Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 10/11/2022 11:51:46:
Based on the limited evidence of a few photos, I see a number of posters insisting the machine is 'unfit for purpose' and war must be declared. As starting a fight is easy to recommend when one is in complete safety, I'd take the advice with a pinch of salt! The customer has to deal with the hassle, not chaps on the internet with strong opinions but no skin in the game. Beware too, that some have an agenda in which nothing but an old-school Western made lathe is any good.
You have a point about the hassle, and so on…
But the condition it turned up in is just not cricket… and Warco must be well aware that if they sent something in a condition like that to a business customer there would be a very real risk of them rejecting it out of hand and refusing the pay the PO until it was sorted.
So I would absolutely think it reasonable to push for something from Warco by way of acknowledgement of the fact that they cocked up, without going overboard.
Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 10/11/2022 11:51:46:
Beware too, that some have an agenda in which nothing but an old-school Western made lathe is any good.
I feel like they don't have a leg to stand on here, given the inevitable compromises of buying a used lathe…
Short of happening on a Hardinge that's spent its life in a climate controlled university lab, now reselling for the mere price of a new car, or some equally infrequent and unlikely scenario… You're just not going to find a used lathe in as clean a condition as the WM250V in the pictures.
FWIW I think the "old iron" approach is better value for money if you have the space, the ability to move the machines, and the skills/willingness to assess/patch up ailing machines, but that's more a comment on the compromises inherent to all small, value-engineered machine tools.
I know a good number of people who were fortunate enough to be able to move from exquisitely manufactured Myford's with all the bells and whistles to modern full size lathes from Warco et. al. and found it to be a big step up despite the supposed superiority of manufacture/finish on a Myford; I doubt they'd see the same level of performance jump by buying a new Trens or Colchester to replace their new Warco or Chester.
Ultimately engineering is all about optimisation problems, and choosing machine tools is no different; each user has to optimise for their use case and decide what the right balance to strike is. For me a WM250V or the like is a frustrating machine to use, but that doesn't make it a bad machine, just a slow one by the standards of a user who fully acknowledges their impatience…
Edited By Jelly on 10/11/2022 14:21:07