WARCO WM-250 lathe family and WM16 mill – 001

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

The built in one is just a 4" vertical scale fitted in to the casing, which is all I have used so far… I haven't found the need for an extra Z scale…yet.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

If you are working on larger items then the Z-axis that is fitted may be a bit limiting as it only works on the quill movement. If you need to move the head either to cover the size of the job or to change tooling you will loose any settings from the quill.

I would get the 3 axis display as it will allow you to add the longer x axis scale at a later date when you find its needed.

[Rik ShawParticipant @rikshaw]

I usually have no problems installing and removing 2MT fittings to my WM16 mill until this afternoon. I wanted to remove the collet chuck but after several attempts the thing remained firmly stuck.

In the end I removed the draw bar and did not twig at first but comparing it to the other metric draw bar supplied with the machine I could see the problem. The large diameter short sleeve had come adrift and had ridden up to the top near the square because the pin that had secured it had sheared. If this IS supposed to be a shear pin rather than a retaining pin I cannot understand its purpose other than to give me grief.

If keeping material costs down was priority in this components manufacture then this might explain why it had been made this way. My feeling at the mo is that I’ll turn a replacement in the solid and avoid the problem in the future.

Rik

[Thor 🇳🇴Participant @thor]

Hi Rik,

The same happened to me, shortly after I got my new milling machine (Weiss WMD25) the pin holding the sleeve on the drawbar sheared. I cleaned the inside of the sleeve and the bar, and drilled a larger hole so I could use a larger diameter pin and silver soldered the parts. It has worked without problems since. I guess the pin wasn't big enough or too soft.

Thor

Edited By Thor on 12/08/2016 06:19:02

[MWParticipant @mw27036]

This has happened to me too, after some pesky tapers were well and truly lodged in there it shifted the retaining bush on the draw bar, i gently knocked it back into its original resting position and cross drilled the bush and bar together in two places and riveted them ontop of a metal block. i filed and ground the rivets flush with the barrel.

You could try the above silver soldering method if you can draw enough heat into the bar and have a super strong drawbolt. An extreme solution would be to machine a new draw bar with the whole thing as one piece, no fabrication of two parts.

Or.. even buy a new one! warco are very helpful with spares, and would always recommend a home solution if there was one. They dont sell for it's own sake if its not a good idea, very good service and staff i've found. But judging from both mine and Thors responses, this is a common problem once it's happened and a replacement would still need "rectification" at some point. 

Michael W

Edited By Michael Walters on 12/08/2016 08:19:48

[Rik ShawParticipant @rikshaw]

Update: Nice to know I’m not on my own when shearing these pins. I Decided to give it another chance and made a replacement pin from silver steel (Stubbs not cheapo) and it sheared immediately.

One more go I thought and turned down another pin from an old, tough as boots cap head screw. This time when I tried there was a nice satisfying “crack” as the tapers parted and my collet chuck came free. I’ll put of making another all in one draw bar for now and see how the UNBRAKO solution pans out.

Rik

[Thor 🇳🇴Participant @thor]

Rik, using a HT bolt sounds like an interesting solution. Didn't think of that myself at the time, just drilled a bigger hole. Let us know how the "cap head screw" solution works out when you have used it for some time.

Thor

[Enough!Participant @enough]

I left this problem behind me when I converted from MT2 to R8.

A relatively expensive solution but it sure works!

[John Hall 7Participant @johnhall7]

Has anyone used their WM 250 for wood turning small items?

I was wondering if a suitable toot rest could be used…

Cheers John

[Alan RawlinsParticipant @alanrawlins60482]

Hello John. I have a dedicated wood turning lathe as well as the WM 250 metal turning lathe. When I have wanted to turn something up to about 2" in diameter I have used the the WM 250 to do it. I use the same tools as if I was turning steel etc, but i use an oil stone or the new wet grinding wheel system that you can now buy, to get a real keen edge on the tool. I use any shape of tool that you would normally use on the WM in HSS, not tipped tools. I just use the normal tool holder that is on the WM lathe to hold the tool.

I cover all the areas that I can with cling film to stop the dust getting into the WHs gears etc. When I have the machine set on Auto I also when possible, hold the hose end of a vacuum cleaner to pick up as much dust as possible. As you would expect you can turn something a lot more accurately than by free hand on a wood turning lathe.

[Wolfgang Schulze-ZachauParticipant @wolfgangschulze-zachau24580]

Posted by John Hall 7 on 22/03/2018 09:08:56:

Has anyone used their WM 250 for wood turning small items?

