Mashstroy C210T / Warco 220 help please

[IvyParticipant @ivy]

Hi all,

 

I came across this forum while searching for information on a Mashstroy C210T lathe that was also sold in the UK as a Warco 220.

 

It seems a couple of members here have the same machine and I wondered if either has manual in English that is written any better than the pink one I have that is not translated very well and also quite sparse in the information.

 

My main aim is to adjust or at least try to improve the automatic saddle feed, the friction drive won’t stay engaged properly and it also seems to be a bit jerky. (I have thoroughly de-greased it)

 

If anyone could email or post a manual to me I would be very happy to pay all expenses and a drink for your trouble.

 

I’m looking forward to reading all the other helpful hints posted on here,

 

Ivy.

[IvyParticipant @ivy]

[Peter G. ShawParticipant @peterg-shaw75338]

Hi Ivy,

 

In short, the pink covered manual is all there is.

 

Mine is also not quite right especially on the slowest speed, but is satisfactory if I hold the lever down.

 

Regards,

 

Peter G. Shaw

[IvyParticipant @ivy]

Thank you Peter,

 

Holding down the lever with a little pressure is how I have been operating it for now, I may see if I can make up a dog clutch and geared drive at some stage in the future when I am feeling more confident in my abilities.

 

Ivy.

[Martin WParticipant @martinw]

Ivy

 

Have you tried other forums (fora) such as madmodder as they sometimes feature articles dedicated to improvements/modifications to a particular machine such as the 220 lathe. I know that there are 220 users posting on that forum and perhaps they may be able to help.

 

Cheers

 

Martin

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

I had a 220 once- that says it all! I now have a Myford…

 

No alternative to holding down the lever unless you remake the mechanism with a proper dog clutch. I also replaced the headstock roller bearings when I found it was quite impossible to turn with a good finish with the original ones. A complete dog I eventually decided despite the apparently good review in ME.

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi Ivy and Peter, I have a photostat copy of what appears to be a Warco version of their 220 lathe operator’s hand book, I wouldn’t say it is very much more informative than the pink version of the C210T. Not having read it all, but it dose appear to be reasonable good English, and it consists of 50 pages including the front cover. I could scan it and burn it to a CD if required, but it would take a couple of weeks, as I have a lot of other things that I have to get done at the moment. It would take too long for me to email.

 

You do have to hold the lever down, although it doesn’t seem to say so in the manual, I find this easy to use myself as you can change feeds quickly if need be, and also you can disengage the feed in an instant. It should stay engaged while screwcutting though.

 

Regards Nick.

[IvyParticipant @ivy]

Thanks for all the replies so far.

Holding down the lever seems to be the way it is then.

 

To Nick,

if you could scan the English manual and post a CD copy I would be very grateful.

I will PM you about this.

 

Regards Ivy.

[Les Jones 1Participant @lesjones1]

Hi Nick,

There is a website that provides up to 2 Gb of free backup. It also has a public folder which enables you to give others access to a file. This works by giving you a URL associated with the file which you can email to the person that wants the file. The site is

http://www.dropbox.com

I have not yet tried doing this to here is a link to a file in my public folder. as a test.

They also allow the synchronization of files between a number of PC’s

 

I have just tried left clicking on this link and it opened the file. (A text file.) Right clicking on the link gives the option to save the file.

 

Les.

Edited By Les Jones 1 on 07/02/2012 10:15:45

[Peter G. ShawParticipant @peterg-shaw75338]

Ivy, and anyone else interested,

 

I have already scanned my manual, (pink cover version) into 50 or so pages for someone else who did not have a copy. This is already on my computer ready for sending to anyone who wants it – I have already sent it to I think three people. It takes just a few minutes to send. I will not burn & post, not because of the cost, but because of the time it takes to do this whereas sending my email is so easy.

 

I didn’t offer to send it to you Ivy because you already seem to have an original.

 

Nick,

 

Obviously I would be interested to compare Warco’s version against the original to see if they have corrected the two mistakes that I know about. Having said that, I have been able to do everything I wanted using the original manual. Yes, it does take time to understand both the translated Bulgarian, and the drawings, but generally all the information is there. My suggestion to you would be to scan into the computer and transmit by email to interested parties rather than burning to CD & posting.

