New Warco D330 – Some Advice Please

[Mark SlatterParticipant @markslatter13251]

Hello everyone,

I purchased a new Warco D330 lathe a couple of weeks ago. Overall it seems like a decent machine, however I made the decision to strip it completely and give it a deep clean after seeing the amount of grinding dust/swarf that was  sloshing around in the headstock. Every surface felt very gritty, with obvious signs of grinding dust…which can’t have been from any deburring being done (there is even a sign on the machine to wear gloves to avoid being cut 🙂

Still it’s from China so I can’t expect too much, and you get a lot of features for your money I think.

The components were looking fairly decent as I went through the process of stripping the lathe, however the vee section of the saddle is horrendously rough. It almost appears as though whatever machinery they used to rough the vee section in, went too far leaving too little material for final finishing, and it was left at that. Its hard to capture on camera but I estimate it would take at least 0.5-0.75mm of a surfacing cut to bring a smooth surface to the vee’s (i.e the difference in height between the valleys and peaks of the machining swirls). I have not yet had an opportunity to blue the bed up to see what the actual bearing is like however.

The flat section of the saddle seems to be fairly flat and parrallel to the top however, around 0.03mm deviation along the length of the flat section.

 

My question though is what to do about this? I’d like to improve things while the machine is apart to maximise it’s useful life and prevent rapid and uneven wear to the saddle as well as the bedway.

The options as I see it are scraping it in, although removing this amount of material may cause issues with how the apron interacts with the feed gears, and the half nut etc.

Perhaps I could fit a strip of Turcite to the saddle and scrape that in?

The other option I considered was using a slideway epoxy to essentially fill in the gulleys of the rough machined area.

I’d appreciate any thoughts or input on this…what would you do?

[Andrew TinsleyParticipant @andrewtinsley63637]

I would send it back to Warco as “not fit for purpose”.

 

Andrew.

[PeteParticipant @pete41194]

That picture is disgusting for how it left the manufacturer. And it shows the value of pulling even a new machine apart for a thorough inspection, cleaning and de-burring. With some but maybe not all lathes, the saddle ways are recessed a bit in the center area, and the actual saddle ways are only bearing on a few inches of each end for the front and rear ways. Given that the cross slide is above that, I’m not sure I’d agree with that method. And more bearing surface is going to wear slower.

If your 100% sure you have the skills to properly scrape it in and still maintain all the proper alignments. Turcite would be the way I’d go, and for the reasons you’ve already mentioned. While your checking the fit against the bed ways with the ink, I’d also want to indicate the cross sides dovetail across it’s width to each other and the bed, along there length, and parallelisum. I’d think there’s a fairly good chance those may be incorrect. If so, your going to need to scrape the carriage bottom surfaces into alignment for that as well. I might understand how it’s done, but I don’t think I’ve got the experience and skills to be sure of my success for a job like this. Have you got a high precision machinist level to get the bed leveled for these checks?

While it’s not the fault of Warco, I’d be sending pictures and any misalignment numbers I found to them as well. They can’t demand the manufacturer’s do better unless they know about issues like this. You also have a warranty and fit for purpose laws.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

I did not bother stripping and cleaning my Warco so have no idea if the sliding surfaces are better or worse but it is still performing well after 17years of use so it suits my purposes.

Same with the three Sieg Mills never taken apart and all doing their job and the X3 is older than the lathe

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

Send it back.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

I’m inclined to say that the pattern that can be seen on the Vee surfaces is fairly typical of the mechanical scrapers they tend to use rather than any lingering marks from initial roughing out machining.

Sending it back is an option but a replacement is likely to be similar so what option are you left with. refund and then what to buy maybe a new Harrison/Colchester if you can still get a manual one but don’t expect one of them for anywhere near the same price.

Also the surface you have it stood on on your granite plate is a non contact surface so possibly not the best one to be taking measurements from.

[old martParticipant @oldmart]

Jason wason the ball with his “non contact surfaces”, you should sit it on a pair of parallels just outboard of the vees.

Now it’s in bits, I would just get on with some small improvements.

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