Warco mill lubrication

[Peter VennParticipant @petervenn53369]

I have just purchased a new Warco VM 16 milling machine and set it up.
The manual is the worst of any manual I have ever come across for any new product. Warco should be ashamed of it and it gives minimal information and is written in pigeon English despite having their name splashed all over it.

That said I am unclear about lubrication of the quill and gears. There is a removable plug on the right hand side of the head which shows the gears and and the symbol next to it shows a grease gun which to imply that grease should be applied, but the gears run extremely fast and I would have thought oil would be better. I’m not sure whether this is meant to be reservoir reservoir.
Furthermore lubrication of other parts is basically absent from the manual and not lubrication points are not even mentioned.

Does anybody have a more comprehensive manual?

Grateful for any help!
Peter Venn

[Martin of WickParticipant @martinofwick]

This may help

https://cdn0.grizzly.com/manuals/g0704_m.pdf.

There is no oil reservoir for the gears. If metal, the best  I could do is get a lolly stick and try to smear some molyslip on such gears as was able to reach through the little hole in the headstock. Take off the cover to access the upper gears from the motor. All quite pointless as any lubricant you put on will be flung off in any case.

This class of mill is only intended to have a few hundred hours of use before failure of some sort. The real problem for the Wartco flavour WM16 is that the commonly available belt drive conversion is not possible to implement (grinds teeth in rage and frustration).

Before using, get yourself a good set of ear defenders.

[Bill PhinnParticipant @billphinn90025]

On my WM18 I just squirt some aerosol white lithium grease through the small hole on to both the spindle gears and intermediate gears while the mill is running slowly. It doesn’t need doing very often. If you ever tilt your mill’s head there may be access to the gears from the back via a thin access plate, which will let you get a better look at what you’re dealing with.

There is no metal-on-metal of the gears on my mill; metal gears couple with plastic.

Putting any significant quantity of oil in the gear case of my mill wouldn’t work too well as the oil would seep out of the rear access port very readily and you would always be left with only about 1/2” of oil at the bottom of the gear case, which would do nothing except prevent rust forming on the gear case’s floor.

As for the quill, I put a thin coat of Mobil Vactra no. 2 or 4 on it. This needs doing even less often than the gears.

[Brian WoodParticipant @brianwood45127]

I find it especially sad that so many of these machines, and lathes, are sold accompanied by the most appalling manuals. So often I have read Forum answers that in every case suggest Grizzly in the States have far better machine manuals for what seem to be identical products.

Why is it that our suppliers fail so dismally in this respect? Furthermore, in this case from the answers above, it seems that lifetime is expected to be short; a case of planned failure that is grossly unfair on the buyer. So much for the New World.

What do others think?

Brian

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

I think my hobby mill must have several 1000 hours on it over the 14 years I have had it so don’t take one persons comment as read.

Had the lathe for almost as long, given what the purchase price was I could afford to throw it away about 10 times & buy a replacement and still have a bit of change compared to the cost of a new Myford. So don’t really see anything unfair in that.

[Martin of WickParticipant @martinofwick]

The populous demands ‘cheap’.

The manufacturers respond and produce ‘cheap’.

So what becomes commonly available is ‘cheap’ where issues of quality, longevity, ease of use etc are of decreasing relevance.

 

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

For many other products nowadays it is just a web link to download. Other websites, some scammers, are selling that information or flaky scans of manuals for older products. It comes down to costs/profit.
When I got my first lathe some 40 years ago it came with limited screwcutting tables in the manual. So I calculated the missing ones and sent details to the importer for a single A4 sheet suggesting they supply it with every lathe. They responded that it was too expensive – ie they didn’t care and just wanted to slap a label on each package and ship it not bother with customer service.

[Brian WoodParticipant @brianwood45127]

I think it was Lathejack who posted a long and dreadful story, with pictures, on the old forum to document his experience with a new Warco lathe. This was a geared head machine of about Colchester capacity.

