Warco Major?

[ondablade]

Hi all, i've just posted on the introductions thread - this is the associated question. Please pardon my dropping it in cold.

I'm shaping up to buy a light mill or more likely mill drill for use in my mixed wood and light metal work shop - having more or less given up on the lack of precision and shoddy build of most budget pedestal drills. More expensive drills tend to favour engineering use - are more accurate, but still have a small work envelope. A mill drill seems a good idea, in that the milling capability it would bring would open up all sorts of possibilities.

The requirement is to cover the classic woodworking tasks first - a good wide speed range, long lever operated spindle travel (125 - 150mm) and a decent sized work envelope. The x/y positioning table of a mill/drill adds some very nice additional capability. The requirement on the metal side seems unlikely to be high precision or demanding in toolroom or heavy milling terms, but a solid, accurately aligned, reliable, sweet running and consistent machine (that won't vibrate badly/shake itself to bits at high RPM) capable of getting within say a couple of thou on light milling, slotting and routing jobs over a reasonably sized piece would be nice.

3 axis CNC conversion to enable the production of relief panels might be a future interest.

A geared machine with a tilting head would be nice for convenient speed changes and flexibility in use - but something like an Arboga U2508 in decent condition at a reasonable price is proving hard to find - and spares are horribly expensive.

I find myself looking hard at the manual version of one of the Eastern made belt drive mill drills - like the Axminster ZX 30 or more likely the Warco Major. Simple, not too expensive, easily modified and a nice big work envelope. Probably in 230V 3 phase form to take a VFD if needed to bump the speed up for overhead routing tasks and convenient speed changes. Been around for a long time, so hopefully the bugs have been knocked out long ago. The round column issue is not a show stopper - if nothing else a geared head square column machine of similar envelope is just too expensive.

The issue that's proving hard to bottom is the likely quality of one of these - there's very few indeed over here, and the distance makes any problem doubly inconvenient. Neither supplier is geared up to respond very effectively to detailed engineering queries - perhaps no surprise given the price point. I've heard good reports, and seen a few problems mentioned (e.g. possible backlash in the quill drive) but judging by budget pedestal drills quite a bit could depend on getting a good example/one from a good factory. It'd be a disaster to end up soemthing as badly made as a budget pillar drill.

To ask the hard question. What's the story on these machines? Who does the best? Can anybody offer an experience based view on the likely quality of one or other taken at random off the shelf? Does there exist a significant risk of getting left with a clunker? Warco say they provide a test report with each new machine for example, which sounds good. How effective does the warranty response tend to be in the event of problems? Etc…. all thoughts appreciated.

Thank you

ian