Warco 290V comments n feedback

[Thor 🇳🇴Participant @thor]

Hi Mark,

seems to me that your stand is not rigid enough? If it is not rigid you have to do as Jason and Nick says, shim or adjust, at the bottom of the stand.

When I bought my 290 I looked at the stands the seller could supply, they where made of thin sheet metal and not stiff enough. I ended up making my own stand that is heavy and rigid. It is not boltet to the floor, just stands on the floor and the lathe does not move.

Thor.

[Mark TyldesleyParticipant @marktyldesley75376]

Yea i have to agree with you, its defo not ridged enough, i do think once its bolted down it should be acceptable! We will see!

mark

[Martin CottrellParticipant @martincottrell21329]

Posted by JasonB on 28/10/2014 07:39:15:

Posted by Martin Cottrell on 27/10/2014 22:29:24:

Yes, Ive just started construction of a 4" Little Samson, taking my new lathe to the limit at the moment machining the 17 3/4" diameter rear wheel castings in the 18" swing with the gap piece removed!

Martin.

Have you read the small print, I know that one of the suppliers of these lathes has a clause that invalidates the warantee if teh gap piece is removed. May notbe the case with your green & yellow one though

Seems strange to sell a machine with features that invalidate the warranty if you use them. Too late now to read the small print though! I do however have the instructions that give details on the correct procedure for refitting the gap piece so I assume they must conclude that some users will remove it to make use of the larger swing. Hopefully the lathe won't fold itself in half before I've finished the wheels and refitted the gap!!

Martin.

[LathejackParticipant @lathejack]

Oh dear, the 290VF stand seems a bit disappointing. With the lathe weighing close to a quarter of a ton it does need a fairly solidly made stand.

Regarding the gap piece on the other new Chinese lathes, it is very odd to be discouraged from using a feature that they are built with and that is used as a selling point in the advertising.

The improved manuals on the Grizzly Machine Tools website have a few paragraphs on removing the gap piece, but they then strongly recommended that you do not attempt to replace it and that you accept the reduced travel of the carraige towards the chuck because of the open gap section that would leave the saddle partially unsupported, crazy!

I have removed the gap piece on my Warco 1330 lathe, and despite the lathes other faults the gap section had been well prepared and fitted before machining and grinding in situ. I managed to refit it without too much fuss with careful tightening and a few deft strokes with a rubber mallet in the right places, so I don't know why they make a bit of a fuss about it. Maybe there have been some badly fitted examples from the factories that just cannot be refitted accurately enough.

Anyway Mark, have you run your new lathe yet or done a bit of turning with it?

Edited By Lathejack on 29/10/2014 00:02:31

[Mark TyldesleyParticipant @marktyldesley75376]

Hi Lathejack

yea im not to happy with this supplied stand, just about to construct a concrete platform to raise things up abit, as im going to lose 2" with no feet under stand, just hoping that once its firmly bolted down the stand will be more ridged, thats the plan anyway!. I was going to try some turning with it before i moved it yet again but the micro switch on chuck guard failed, so anew one is suppose to be on its way from warco on warranty, so lathe has yet to be switched on! Gives me achance to order afew bits n bobs in meantime, surprising how much you need just to make astart ! But  Ido have anew mill to try out, Need to make some slippers for the traction engine slide!

mark

Edited By Mark Tyldesley on 29/10/2014 05:27:26

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

Hi Mark

I have the 250 V-F bought at Harrogate in 2012 in a package with stands; the stand were made of thin sheet metal which sufficiently carries the weight providing you ensure the bridging piece is securely tightened up. The first thing I noticed was that one side was fabricate well out of square to the point of at least 10mm at the bottom right corner plus out at the top left corner… I contacted Warco with an accompanying letter + pics to which they replaced both cabinets FOC + free return & delivery costs as it was still under warranty… a nice plus for Warco… so what I am saying is check your cabinets are fabricated square, if not this will always give rise to your machine rocking no matter how level your floor is… see pics

Bottom right misalignment..

Top left misalignment…

You can't read the comments but the pointers show where the fabrication misalignments occurred… as said Warco changed without quibble. I don't know how the newer versions match up but looking at the later pics they seem to have a better design now.. I'll bet the metal thickness hasn't improved though!… still they are from China…? Can't praise Warco's after sales service highly enough though, well done.

George

 

Edited By mechman48 on 29/10/2014 13:46:11

Edited By mechman48 on 29/10/2014 13:47:24

[Mark TyldesleyParticipant @marktyldesley75376]

Hi george

looking at your stand the only difference i can see is that yours have the footplate at bottom of stand, other than that it looks similar in all aspects. I checked for squareness and it seems to be spot on, having placed it on floor without feet it all ready feels more stable, so bolting it down directly seems the way forward, shimming to level it maybe a problem but will come to that once its all in place, what method did you use to level, adjustable feet? Or shim under stand or between cab n lathe

mark

Edited By Mark Tyldesley on 29/10/2014 16:49:12

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

I have a similar size Taiwanese lathe, and I designed and built my own stand as the retailer refused to accept the light weight sheet metal stand supplied . My stand is built of 2" x 2" x 1/4" angle iron, all welded, if I was building it now I would use 50 mm x 50 mm x 6 mm square tube. Ian SC    ps this stand has survived two quite good earth quakes without needing adjustment 

Edited By Ian S C on 30/10/2014 10:10:06

[JoeTParticipant @joet]

Well my WM290V arrived today – I'm curious to see how straight and level my stand is having seen George's pics!

It is one beast of a 'hobby' lathe – I forgot to allow for the effect of seeing it in a big exhibition hall – I think it will make my WM18 look puny!