 

John Haine,

When I bought my 220 in 1994, I was faced with either buying second hand or buying new. At that time I realised that I did not know enough to be able to avoid buying a bad second-hand lathe so I went for new. This eventually lead to the choice of a 918 type lathe, the 220 or a Myford. Of these, the 918 was cheapest, offered a screwcutting gearbox, but was the lightest (weight) and had the most restricted travels, eg top-slide, tailstock. And I recall had the lowest number of speeds. In other words, I thought it offered too much for the money whilst cutting down on the important stuff.

The Myford offered the most in terms of slide travels, speed ranges etc, but had the smallest swing, but it does have a gap bed. It was also the most expensive by far – in fact it was out of my budget. The 220 did seem to be a reasonable midway machine and was the heaviest, assuming that weight means sturdiness etc.

The 220 is not perfect, but it generally does what I want. I wouldn’t go so far as to describe it as a dog, but obviously one gets what one pays for. Some of the problems I have managed to find work-arounds for, eg, if I attempt milling in the lathe, I now use direct collets in the headstock – and it works perfectly, whereas other methods I have tried produced too much vibration.

You mention changing the headstock bearings. I have twice now stripped, cleaned, regreased and readjusted that assembly with noticeable improvement. In fact, I found that to achieve the quoted axial play, required the bearing adjustment to be considerably tighter than what I would have expected, but having read elsewhere of commercial production lathes where the headstock bearings were considerably and deliberately tightened up, then I don’t see a problem here.

I have also stripped and corrected the fancy slow speed engagement mechanism – there was an obvious fault on one of the sliding cones when I tried to reassemble it. Unfortunately, this has not cured the slow-speed slipping problem, or the jumping out of gear whilst screw-cutting, but since I can hold the lever down and all is then ok, then really there is not a major problem.

Having said that, I don’t regret buying the lathe: it has enabled me to do certain things that otherwise would have been impossible. Sixteen years down the line I have no intention of giving it up, unless I happen to drop on to a metric Boxford ME10/10A in excellent condition at a rock bottom price.

 

Regards,

 

Peter G. Shaw

[Peter G. ShawParticipant @peterg-shaw75338]

Just as an aside, and to put another perspective on the 220, consider the following:

 

Myford are now defunct. Mashstroy, the makers of the 220, are still in business and producing the 220 (C210T) and other machinery.

 

Regards,

 

Peter G. Shaw

 

[IvyParticipant @ivy]

Peter,

I realise that you did not offer a scanned copy of your pink manual to me for the reasons you gave. My reasons for buying the Mashstroy were the same as yours.

 

With my lathe I have a 3 jaw, 4jaw, collet chuck and collets, verticle milling slide, Dixon type quick change tool post with 9 holders, centres, fixed steady and more that I have probably forgotten.

All this cost me less than the accessories alone would cost for second hand and worn out Myford bits.

I know you get what you pay for but this lathe is more capable than I am at the moment so I”m quite happy . (and it is metric, which is important to me)

 

I would like to own a nice ML7 but one that isn’t well worn is way out of my budget.

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

When I had the 220, every time I tried parting off (yes with a Q-cut) it just chattered terribly, and then I found I got a terrible finish on plain turning. Eventually I stripped down the headstock and found clear marking on the inner race of the bearing nearest the chuck. I had a moan at Warco as clearly the bearings weren’t set up properly as supplied and were possibly of poor quality – they did provide a new set and once fitted they improved things considerably though the finish still wasn’t good. I think I did one bit of screwcutting which went OK, but having to tie a weight on the feed lever was a pain!

 

Yes, Mashtroy still exist and Myford don’t, but you can see from their website that Mashstroy have diversified and updated their product range which Myford never did. I’m interested to see that they still make the C210T, it’s maybe telling that Warco didn’t import it for very long.

 

My interests were going towards clocks when I had the 220, it obviously wasn’t great at finer work so I did consider buying a small lathe to supplement it. But then when I looked at what was around and thought about it I realised that a Myford would happily do both, so I gritted my teeth and went for it.

[Peter G. ShawParticipant @peterg-shaw75338]

John,

I know nothing about the Q-cut so can not comment about it.

 

My parting off experiences are:

 

Initially a home-made tool which broke all the rules about parting off and was bequeathed to me with my previous lathe. Tip width was about 1.6mm and maximum cutting depth about 7mm. This worked fine until, in a moment of carelessness I broke it.

Next I tried a 2.5mm wide carbide tipped tool. On first use, the tip broke away fromm the parent metal.

Then I tried a 3mm wide carbide tipped tool, and the chatter was horrendous.

