The WM250 is a good lathe but I am biased as I have had mine without problems for many years (see Journeyman’s Workshop ). The newer WM250V should be even better as it has a 3-phase motor with VFD for improved speed/power control over the older model with DC motor.

The Warco comes with the major accessories 3-jaw and 4-jaw chucks, face plate and steadies so other than a couple of toolbits and a tailstock chuck you shouldn’t need much in the way of spares to get you going. The DRO is nice but possibly a good idea to learn to use the lathe without and it can be added later.

Size wise, to a certain extent bigger is better and the WM180 is basically a beefed up mini-lathe. If the budget stretches I would go for the WM250V.

John

After the usual fettling, the WM250 works well for me.  However, I wish I’d splashed the extra dosh and bought the WM250V for the extra benefits of VFD and power cross feed.

I’ve seen many complaints about the gib adjusting screws on the cross slide interfering with a permanently fitted saddle clamp lever.  Simply replace the socket head cap screws with minimum length socket set screws (grub screws).

Many of the mods and improvements that can be found for other small Chinese lathes, equally apply to the WM250.

Happy turning.

Opinions definitely vary ! I expect what you are making has a large influence on what you find valuable.

Unlike Andrew I wouldn’t be without a DRO on the lathe longitudinal slide, invaluable for parts where axial dimensions are critical. Haven’t bothered on the cross slide though as friction setting dial and mike do all that I need.

Again unlike Andrew life was changed for me with the acquisition of a quick change toolpost. I just hate fiddling about with packing every time I change a tool. Also if you need to make numbers of identical parts the ability to swap tools without resetting zeros every time is invaluable (noting that Andrew does this with his 4 way toolpost).

Finally as time goes on lifting heavy items into awkward places (like swapping chucks on the lathe) becomes more of a problem. Something to bear in mind if you are getting on a bit.

If I were to use my own experience as a guide line. I’d suggest buying the largest and best optioned machine tool you can will save far more than working up in size with more and better options later such as the power cross feed etc. as I did. And without question, the extra cost would be quickly forgotten by most. And anything with a VFD and a 3 ph motor will be far superior than some of the failure prone electronics used for most of the single ph. variable speed machines. Although even those have improved at least a bit over what they once were. But with that 3 ph and VFD, your also not locked into specialized electronic components that may or may not even have replacements available at some point. I have a variable speed single ph lathe and a VFD 3 ph on my mill. And can say with certainty the mill operates much smoother, quieter and with far better optional parameters for motor control I have available with the VFD.

Any lathe above a 6″ /150 mm capable part diameter or below 12″/300 mm, the extra tooling should be quite close to the same average cost. And those extras and mostly from the variety of cutting tools required will over some time probably end up being close to what the lathe itself cost. Maybe not for a fully rebuilt back to new specifications such as a Schaublin or something like a new Weiler lathe. But for what most of us could afford to buy, what all the extra tooling costs would still be fairly close for most. It still depends on what your doing as far as just how much that extra it might be. Buying cutting tools at the cheapest possible price will almost always be a waste of money as well.

I’d also budget for a half decent bench grinder and immediately replace whatever grinding wheels come with it since none of them being sold today are best suited for grinding high speed steel. A dealer specializing in catering to wood working hobbyists would probably be the easiest place to find for the correct advise about which wheel grit and hardness to buy. And teaching yourself to properly grind and then hone your own HSS cutting tools isn’t imo optional since even with today’s vast array of different replaceable tip cutting tools, they still can’t do everything.

While there’s been large advances in the last 100 years and especially so with our commonly available cutting tool technology. Manual lathe work and the methods or techniques are pretty much exactly the same today. One of the best books I’ve found online would be this one, http://www.opensourcemachinetools.org/archive-manuals/Hercus_TextBook_of_Turning.pdf

Tee publishing is an excellent source of more specific and detailed tool information than any forum thread can go into. https://www.teepublishing.co.uk/books/in-your-workshop/ and some of the Workshop Practice books they stock are very good. Work holding, screw cutting, milling in the lathe and tool sharpening would be my first picks.