I don’t now recall what prompted his work but briefly the headstock was rusty within, there was foundry sand in the joint sealing the lid and his courage failed when it came to looking into the screw cutting gearbox. He replaced expensive imported bearings that had been wrecked and so on.

It was a salutary story. I would have sent it back but what might have been supplied instead.

The buying public has become accustomed to this sort of thing now, I deplore it.

Brian

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

Makes an old Boxford/Myford/colchester an attractive buy!!!!!

[Martin of WickParticipant @martinofwick]

….There is no metal-on-metal of the gears on my mill; metal gears couple with plastic…..

A frequent cause of woe for WM18 owners. if posts on various on- line fora are to be believed.

Okay, I admit to being somewhat  bitter and twisted about my WM16 due to its various shortcomings. At the time the fateful decision was made, the SX3 was about 30% more, so now I can repent at leisure!

Sooner or later, the 16 will shatter a spindle / intermediate gear or burn out a board or motor, at which time it will be disposed of as not worth the time and cost to repair (as far as I am concerned). Until then I am stuck with it.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Sums it up really you get what you pay for, buy a car that is 1/10th the price of another and would anyone honestly expect the same quality?

Same with a lathe, my 11″ swing 280 costs about £3k now, I could buy a chinese hardinge copy which is also 11″ swing but it would cost me £25K It would be better made and to a higher spec and I don’t have any expectations that my 280 will be upto the same spec. To get the price that low something has to give and I don’t expect the same from both.

You also only tend to read posts about problems as who is going to start a post just to say nothing went wrong with my lathe/mill this month, year, etc. Add to the fact that they are being produced in vast numbers and shipped all over the world by the container full and the actual percentage of duff ones is likely quite small.

We won’t go into self inflicted damage buy owners expecting a light hobby machine to take the same cuts an industrial machine can.

[Brian WoodParticipant @brianwood45127]

I take your point Jason. I think Martin summed it up nicely earlier on, the public expects cheap and cheap now seems to be the norm. And that is the problem, the market is saturated with cheap, there is little choice except for those of us who try and sniff out bargains in old iron.

I am one of those and expect to have to fix it, but I do have my limits. I will not countenance a basket case as that becomes a money pit; it is a question of skill and judgement to find rare gold in the dross. Thus far those instincts have been in my favour. The one machine I built was my Mk 2 Dore Westbury mill and I put a lot of care into that. That has given excellent  service since commissioning over 30 years ago.

I still believe in backing my judgement.

Brian

[Martin of Wick]

On Martin of Wick Said:

….There is no metal-on-metal of the gears on my mill; metal gears couple with plastic…..

A frequent cause of woe for WM18 owners. if posts on various on- line fora are to be believed.

Okay, I admit to being somewhat  bitter and twisted about my WM16 due to its various shortcomings. At the time the fateful decision was made, the SX3 was about 30% more, so now I can repent at leisure!

Sooner or later, the 16 will shatter a spindle / intermediate gear or burn out a board or motor, at which time it will be disposed of as not worth the time and cost to repair (as far as I am concerned). Until then I am stuck with it.

Precisely why my second lathe was ‘old iron’, thankfully replacing a new (at purchase) chinese lathe.

Raglan was the marque and I only later replaced the Mkll Little John with a Raglan 5” because that is, IMO, a worthwhile improved design over the virtually immediate post WWll design.  Far better value for money, too, as I waited until I located an item with very little wear and lots of optional kit at a good price for me.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

As a WM18 owner, I’m surprised by the negative comments.  Are these from actual owners, or just hearsay from an internet echo chamber, perhaps one with racist motives?

Greasing the gears is easy, and doesn’t have to be done very often.  I squirt White lithium in from a can periodically with the mill turning slowly in both high and low gear.  The oil points are obvious, as with any machine just inject a few drops of oil into them at the start of each session.

Don’t understand the reference to ear defenders!  Though my mill isn’t quiet, it’s not loud either.