Finally, I made my own tool from an old 4″ file with a holder based around Len Mason’s design in his book “Using the Small Lathe”. With the previous experiences, I made it flat-topped, slightly sloping sides and front and about 10mm deep with a tip width of anywhere between 1.6mm and 2.0mm. It actually ended up at 1.8mm. This tool works absolutely fine as long as I use plenty of cutting fluid, and I deliberately force the tip into the cut, ie no namby-pamby gentleness. Obviously, with that I am happy. And have no need for rear toolposts or any special tools.

 

I have had problems turning various unknown steels, however as soon as I started using, eg, EN1A, no problems. Now it may well be that the 220 won’t handle tough stuff, but to me that’s not important.

 

One thing I will say is that I have tried various tipped tools: they simply do not work, so I am now going back to HSS and even silver steel tools as these do appear to work satisfactorily. For me, that is.

 

For fine stuff, I don’t know. As I have said, I now have a set of metric direct collets and these do seem to make a difference.

 

Regards,

 

Peter G. Shaw

 

[Roger MountainParticipant @rogermountain33705]

Hi Ivy,

Iam sorry to hear about your problems with your Warco 220. I have run one for about 15 years and hardly recognize the descripion of the lathe. I do not have to hold the saddle feed lever down in any speed and have recently used an 1/8″ indexable parting tool in my front tool post to machine 7″ diam aluminium pulleys.

To address the problems you are having might here are a few suggestions.

 

Saddle feed.

Open lathe cover and check that the large friction wheel is engaging centrally in the groove of the small friction wheel in all three speeds. I believe I had to add a thin washer behind one of the wheels to achieve this in my case. Do not shim away all the all the end float on the friction wheels as there should be plenty of end float to allow them to engage properly.

Dismantle the automatic saddle feed mechanism to allow the feed lever to be depressed much further than normal. After you have depressed the lever you will see a screw by the base of the the feed lever, this screw bears on a pad and provides friction to prevent the feedlever dropping out of engagment. Tighten the screw, you will now find the feed lever much stiffer in opperation and not prone to drop out of engagment.

 

Screw cutting.

During screwcutting the automatic feed is dismantled and the appropiate gear train made up.

The meshing of the gears is set by feeding a strip of computer paper between the gears and adjusting for no backlash, remove the paper and lock the feed lever using the allen screw located under the gear cover ( I don’t bother and nothing has come loose yet).

 

Parting off.

Check the adjustment of the lathe slides and adjust as necessary.

Check the spindle for smooth operation and end float, if the spindle operation is not smooth strip the headstock IAW the manual and replace the spindle bearings gease the bearings with LM grease (car wheel bearing grease).

If the end float is out of spec adjust IAW manual.

PS The headstock bearings will run warm to the touch after prolonged use at maximum speed.

 

Hope this is some help,

 

Regards, Roger

[IvyParticipant @ivy]

Roger,

 

Thanks for posting your positive experience with the 220.

 

It is only the saddle feed that I have been having problems with, I will carry out your recommended adjustments hopefully at the weekend.

But I don’t understand IAW manual, please explain.

 

It looks like John Haine didn’t get on with his but I am happy with mine. It looks and feels like a substantial and well made machine to me.

 

Out of interest, where did you get replacement headstock bearings as I understand they are high precision bearings and not run of the mill as supplied by the usual bearing stockist.

 

Peter,

 

I bought some tipped cutting tools ages ago thinking they would improve my amaturish machining but as you said they are hopeless.

I bought some Eclipse HSS tools and they are far better if I can sharpen them right. It’s always a bit of a gamble if I do it well or not first time.

 

Thanks again to everybody that replied, Ivy.

 

[Roger MountainParticipant @rogermountain33705]

Hi Ivy,

Sorry for the abbreviation it means “In Accordance With”.

I damaged one of my headstock bearings and was faced with replacing them, because of the cost of precision bearings I replaced them with standard bearings from a good manufactuer (SKF or similar), I have had no problems with them.

As for your poor finish when turning it could just be the material you are machining, there are in everybodies scrap box bits of steel that have defied attempts by generations of model engineers to machine. Try to get hold of some EN1A steel and an indexable knife tool (at least you tool angles will be right) set the tool on centre and I am sure things will improve.

 

Regards, Roger

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Peter G. ShawParticipant @peterg-shaw75338]

Roger,

 

I’m interested in your description of the feed adjustment.

 

I have had my mechanism in bits and don’t remember finding any adjustment screw or pad at all. Which makes me wonder if your lathe is perhaps newer than mine. Mine is Factory No. 357 bought new in August 1994.