For those with maybe less experience, there’s lots of available information about how to do almost any task on a lathe on forums like this. But it seems not a whole lot about a few basics that seldom seem to be stressed enough for just general and more entry level advice. And I wish I’d known about them a long time ago because it cost me a fair amount to instead to learn the hard way.

Always double check you will have enough clearance for the carriage, top and cross slides for whatever full distance they have to travel before you engage those power feeds. It’s all too easy to run those into a spinning chuck or other part of the work piece or lathe. You will do it at least once because everyone does, but I did mention it.

Even lower cost off shore machine tools have fairly high precision parts fit and critical alignments. Anything you can do to help preserve whatever accuracy they came with will help. So keeping your ways and sliding surfaces as clean and properly lubricated as you can will help. If your oil is at all discolored after using the machine for any length of time, it means your not oiling often and / or not using enough each time. That oil both lubricates and helps flush out any contamination and the inevitable wear particles just from using it. And a good way oil and other lubrication where it’s needed is the cheapest preventative maintenance you can do. Trying to polish or use abrasive grit paper on your parts to improve there surface finish can also be very harmful. Any abrasive particles coming loose land on your oil coated way surfaces and will then act just like a lap. I always protect the lathe bed, lead screw or any other exposed slide surfaces by wrapping them with cheap aluminum kitchen cooking foil first. I try to do the same as best I can while turning any hot rolled steel, cast iron castings as well since the hard outside skin is pretty abrasive until it’s removed. Turning rusty steel is also harmful. Most don’t seem to understand that rust is in reality a poor but still rudimentary form of carbide that at a macro level is much harder than the material it was created from. Wire brushing most of it off first as well as using oil over the remaining to stop any dust from floating where it shouldn’t can help. I also use a piece of plywood across the lathe ways anytime I’m removing or replacing a chuck. It’s not if you’ll ever drop a chuck on those ways, only how long until you do.

Both the head and tail stocks morse tapers are also or should be ground to high precision for size, taper and surface quality and so are extremely important surfaces to maintain. Morse tapers hold by a combination of a wedging action and because of there very close matching parts fit, a high amount of frictional grip between each of the mating parts. Both require almost surgical cleanliness to preserve that level of accuracy. Any tapers that are rusty, damaged or previously scored should never be used. Trying to repair those female morse tapers isn’t easy or cheap. Places like Ebay have loads of scored or seriously rusted MT tool shanks that wouldn’t be worth having if they were free unless you have the precision grinding equipment to restore them. Spinning a MT tool in a taper even once will generally score the usually unhardened female tapers these lower priced lathes have. And once that happens, there frictional grip and the tapers accuracy is vastly reduced on any tool used in the future even if it has an unmarked taper.

Lathe chucks also require a disassembly and through cleaning from time to time depending on how much there being used and what your doing. Through drilling or boring of parts helps load the chuck even more with chip contamination. So that cleaning and re-lubrication is just required maintenance once they start to feel gritty. Any high use threaded or moving item on a machine tool also requires at least semi random cleaning and re-lubrication. Slide, carriage, tail stock locks etc.

I’d suggest that for one off parts, a dro isn’t an absolute way to guarantee any parts will come out to your exact target dimension. Any glass or magnetic dro scales today would be far more precise than the machine tool there being used on. The reason for that is variable and unpredictable amounts of deflection happening throughout the whole lathe depending on the material hardness being cut, feed rate, depth of cut and the inevitable and variable loads they generate throughout the whole lathe. So there’s still a fair amount of double checking for the parts actual measurement involved. With multiple parts of the same dimensions, a dro would help a lot of course. They also eliminate compensating or allowing for feed screw backlash and counting full or partial amounts of hand wheel turns. But real machinists were making very high accuracy parts long before dro’s were invented. Yes there a nice to have accessory, but there’s many other items I’d be buying first.

That Hercus book is a little gem, Pete !!

I’ve never seen it before … Thanks for the link.

MichaelG.

Warco have a used WM280V on the stand with all the original equipment & a coolant system for £1800 + delivery at the momemt here.

This appears to be a very good saving on the new price & may appeal to your budget ?

Nigel B.