I was wondering if a suitable toot rest could be used…

Cheers John

Yes, I have, and quite extensively until I bought myself a proper woodturning lathe. There are a few issues with it, but most of them can be overcome.

The first issue is the chuck. A normal engineering chuck is of almost no use for woodturning. I made myself an adapter that bolts onto the WM250 chuck plate and has a M33x3.5 thread in the front, so that I could mount a proper woodturning chuck.

The second issue is the need to have a toolrest. The WM250 (well, the model that I have) has a saddle with two grooves in it, which can be used to mount just about anything. I made myself a steel plate with a 1" steel cylinder mounted into it, so that I could use standard tool rests. This plate hangs over the saddle onto the left hand side, as to accommodate maximum adjustment of toolpost height. However, this has some drawbacks, see below.

The third issue is one that cannot be overcome. By their nature, engineering lathes have sturdy saddles and heavy aprons containing all the mechanics for the transport both along and across the ways.They have to support the toolposts and some serious forces whilst maintaining accuracy, requiring a quite heavy construction. This does get in the way for many of the cuts required in woodturning, especially when you try and make pieces that go to the limits of the lathe, i.e. 10" diameter.

The final issue is that the entire lathe is not made for rapid positional changes with quicklock levers. Not a big deal, but over time this really can get on your nerves.

Google fuzzy turns and have a look at my work, especially the older stuff. A lot of that was made on the WM250. Feel free to contact me directly and I can provide more advice.

regards

Wolfgang

[richardandtracyParticipant @richardandtracy]

Being a total klutz, I cannot turn wood by hand. But I have turned purpleheart with the HSS parting tool on my Warco WMT300 when running at high speed – 1600 rpm – on a 20mm dia blank taking it down to 7mm in places. It worked rather well, getting a near transparent wood foil type of swarf come off. No traditional type chips at all. It ended up looking like this:

I bonded the brass bits to the wood and then machined the outside. Worked fairly well for the 3 weeks it took me to realise another part of the pen plastic had gone porous due to microcracking and the pen had gone beyond the point of no-repair.

May be of limited use but it could be a point to start from.

Regards,

Richard.

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

Nice to see this thread back in action, there are a lot of us that find there are various aspects of these two machines that are always questioned so nice to have it all in one thread. I suppose it could be said that to include their very close cousins within the same thread would be handy… WM280 / 290 – WM18 ?

George.

[Thor 🇳🇴Participant @thor]

Posted by mechman48 on 22/03/2018 10:33:40:

…. I suppose it could be said that to include their very close cousins within the same thread would be handy… WM280 / 290 – WM18 ?

George.

I agree, the 280/290 were mentioned by Jason on 20/01/2015.

Thor

[Mick B1Participant @mickb1]

I sold my Record Power wood lathe shortly after I got my WM250V, because I found nothing that I could do on the wood lathe that I couldn't do on the metal lathe.

I kept the Robert Sorby gouge and button woodturning tool, and my toolrest is simply 8" or so of 1/2" square section alli or mild steel (whichever I find first) clamped in the toolpost – starting parallel with the bed but can be swung to any angle.

It's true that an engineering 3-jaw doesn't hold wooden workpieces as well as a woodlathe chuck, but there are usually ways around that using soft jaws or an extra sacrificial inch or so of wood to hold on.

[Mick B1Participant @mickb1]

Here's my purpleheart eggcup, showing wear from a couple of years' daily use. Nothing in the least special, but it shows that basic woodturning ops can be done on a metal lathe.

[John Hall 7Participant @johnhall7]

Thanks guys…much appreciated..👍

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Got back in my workshop for the first time since it's warmed up and wasted some time taking measurements.

My lathe is a WM-280 fitted with a 1500W 3-phase motor, VFD and two continually running cooling fans. (One on the motor, one on the VFD). How much power does it actually consume in operation I asked myself?

So with belts set to the high-speed range; banjo gears set for fine feed; auto-traverse engaged; and the built-in gearbox set to the finest feed-rate:

• Lathe switched on (ie. with only the fans and electronics running) – 47W
• Motor idling at 150rpm – 210W
• Motor spinning at 1500rpm – 360W

Using 13.7mm o/d steel welded gas pipe as a test piece with carbide inserts and no coolant/lubrication:

• 0.3mm deep cut @ 1500rpm – 542W (A 0.3mm cut removes 0.6mm from the diameter)
• 0.5mm deep cut @ 1500rpm – 540W
• 0.7mm deep cut @ 1500rpm – 565W
• 1.0mm deep cut @ 2400rpm – 960W ( A 1mm deep cut removes about 80 thou from the diameter.)
• Parting off with a 3mm wide carbide blade @ 1000rpm – 600W, lower than expected.

