THE WARCO WM180 LATHE....
…..is also available from other UK suppliers, with different names and colour schemes. Chester UK Ltd call it the DB7VS, at Amadeal it’s the AMA180V and other suppliers may use other designations. The machines are all supplied from China by Weiss Machinery Co. In the Netherlands, Weiss Machinery Europe BV sell it as the WM180V, and in Germany Optimum Machinery GmbH sell the Opti D 180 x 300. Some say this originates from a different Chinese factory, under German supervision or ownership; I’ve never seen an Opti other than in photographs, but it looks very similar indeed to the Weiss. For brevity, I’ll use “WM180” to cover all the versions.
I have no connection with any of those suppliers other than as a customer of Warco, where I bought my WM180 in 2006.
These days, the Internet is often the first place to look for information. If you want to know about a particular lathe, Google will usually help out. But there seems to be little information about the WM180, so the purpose of this site is to try in a small way to fill up that gap.
First, though, a word of warning – anything you do is at your own risk! And remember I’m just a very amateur tinkerer, not an engineer. There must be better ways to do the same things, and a proper engineer – or indeed a more competent hobbyist – would do them with more skill than I can muster. As with anything you find on the Web, there may be misinformation in here. If so, I'm sorry, and can only say in mitigation that it isn't deliberate. And there are no proper plans anywhere on here - just a few sketches to clarify how things were put together. I'm not a trained draftsman and most of these little projects were pretty much made up as I went along.
By way of brief description of the WM180 lathe:
The centre height over the bed is 180mm or 3½” (in the US, 7” swing). Over the cross-slide the height is about 55.5mm (2.2”). The nominal distance between centres is 300mm/12”, though I find I can get 13” out of mine before the tailstock becomes insecure. The chucks are 4” (100mm) in diameter. My lathe came with both 3- and 4-jaw chucks, and fixed and travelling steadies .
Drive is by pulleys and belts. One belt runs from the motor to an intermediate pulley, and a second from the intermediate to the spindle pulley. The second belt can be switched (an awkward job) between pulleys, to give two speed ranges. The motor speed is variable by the wonders of electronics, and (depending on the pulleys used) this gives spindle speeds between 120 and 1250 rpm, or 240 to 2500 rpm. The lathe will run slower than 120/240 rpm, but with little torque. Unlike higher quality lathes such as the Myford there is no low-ratio, high-torque back gear, or any way of reversing the leadscrew vis-à-vis the spindle. Though both can be run backwards by reversing the motor, this is no help if you want to cut a left-hand thread.
But comparing this budget lathe with much more expensive and better quality ones is like comparing a Ford Fiesta with a Mercedes. The WM180's main rivals are others in the "budget" class - notably the “7x12 mini-lathes” from the Chinese manufacturers Sieg and Real Bull and sold by various UK suppliers, including those mentioned earlier, for somewhat less than the WM180. These mini-lathes are similar in capacity (7” swing and 12” between centres - 14" on the latest models), but rather lighter in construction than the WM180, and with less powerful variable speed motors. It seems that, unless specially prepared (£££) by the supplier, they may need a fair amount of cleaning and setting up. But I’m certainly not knocking them; they are great value. Like the WM180, they have two speed ranges, but these are achieved with gears and a nice simple lever for changing between them. Also, they come with a “tumbler reverse gear” for the leadscrew as standard, again lever operated. These are excellent features, but the WM180 is without them.
I did consider a mini-lathe, but the greater robustness of the WM180, and the extras which Warco offered with it, persuaded me to dig a bit deeper into my wallet.
On arrival, my lathe needed minimal cleaning, and seemed to have been set up pretty well. One annoyance was that the “wings” on the front of the H shaped saddle fouled the bottom of the supplied faceplate, but that was soon remedied by skimming a little off its rim, and filing tiny chamfers on the wings. Further, after four years ownership (!), I discovered that the wrong dial had been fitted to the topslide. Another fault was that facing cuts are somewhat dished or concave. Many lathes cut concave by a thousandth or so, to avoid the problems that convexity would cause between mating parts. But a 0.005” dip in the middle of a 3” diameter workpiece is too much. I checked the headstock alignment with Rollie’s Dad’s Method (Google it) and that is OK, so the dovetail on top of the saddle had to be out of perpendicularr to the inverted V beneath, being the V which rides on the front prism along the bed. I finally plucked up the courage to remachine the dovetail, and have added a page giving brief details.
Along with the lathe, I ordered the cabinet to fit. It's OK, but no more than that. As time has gone by, I have come to realise that an old chest of drawers, with a beefed up top, would have been better for storage than a big steel cupboard with a single shelf half way up.
Overall, I was pretty happy with my purchase, but a wish list of modifications soon developed. Some of these addressed deficiencies like the lack of a reversible leadscrew and the awkwardness of changing speed range. Others, like a handle and dial on the end of the leadscrew and a way of repeatably stopping the saddle at a predetermined point, were improvements to make the lathe generally more useful. And then there were timesavers like a better way to alter the topslide angle and handles rather than bolts on things which were often being clamped and unclamped – my spanners and Allen keys hide as soon as I put them down. I seem to have worked my way through the list (though new ideas are always springing to mind) and I thought it might be worth documenting the mods in the accompanying files, in case this might help others, or maybe give them a laugh!
I did have a "Comment" section, but it started to fill up with spam from some Chinese shoe emporium, and I have got tired of deleting the junk. You are still welcome to get in touch; email me at the address at the bottom of the Home and Index page.