[JoeTParticipant @joet]

Hi Mark – what does your stand look like – do you have any pics you could post? Mine has three little drawers on the left, 2 shelves in the middle, and a tall cupboard on the right. It seems pretty sturdy to me, but I haven't had a chance to try leveling it up yet, or done any test cuts either.

[Mark TyldesleyParticipant @marktyldesley75376]

Hi Joe

yea mines exactly the same as yours, iv bolted mine directly to concrete floor, made it very sturdy now, I checked the level and found it to be very much spot on, don't think any adjustment will be required although I still have to give it a test, and that should be any day now!.

let me know how you get on

cheers

mark

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

My lathe is free standing; once I had the cabinets replaced I had previously laid a self levelling concrete pad on which I placed a thin rubber mat under ea. foot & levelled from that. I used a combination of my small level ( in previous pic.   ) plus digital level to get as best as I could . I used a combination of a pair of 16mm HSS tool steel blanks & a 12mm blank on the front & back shears to reveal a zero twist & a 0.1* rise at the tail stock end, which doesn't overly worry me as long as I have the zero twist which is more important. The hold down bolts at the Tail / headstock ends were only just nipped up ….

Headstock reading.. zero twist..

Tailstock reading.. zero twist..

Front shear .. 0.1* rise at Tailstock..

Rear shear.. 0.1* rise at Tailstock end..

Test piece after levelling & tailstock alignment check.. 0.00045" difference.. less than 1/2 thou' over 6".. good enough for me..

George.

Edited By mechman48 on 19/12/2014 12:04:20

Edited By mechman48 on 19/12/2014 12:05:26

[JoeTParticipant @joet]

Very nice pics George!

What size tools are people using with the WM290? I got some nice Glanze 12mm tools for Christmas (Warco told me 12mm was right when I bought the machine), but they need a lot of shimming up in the stock tool post to get anywhere near centre height.

After just 5 mins of test cuts, I'm hating the stock tool post enough to want to splash out on a quick-change. Do I just go for the Warco one, or make/modify another one?

Cheers,

Joe.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Here's one I made earlier

The heresy is – I haven't got round to fixing my mini-lathe down to the bench yet…

Neil

<edit> That's 5.5" at the top, so not as good as George is getting, but not far off.

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 02/01/2015 12:57:29

[Tony Pratt 1Participant @tonypratt1]

Hi Neil,

Was yours a between centres turning test as the end spigots don't seem long enough to hold in a chuck?

Tony

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

> Was yours a between centres turning test as the end spigots don't seem long enough to hold in a chuck?

Yep.

Neil

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

You are not really meant to use a chuck for a BETWEEN CENTRES test bar

Should have a trued ctr in the spindle and drive it with a dog.

Edited By JasonB on 02/01/2015 14:03:48

[JoeTParticipant @joet]

Posted by Bogstandard2 on 02/01/2015 13:14:56:

Joe,

Many people will send you off looking for expensive toolposts and holders, well the toolposts might be reasonable, but spare holders can cost you a small fortune.

The last couple of lathes I have had I equipped them with the Aloris or AXA type toolpost, we call them piston ones here, and couldn't find fault with them, plus to kit them out with lots of holders is usually reasonable as well, in fact, it is very easy to make your own to whatever holding size you want. I am just about to make a dozen half height ones to hold really small tooling for those finicky jobs.

Toolpost on my new lathe

Fairly easy to make holders

And lots of 'em

John

Edited By Bogstandard2 on 02/01/2015 13:15:23

Cheers John – that's the sort I was after – look to be about £100 odd for one with a few holders. I'm very impressed by your DIY holders – since I have a mill too, I really have no excuse not to have a go!

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

> Should have a trued ctr in the spindle and drive it with a dog.

Yep, that's what I did!

Neil

<edit>  actually it was a small clamp as I haven't got any dogs… at least not the fur-less kind.

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 02/01/2015 19:08:43

[Jesse Hancock 1Participant @jessehancock1]

My two pence worth is: In my experience all heavy plant with revolving parts is bolted down on pads which help level the tool.

The reason for all this expense is to do with wear and tare on the bearings within the machine. As running bearings meant to be at 90 degrees with a load at greater or lesser than square and level will put undue ware on said bearings (centrifugal force being what it is) and so you can do your machine a great service to get her fair and true. It will pay you back in the long run. (unless you use original bearings in a Chinese Lathe of course.)

Also if you don't bolt down be careful to get the job balanced as far as you can in the four jaw or face plate as you could have the whole lot walk off the bench.

Having said the above I haven't bolted my mini lathe down but it is level and I'm happy with the results since I changed bearings.

Jesse.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Jesse I don't really see how bolting down or leveling a lathe for that matter will affect the bearings. Its very unlikely that any adjustments will move the actual headstock which contains the bearings and spindle as these are quite rigid parts. Any leveling will be limited to getting the bed true to the headstock.

[Jesse Hancock 1Participant @jessehancock1]

J B: As I said perhaps not too clearly this was my experience in watching large plant sighted in factories and so on. Perhaps I got the wrong impression but why then go to all the bother of levelling everything up and bolting it down. I think it would be hard to get a large Lumsden grinder to walk the floor on account of it's weight. They are massive in construction and so one assumes they are stiff enough not to warp or flex during operating. There again a bearing out of true to the rotation of a mass must surely be under loads which it isn't designed for.

The only problem we ever had with one was to renew the main spindle bearing. However that could have just been normal wear and tear.

I'll see if there's any better explanations on the net but you have got me wondering now.

EDIT: There's a wiki on the problems caused by not levelling machinery.

Then again I remember a little about gyroscopic action from school as well, especially a hand held gyro.

Jesse.

Edited By Jesse Hancock 1 on 27/01/2015 19:57:42

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