Review, Warco Wmt300/1 Lathe

[richardandtracy]

Warco WMT300/1 Combi Lathe/Mill Review

 

This is a brief review of the Warco WMT300/1 metric combi lathe/mill, and hopefully is the first of a number of workshop tool reviews that will allow other pen turners to narrow down their choices when buying new machines.

 

This lathe/mill is Chinese made and comes in various guises depending on the re-seller. In the UK it is also known as the 'Clarke 500' lathe, with similar ones being sold by Chester Tools as well. The Clarke 500 is slightly cheaper, but when you factor in the accessories that you need regularly, the Warco version is more cost effective.

 

The lathe is as below:

http://i771.photobucket.com/albums/xx356/richardandtracy/Sdc12667a.jpg

(It's a bit grotty, I had just finished some sheet metal disc turning for my eldest daughter when I took the photo)

You will notice it's a metalworking lathe with a milling head. The milling head is not really stiff enough to be terribly useful, and in retrospect I would have been better off to get a separate mill. Milling is not really useful for penmaking anyway, unless you are daft enough to make your own clips from scratch. I seem to be.

 

Dimensions & Weight

The dimensions are as follows:

[/tab]Maximum swing: 300mm (12") diameter

Maximum swing over bed: 175mm (7") diameter

Maximum practical diameter without a lot of fiddling about: 130mm (5") diameter

Maximum length between centres: 500mm (20")

Maximum practical length between chuck & tailstock with single tool set up on saddle: 375mm (15")

Overall size: 1.1m (3'8") wide x 500mm (20") deep x 1m (3'3") high

[tab]Weight: 150 kg (330 lb)

 

Speed Range: 6 steps, 430rpm to 1600 rpm, Belt drive.

 

Precision:

Axial feed: 0.025mm (0.00098", call 0.001")

Cross feed on saddle: 0.05mm (0.002")

Compound feed: 0.05mm (0.002") on diameter, can be angled, so 0.0001" is achievable on diameter.

 

Thread Pitches:

I have written a little program to find all the thread pitches the lathe can produce (as opposed to the limited number in the manual), there are just 26902 different possible thread pitches from 5.26mm to 0.072mm (4.89 tpi to 353 tpi)! All in left and right hand pitches. Should cover everything.

 

Headstock taper: MT4

Spindle hole: 26mm

Tailstock Taper: MT3

Milling head taper: MT3

 

Manual:

Fifty pages of A5, and utterly useless! And in a couple of places, actually incorrect. Didn't detail how to set the lathe up at all. Typographical errors in the gear ratios list make the 3mm pitch actually 2.7mm. Not impressed.

 

Accessories with the machine:

5 carbide insert lathe tools

3 Jaw self centering lathe chuck, 5" diameter

8" diameter face plate

13mm jacobs tailstock chuck.

Compound slide & toolholder

Travelling steady (never used)

Fixed steady (never used)

Set of belts

63mm diameter carbide insert face mill.

MT3 & MT4 dead centres

MT3 release wedge

3/8" Whitworth thread spindle clamp for milling head - which is actually 3/4" too short.

Various allen keys

Gear set for metric & imperial threads. Several gears mentioned in the manual were not present, but whether that was a manual or supply problem I do not know. Inexplicably three 27 tooth gears were supplied.

 

Suitability for penmaking

Brilliant for straight barrels & caps, conical tapers.

Awful for freehand shapes.

Any size of pen is possible, from a giant down to the smallest mini.

Can make your own metal tooling with this lathe too.

Can be used to create threads, but due to having the saddle fixed to the leadscrew (no half nut), doing thread cutting up to a shoulder is very risky!

Possible materials: All metals, acrylic, polyester, delrin. The only wood I have tried is purpleheart, which machined well with a sharp parting tool at maximum speed. For more open grain woods (such as softwood), I do not think the spindle speed is high enough, so I have made a router holder to enable a router to be attached to the saddle instead of the compound slide.

 

Niggles

There is no half nut on the saddle.

The milling head is not stiff enough.

All the dials are keyed to the shafts so they cannot be zeroed.

For milling, the cross slide has a 2.5mm pitch thread, but the dial is set up for turning and registers double the actual feed.

The manual.

No powered cross feed.

 

Real complaints/problems

None. It's far more capable than the person operating the lathe!

 

Quality

The overall finish & build quality is not first quality. The castings are not well fettled away from the main interfaces and there are a few sharp edges on the belt cover box. However, the machined surfaces are as close to spot on as I can measure - and really, these are the only areas that matter. The front face of the machine is smoothed with very thick paint, and overall it's a pleasure to work with.

 

I bought this lathe to help me build such equipment as I needed for a home made boat (which due to changes of circumstances is currently impossible), and it is perfectly suited to precision pen turning. I have no hesitation in suggesting it as a beginner's lathe - because that's what I was when I got it. It is a pen maker's, tool maker's and general small job metalworking lathe.

 

Regards,

 

Richard.