At the finest feed rate (0.07mm per revolution), a 23mm long cut takes about 20 seconds at 1000rpm. I'm too befuddled this morning to calculate how much steel I can remove with 1kWHr's worth of electricity costing me about about 11p.

Taking 2mm off the diameter of a steel rod in one cut is pretty much the hardest I ever drive my lathe in practice. In this test doing so produced a string of smoking blue swarf from the gas-pipe rather than chips. At that rate the lathe pulls less than 1kW, which suggests that I need to drive the lathe significantly harder to stress the motor, and thus have the opportunity to make the carbide inserts work better. On the other hand an unstressed hobby lathe will last longer! (I've no idea what this lathes operational sweet spot is. My car is best if I drive it at a steady 60mph. Lots of stop-start slow speed city motoring is bad for it, as is hammering up and down a motorway at 90.)

Interesting that the belts, banjo and gearbox in fine feed eat a couple of hundred watts before any useful work is done.

Normally I guess I have the lathe burning about 550W during cuts. That's only a couple of amps from a domestic mains socket. I use more electricity lighting the workshop and making tea than I do cutting metal!

Dave

Edit: typos…

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 24/03/2018 12:32:21

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

It would have been interesting to see what happened if the feed lever was flicked over to the next feed rate up which would be double the one you were using. keep speed and DOC the same.

Edited By JasonB on 24/03/2018 12:35:47

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by JasonB on 24/03/2018 12:35:19:

It would have been interesting to see what happened if the feed lever was flicked over to the next feed rate up which would be double the one you were using. keep speed and DOC the same.

Edited By JasonB on 24/03/2018 12:35:47

Your wish is my command.

Set up as before to take 2.0mm off the pipe. (I skimmed it before testing to make it round. Off the shelf gas pipe isn't!)

• Motor idling at 2400rpm – 490W
• Motor whilst taking a 1mm deep cut with the feed rate at 0.14mm per revolution – 1539W

With the lathe at full power, the cut produces chips rather than coils of swarf. Bearing in mind that gas pipe doesn't machine well the finish isn't good. You can just about see traces of a 0.14mm spiral in the photo. With an eye-glass I can see what looks like rubbing.

Dave

Mains voltage today: 239V

 

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 24/03/2018 14:48:56

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Thanks Dave

So the faster feed makes the motor work quite a bit harder as you would expect. So as that is twice the amount of metal removed in the same time as the finer feed but only a 50% increase in wattage you will save a few pennies using the faster feed at least at these smaller diameters

For gas pipe the finish looks quite good and as most of these tips are supposed to make chips when working at their best rather than long swarf you are within its best working range.

Edited By JasonB on 24/03/2018 16:06:01

[Ross Lloyd 1Participant @rosslloyd1]

Not sure if this has been covered, but do the gears on the WM250V need lithium grease as with the grizzlys? The manual mentions the mobil gearbox oil and the 20W machine oil for all the parts with ball bearing oil nipples, but does not mention the gears.

Should I go and splash out on a tub of white lithium?

Cheers

Ross

[Ross Lloyd 1Participant @rosslloyd1]

Tell a lie, under uncrating section it recommends a "heavy non slinging grease", I guess lithium covers that base

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

… under uncrating section it recommends a "heavy non slinging grease", I guess lithium covers that base…

​I use motor cycle chain lube spray, seems more than satisfactory to me.

George.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Ross Lloyd 1 on 04/06/2018 19:31:59:

…

Should I go and splash out on a tub of white lithium?

Cheers

Ross

Been there, done that! Lithium Grease is best, ordinary grease is good enough.

Very common to find manuals recommending particular oils and greases. People pop up asking where they can get long obsolete grades or defunct brand names. Sometimes using the specified item matters but the gears in a hobby lathe are simple and robust. The thing to avoid is no grease or oil at all.

When I bought a new car I initially spent ages checking and cleaning it, and always bought recommended oils and official spares. I was terrified of having a bump. Now it only gets basic maintenance and I drive around covered in bird poo…

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