Not sure what Peter expects of the manual.   Even those written for much more expensive machines tend to be terse.  Thing is a milling machine is a tool, not a consumer product.  It’s expected the owner already knows a bit.   Machinist skills can’t be learned from a pamphlet supplied with the machine.   Mills are actually rather simple, the hard part is learning how to drive them properly.  To do that there’s a great deal to know about materials, cutters, feed-rate, rpm, work-holding, measuring, technique, and how to get the best out of a particular machine.

For what it’s worth I think the two most common beginner mistakes are:

• pussy-footing, taking very light cuts that quickly blunt the cutter by rubbing the edge.
• angry-gorilla, taking heavier cuts than a relatively delicate hobby machine is up to.  Clues the owner is heavy handed include damaged gears, blown electronics, and burned out motors. Especially if they are repeat offenders!  Perhaps this is a particular issue for ex-industrial machinists, who, spoiled rotten on big machines paid for by their employer, fail to realise that a hobby machine costing less than 10% of the industrial equivalent isn’t designed for production rate cutting!   If so, their previous experience of high-speed metal removal is dangerous because hobby gear has to be treated with respect.  Forget wham-bam thank you ma’am and treat her like a lady.   Not difficult, but getting good results without tears and tantrums requires patience.

Trouble with the manuals supplied with machine tools is by the time you’ve got your head half round the new toy they’re not worth reading.  This includes the better American ones!   A collection of other books fill in the gaps – a few thousand pages, with advice looked up as needed rather than read like a novel.  YouTube sampled with care due to quality shortcomings, and ideally a mentor who knows about hobby machines.  Take your time, make a few things, and ask here if stuff doesn’t work as expected.

Dave

[Martin of Wick]

On Martin of Wick Said:

….There is no metal-on-metal of the gears on my mill; metal gears couple with plastic…..

A frequent cause of woe for WM18 owners. if posts on various on- line fora are to be believed.

 

It was a cause of woe for me – at the time. But actually, I learned quite a lot by having to rectify the problem (with the help of other forum members), and I’m pretty confident the mill is better in the gear department now than it was when new. I also quite enjoyed the challenge.

I’m well versed now in what to do if the problem happens again, which it’s less likely to do because a). I’ve got a healthier understanding of the mill’s limits, and b). my repair involved rectifying a gear engagement issue (from new) that made the relative weakness of plastic gears potentially much weaker.

The engagement problem was a result of poorly positioned (by the factory) detentes on the gear selector plate, which didn’t allow the low gear to travel quite far enough up the gear shaft to let the full thickness of the teeth on the low gear engage with the full thickness of the spindle gear. Acting on Jason’s advice, I drilled new and better spaced detentes on the opposite side of the plate and now the low gear as well as the high gear have full thickness engagement with the spindle gears.

The photo below shows the inside of the gear case after fitting the new gear. Image quality is poor because it’s taken in a mirror; you see, I didn’t pull the bench the mill sits on away from the wall (too much faff!) to do the repair but did all work in the gear case from the front of the mill whilst reaching round the back and seeing what I was doing by use of a strategically positioned mirror. Difficult at first, but it got the job done.

[Brian Wood]

On Brian Wood Said:

I find it especially sad that so many of these machines, and lathes, are sold accompanied by the most appalling manuals. So often I have read Forum answers that in every case suggest Grizzly in the States have far better machine manuals for what seem to be identical products.

Why is it that our suppliers fail so dismally in this respect? Furthermore, in this case from the answers above, it seems that lifetime is expected to be short; a case of planned failure that is grossly unfair on the buyer. So much for the New World.

What do others think?

Brian

Grizzly operation is big enough to write their own manuals, UK supplied ones are written in China and badged the same way the machines are.

[DellParticipant @dell]

I have Warco’s smallest mill WM12 & have a belt drive conversion on it mainly because of noise and stripping gear teeth , while I had it apart I looked to see a way to lubricate bearings but the best I could do was smear it where I could, I don’t do big jobs on it although saying that I have cut a few dovetails and made a tool holder for my Pultra, the belt drive conversion was the best thing I have done because not only quieter I get a better finish.

