the matching banjo shaft. I am looking to reduce this by some means later on, bushings, new shafts?

Adjust your gib strips as these are made from the above mentioned steel, not cast iron, & are just strips of plate with the angles somewhat ground on & they don’t ensure that the gib screws fit, it seems that their idea of dimples is to ram a pistol drill down the tapped hole irrespective of the strip being in the correct location or centralised, followed by three or four black SHCS with lock nuts on. I will replace these later if I can get hold of some thin enough CI, or poss’ Phos’ Bronze/ Brass

Hopefully you get a machine that has had better quality control applied, never the less now I have tweaked, adjusted, replaced etc. I have a very reasonable ‘hobby machine’ that does what I have thrown at it, after all, ‘you don’t get a rolls for the price of a mini’, other members may /may not have had similar issues, so I assume they may offer additional tips, anyhow the main point is … ‘enjoy’

Cheers

George

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

The 280 also has the same tab to work the microswitch, mine was fine. Being a 2008 machine it has a rectangular switch which won't rotate.

Still on all the original fixings though I may have lost one of the chuck nuts, no sign of the sockets rounding or threads stripping. Using original compound fixings.

Did remesh the change gears but you will want to do that whenever you change them anyway for screwcutting etc.

Still on original gibs with just the occasional adjustment.

Maybe I got a Monday morning one

[Author]

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