Back to Home and the Index
…..is also available from other UK suppliers, with different names and colour schemes. Chester UK Ltd call it the DB7VS, at Amadeal it’s the AMA180V and other suppliers may use other designations. The machines are all supplied from China by Weiss Machinery Co. In the Netherlands, Weiss Machinery Europe BV sell it as the WM180V, and in Germany Optimum Machinery GmbH sell the Opti D 180 x 300. Some say this originates from a different Chinese factory, under German supervision or ownership; I’ve never seen an Opti other than in photographs, but it looks very similar indeed to the Weiss. For brevity, I’ll use “WM180” to cover all the versions.
I have no connection with any of those suppliers other than as a customer of Warco, where I bought my WM180 in 2006.
These days, the Internet is often the first place to look for information. If you want to know about a particular lathe, Google will usually help out. But there seems to be little information about the WM180, so the purpose of this site is to try in a small way to fill up that gap.
First, though, a word of warning – anything you do is at your own risk! And remember I’m just a very amateur tinkerer, not an engineer. There must be better ways to do the same things, and a proper engineer – or indeed a more competent hobbyist – would do them with more skill than I can muster. As with anything you find on the Web, there may be misinformation in here. If so, I'm sorry, and can only say in mitigation that it isn't deliberate. And there are no proper plans anywhere on here - just a few sketches to clarify how things were put together. I'm not a trained draftsman and most of these little projects were pretty much made up as I went along.
By way of brief description of the WM180 lathe:
The centre height over the bed is 180mm or 3½” (in the US, 7” swing). Over the cross-slide the height is about 55.5mm (2.2”). The nominal distance between centres is 300mm/12”, though I find I can get 13” out of mine before the tailstock becomes insecure. The chucks are 4” (100mm) in diameter. My lathe came with both 3- and 4-jaw chucks, and fixed and travelling steadies .
Drive is by pulleys and belts. One belt runs from the motor to an intermediate pulley, and a second from the intermediate to the spindle pulley. The second belt can be switched (an awkward job) between pulleys, to give two speed ranges. The motor speed is variable by the wonders of electronics, and (depending on the pulleys used) this gives spindle speeds between 120 and 1250 rpm, or 240 to 2500 rpm. The lathe will run slower than 120/240 rpm, but with little torque. Unlike higher quality lathes such as the Myford there is no low-ratio, high-torque back gear, or any way of reversing the leadscrew vis-à-vis the spindle. Though both can be run backwards by reversing the motor, this is no help if you want to cut a left-hand thread.
But comparing this budget lathe with much more expensive and better quality ones is like comparing a Ford Fiesta with a Mercedes. The WM180's main rivals are others in the "budget" class - notably the “7x12 mini-lathes” from the Chinese manufacturers Sieg and Real Bull and sold by various UK suppliers, including those mentioned earlier, for somewhat less than the WM180. These mini-lathes are similar in capacity (7” swing and 12” between centres - 14" on the latest models), but rather lighter in construction than the WM180, and with less powerful variable speed motors. It seems that, unless specially prepared (£££) by the supplier, they may need a fair amount of cleaning and setting up. But I’m certainly not knocking them; they are great value. Like the WM180, they have two speed ranges, but these are achieved with gears and a nice simple lever for changing between them. Also, they come with a “tumbler reverse gear” for the leadscrew as standard, again lever operated. These are excellent features, but the WM180 is without them.
I did consider a mini-lathe, but the greater robustness of the WM180, and the extras which Warco offered with it, persuaded me to dig a bit deeper into my wallet.
On arrival, my lathe needed minimal cleaning, and seemed to have been set up pretty well. One annoyance was that the “wings” on the front of the H shaped saddle fouled the bottom of the supplied faceplate, but that was soon remedied by skimming a little off its rim, and filing tiny chamfers on the wings. Further, after four years ownership (!), I discovered that the wrong dial had been fitted to the topslide. Another fault was that facing cuts are somewhat dished or concave. Many lathes cut concave by a thousandth or so, to avoid the problems that convexity would cause between mating parts. But a 0.005” dip in the middle of a 3” diameter workpiece is too much. I checked the headstock alignment with Rollie’s Dad’s Method (Google it) and that is OK, so the dovetail on top of the saddle had to be out of perpendicularr to the inverted V beneath, being the V which rides on the front prism along the bed. I finally plucked up the courage to remachine the dovetail, and have added a page giving brief details.
Along with the lathe, I ordered the cabinet to fit. It's OK, but no more than that. As time has gone by, I have come to realise that an old chest of drawers, with a beefed up top, would have been better for storage than a big steel cupboard with a single shelf half way up.
Overall, I was pretty happy with my purchase, but a wish list of modifications soon developed. Some of these addressed deficiencies like the lack of a reversible leadscrew and the awkwardness of changing speed range. Others, like a handle and dial on the end of the leadscrew and a way of repeatably stopping the saddle at a predetermined point, were improvements to make the lathe generally more useful. And then there were timesavers like a better way to alter the topslide angle and handles rather than bolts on things which were often being clamped and unclamped – my spanners and Allen keys hide as soon as I put them down. I seem to have worked my way through the list (though new ideas are always springing to mind) and I thought it might be worth documenting the mods in the accompanying files, in case this might help others, or maybe give them a laugh!
I did have a "Comment" section, but it started to fill up with spam from some Chinese shoe emporium, and I have got tired of deleting the junk. You are still welcome to get in touch; email me at the address at the bottom of the Home and Index page.
Back to Home and the Index