Dell

[Martin of WickParticipant @martinofwick]

So I assume that the spindle drive extension on the WM12 (the bit upon which the perforated speed plate sits that you can just see above the pulley) is all  one unit down past the top bearing?

On the WM 16 (or at least on my version ) the part above the bearing supporting the speed plate is just a separate bush pressed into the spindle drive extension exactly at the top bearing with about 1/2mm of support metal. OK to carry the speed plate but certainly incapable of taking the drive from the motor. So belt drive retro fit not possible.

And as you say, if you are fortunate enough to be able to implement a belt conversion, the ear shattering noise of two sets of steel gears hammering against each other 2500 times a minute is gone as has the associated vibration. The mill is much more pleasant to use and finishes are better.

I assume the use of plastic gears in the train seen in WM18 was an attempt to solve the noise problem by introducing a potential failure issue instead.  Top marks design team!

 

Advice to anyone considering this class of mill, make sure you get the belt drive version!

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

There are quite a lot of belt conversions for the 704 so should also work with your WM16

[Martin of Wick]

On Martin of Wick Said:

 

Advice to anyone considering this class of mill, make sure you get the belt drive version!

I would concur that.  “Touch wood”, my WM16B hobby machine has been OK.  I hope that’s not put the kiss of death on it.  Just treat them with a little respect.

 

[Peter VennParticipant @petervenn53369]

Thank you to everyone for your comments, and I am a little apprehensive that people recommend the belt drive version because that’s not what I bought! I also spent £2700 on it with a DRO and powered table feed fitted, so I’m not expecting trouble in the near future!So far nothing has gone wrong with it, but I’ve only had it a couple of days!

I would be loath to fiddle with it until something does go wrong and I have to say it runs very quietly, so I’m not sure why people say it is noisy or whether the new versions have been modified.

I will put some grease onto the gears. Google suggests that silicone grease is best because white grease is petroleum based which is not great for plastic.

I’m going to the Midlands ME on Friday, and if Warco are there I might have a word with them about it.

Peter

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

Do take especial note of page 11, of the grizzly manual.

Slow speed means reduced cooling.  I^2R losses increase as current increases.  It is easy to overload the machine with heavy cuts at low motor speed – leading to motor and/or control/power supply board failure.

A very common failure mode of many of these cheaper chinese drives.  You have been warned!

 

[Martin of WickParticipant @martinofwick]

Jason, unfortunately, the spindle sleeve extension on the warco 16 I have is slightly different from the 0704, being both much shorter at about 3mm above bearing, having no vertical screw tappings.

I have thought about a bespoke pulley sleeve but to my mind there is just not enough metal from the spindle sleeve projecting above the bearing for a secure pulley fastening.  Had the spindle sleeve extension projected a few mm more I might have attempted a solution.

Some solutions I have seen use the spindle, or fit a pulley secured internally so quill movement is no longer possible and is not a solution of use to me.

The only solution I can envisage is one that replaces the spindle sleeve with a longer unit and would presumably be quite expensive as it must be pretty accurately ground and require total dismantling.

I think the picture sums it up…

 

 

[Martin of WickParticipant @martinofwick]

Well I suppose noise might be a matter of perception (and I have the ear defenders for when it gets bad!).

On my versions of the 16 all gears are metal. At any speed over 1000 rpm, the top helical gear emits a howl like an F1 car being run up to full chat, accompanied by the grinding clatter of the straight cut gears driving the spindle.

It is what it is, a budget tool, and there is no easy solution or remedial other than to replace with something better.

 

 

[Dave Halford]

On Dave Halford Said:

Grizzly operation is big enough to write their own manuals, UK supplied ones are written in China and badged the same way the machines are.

Grizzly’s lawyers are also probably far more sensitive to the potential for litigation given the tendency of individuals to sue in the US.

Remember the woman who sued and won because the instructions for her microwave oven did not  warn her not to put her pet dog inside to dry it off!!!

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