Warco mill lubrication

[SillyOldDuffer]

On SillyOldDuffer Said:

 

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.

Quite. I had the Harrison L5 manual, and apart from using correct English grammar it wasn’t much different from the one that came with my Warco WM180.

[Martin of Wick]

On Martin of Wick Said:

 

On my versions of the 16 all gears are metal.

 

 

Are you sure about that, Martin?

Have you handled the high/low gear cluster and confirmed it is metal?

Warco’s description of the WM18 says: “As with all Warco milling machines, this machine has metal gears.”

Not wrong, but they left out the word “some”.

Peter Venn, when I took my gear out there was no indication of any degradation to the high gear in spite of using white lithium grease on it for four years and using it far more often than the low gear. Damage to the low gear was almost certainly mechanical, not chemical.

[Martin of WickParticipant @martinofwick]

…Have you handled the high/low gear cluster and confirmed it is metal?…

Yep,

This is a 2009 machine and when it was part dismantled a few months ago to see if I could implement a belt drive retro fit, I had a good look and poke with a scribe and a scraper at all of the gears. Because of the operational gear noise I was expecting damage or wear or a part broken plastic gear.

To my astonishment all gears  turned out to be metal and in generally good condition, no signs of chipping or surface roughness or gross breakdown damage that I could observe ( I could only observe with a low power lens in situ, ie. not able pull them out to inspect with a loupe).

The motor to layshaft gears are both helical metal gears and are the ones that produce the spectacular howl at speed.

The layshaft HI LO gear cluster are metal straight cut as are the spindle sleeve gears, they add the percussion component to the symphony of sound produced by the milling head.

 

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