 

When you say “Feed Lever”, I assume you are referring to the lever which projects out from the lower part of the headstock casting below the Rev/Off/Fwd switch lever and which moves up and down with a rotary movement, and which also moves sideways to select the three speeds.

 

Regards,

 

Peter G. Shaw

[Roger MountainParticipant @rogermountain33705]

Hi Peter,

It sounds like there may have been some production changes between our machines. The screw is not visible when the feed lever is in it’s normal position, I will try and photograph it for you if I get time today. I have never inserted a photo into a posting do you know what size of image the site can cope with?

 

Regards, Roger

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Roger: after reading this I’m sure we would all appreciate some photos of the whole slow speed mechanism if you can manage it.

 

[Peter G. ShawParticipant @peterg-shaw75338]

Roger & Bazyle,

 

re Photo sizes:

The ones I have put up are about 3Kb. They do then appear to have been resized downwards again. I have a vague recollection of attempting to upload, and having to reduce the size until it fitted – if that makes sense.

 

In view of the comments from your self and Bazyle, I will also put up a photo or two of my machine and the parts under question. (It so happens that I discovered that by unscrewing the front panel handle, I could then slide out the complete mechanism without having to do any further dismantling!) Depending on time, I’ll try and get it done today, otherwise tomorrow.

 

Regards,

 

Peter G. Shaw

 

ps. Depending on what it looks like, and the work involved, I could be interested in upgrading.

[IvyParticipant @ivy]

I am watching this with great interest.

 

I hope Roger does upload some pictures as well as Peter because my lathe is earlier still, #089 1992 year of manufacture.

 

Ivy.

[Roger MountainParticipant @rogermountain33705]

Hi Peter,

I have photographed the screw in question you can just see it starting to emerge with 0.1mm/rev feed engaged. Sorry I can’t get a better picture but I would have to remove one of the friction wheels in order to get the feed lever to drop down further. Incidentaly with the feed lever pushed down in this position the the auto feed is fully engaged and shows no tendency to jump out.

 

Hope this is some use to you.

 

Regards, Roger

 

PS It looks like there are quite a few differences between these machines.

[IvyParticipant @ivy]

As a matter of interest my adjuster screw and lever are arranged the same as Rogers picture but after looking at the manual they are the other way around in the diagram, i.e. adjuster screw below the lever.

 

Yours confused, Ivy.

[Peter G. ShawParticipant @peterg-shaw75338]

Ivy, I’m not surprised you are confused! I’m somewhat struggling and I’ve had mine in bits, and I do mean in bits. Read on…

 

Ok, two photos of the mechanism removed from the lathe. I’ll describe later how to get it out, but note if you will, the screw hole where the handle or lever fits.

 

Now, how does this work? Ok, the manual uses all sorts of convoluted phrasing, so here is my version:

 

First of all, the gear wheel (64T, 61T can’t remember) on the left is bolted to a shaft which runs through the centre of what you can see here. The leadscrew fits into the shaft at the righthand end with a key. As the mechanism is moved left to right, then the internal shaft slides on the key. The internal shaft fairly obviously rotates inside the mechanism. That’s all there is to say about the shaft.

 

Right, the mechanism proper. If you look carefully, and I don’t know how much the picture can be expanded before it becomes unreadable, but you will notice that towards the left hand side can be seen part of a cone. Adjacent to it and to the right is the matching internal split cone. Actually, there are other photos below which possibly shows it more clearly.

Next to the internal cone is a greyish looking piece in which the handle is screwed. This part can rotate – you can see ball bearings to it’s right. Also to it’s right are another pair of cones. Now the grey part also is cut at an angle – might just be visible above. Rotation of the grey part, forces the two pairs of cones together whereupon the two split parts are forced to expand and in turn grip the inside of the headstock housing.

 

 To continue, having just saved it!

 

The two large nuts are used to adjust the mechanism slackness, if that makes sense. What you do is tighten up the thicker nut, and then lock it with the thinner nut. And don’t let’s get bogged down in the argument of which way round the nuts should be – this is how Mashstroy have set it up.

 

 

These two photos are simply different views. The last one is with the mechanism upside down to allow a photo of the underneath – not that there is anything of note!

Just done another save.

 

This photo is just the external part of it, but it does show the fixed external cone and the split cone – with a short key.

 

Ok, I’ve just been told the post is too long. So the remainder will follow below.

 

Regards,

 

Peter G. Shaw

Edited By Peter G. Shaw on 10/02/2012 19:58:38

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