16mm tools in the WM250V lathe

I have just taken the first couple of cuts with 16mm tooling in my Warco WM250V lathe.

These have been the best I have ever had. The tool easily removed more metal in one go than I was comfortable doing before, and without trying, the surface finish is better than I have had before. 

The photo shows what was supposed to be a roughing cut. Better than any of my previous tools.

The WM250V is intended to take a maximum of 12mm tooling, which is what I have been using up until now.

The reason I tried this is that I had noticed that the T51 quick change tool post I had was just large enough to fit 16mm tooling and I took a chance that there was enough height adjustment to centre a 16mm tool. I had already replaced some of the tool holders with longer M8 grub screws to be able to centre and lock the 12mm tooling reliably. Those same M8x40mm grub screws gave me enough movement to adjust the 16mm tooling.

It's a bit close with the bottom edge, having only about 0.5mm movement left, but, as they say, clearance is clearance.

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Spacers for the hot rod

The hot rod build has progressed. Dean has made the main rails of the chassis and the engine, gearbox and front suspension are in place. He is making sure that everything lines up as he goes. Sticking with the original model A hubs and trying to get the alignment of the available brake discs and calipers has been challenging.

He's tried a few that sounded on paper to be close, but searching on the internet for accurate enough information is difficult, so the only option is to buy bits and try them out.

With a bit of trial and error, and only one adjustment to the spacer that I made on the lathe, it has all gone together nicely. With the information from that mock-up Dean can make up the various mounting brackets needed for the final assembly.

Parts:

• Ford front spindle (c.1940)
• Volvo 240 brake caliper.
• MGC or Austin Healey 38mm offset brake disc.

Lathe:

• Warco WM250V

As a side note, I have been very pleased with the lathe.

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Update on the mill and lathe

Having used the mill and lathe a bit more, I have made a couple of adjustments and completed some changes that I had planned.

Guards

On the lathe I've added some simple clear guards to the slide. The fixed factory guard on the compound slide was never any good for me.

These shields are magnetic, so I can easily move them about to suit where I'm working or swap them out for a different shape.

Obviously I don't want chips heading towards my face, but I wear glasses or a face shield, so the guard is not the primary protection in that area. I find that more hot chips hit my hands, which are by necessity closer to the machine and largely unprotected. Most commonly, this is while using the handwheels. My solutions sort that out.

I'll probably make a couple more designs to mount on the toolholder, so I have more flexibility about where they are positioned.

[Update] I'm still up in the air about the guard on the mill. I've tried using some magnetic shields, similar to the lathe. They were no better than the original, except a little more compact. I've reverted to the factory supplied guard for now.

R8 Spindle

Since I've had the WM18 mill, I have been disappointed with the poor engagement of the keyway in my R8 tools. Never having used this before, I did not know what to expect, but I decided it should be better. The collet chuck would engage but not very positively, the Jacobs chuck arbour would fit at any angle!

Over the weekend, I decided to take some time to check that there was not a fault. It did not take me very long to find the issue.

I now know that the key is a simple grub screw and it was nearly all the way out the wrong side! I added a little medium strength thread lock and put it back in, to a depth that felt right. It now works as I imagined it should.

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First chips from the new lathe and mill

My new lathe and mill arrived a few weeks ago. Between then and now I've been going through the various processes of setting them up. Cleaning, oil, levelling, tramming etc. and adding some digital scales to the lathe.

For the first jobs, I've turned some threaded inserts and milled a couple of slots.

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