Prospects College asked us to supply and install a large workshop as part of a new training centre they were building. As one of the most prominent providers of vocational training in the South East, Prospects have over 40 years experience in education.
They have an innovative approach to teaching which involves working in partnership with businesses, which enables them to deliver a range of unique training courses tailored to match the skill requirements of industry.
One focus of the college in particular is engineering, and as part of this they approached us to see if we could help. We were able to work with them to offer a fitting that was tailored to meet their very specific requirements, involving equipping a set of workshops with a range of Warco machinery and tools.
We’ve added a few pics of the installation below.
A range of Warco milling machines loaded onto a truck for delivery.
Another truck loaded with mills about to leave for Prospects.
The milling machines and lathes are all set up and in place after our installation.
Note the guards fitted to the mills, we offer these as part of our safety measures for education customers.
The end result with the workshops fully equipped and machines all ready to use.
Now those machines are being used intensively on a regular basis, helping with the teaching of engineering apprenticeships and hopefully training a new generation of future engineers.
At Warco we don’t consider any project too large or small, and are always happy to offer advice or a bespoke quote centred around your requirements. So whether you’re looking to update a garden shed workshop or are after some machines for a large scale installation – and anything in between – we’ll be happy to help.
You can find our full product range on the Warco site, and if you have any questions or are after a quote, please feel free to get in touch.
We’ve always been strong believers in the benefits of equipping a new generation with engineering skills, so some of our most rewarding work is working with schools and education facilities to supply ranges of machinery for students to learn from.
From small scale private training facilities to state of the art new build academies, we’ve been involved with projects at every end of the education spectrum and are proud to have been involved with all of them.
We recently supplied a range of machinery to an all new facility, the WMG Academy in Coventry.
Nash Maliko and Engineering Technician Chris Parry in the WMG AcademyWarco milling machines in the classroom. Photos credit: Coventry Telegraph
This new state of the art facility will be teaching students vocational and practical skills, with the aim of boosting future career prospects and gearing up students to work in industry. With a focus on the automotive, aerospace and manufacturing sectors, the academy is working in conjunction with the University of Warwick as well as partners including Jaguar Land Rover and Bosch.
We were able to supply and install a range of machinery tailored around the very specific requirements of the teaching workshops and it was a really interesting project to be involved with.
Now that a new term has started, it’s great to hear that the machines we supplied over the school breakdown period are already being put to good use.
We’re highly aware safety is a paramount in a school or college environment, so we always specify stop switches, spindle brakes and other precautionary measures. Everything we supply is fully endorsed and follows all the latest guidelines, and we work with highly qualified and talented individuals who are certified to handle any aspect of machine maintenance, safety and installation.
Other posts on Warco machine installations include:
The workshop of Jason and Brian Rourke with a Warco lathe and milling machine appeared recently on a segment of the Channel 4 show Speed with Guy Martin, where Guy attempted a new world record for the fastest speed recorded on a bicycle.
A specially commissioned bike was needed for the task, so the producers of Guy Martin’s show called upon Jason Rourke to engineer a tailored bike with bespoke gearing to extract maximum power for the world record attempt. Based in Stoke-on-Trent, the Rourkes are some of the top cycle engineers in the country, having built made to measure frames for more than 4,000 top cyclists worldwide.
They’re passionate and skilled engineers, just like so many of our customers, we’re proud that they’ve come to rely on our machines. On the show, we saw part of the build process for the bike.
Jason Rourke in his workshop on Channel 4
Guy Martin lending a hand as they build part of the bike
Guy Martin with the finished record breaking bike
The attempt was successful, with the bike reaching 112.94mph, an incredible feat which put them in the record books.
Update: We hope you all had a great holiday period. Our Christmas promotion was a great success so thanks for your support. Original post below.
It’s that time of year again.
Selection of gift ideas from Warco
If you’re looking for something for that difficult to buy for engineer this Christmas, or you just want to treat yourself, the above items are all very popular with our customers at the moment and we think they represent great value for money.
You can find all these items in our special Warco Christmas gift section online, or buy any time during office hours from the Warco showroom, where technical help is always on hand. Wishing all of you a very happy Christmas.
Following on from our post detailing an installation of Warco lathes & milling machines at Prospects College, we wanted to share some details of another machine tool set up we provided at the JCB Academy in Staffordshire.
The JCB Academy is an all new centre for developing a new generation of engineers and future business leaders, offering a wide range of practical vocational courses. All teaching is backed by the central principle of learning by doing.
The building that houses the Academy was originally a mill, built in the late 18th Century by the famous industrial entrepreneur and engineer Richard Arkwright. It went on to be completely transformed as part of the JCB project, and is now a state of the art educational centre for 21st Century students studying business and engineering.
Students on a Warco lathe at JCB, photo from The Guardian.
As part of the process of establishing the facilities, JCB contacted us with a request to set up and equip large scale workshops with a comprehensive range of machinery, in keeping with their aim of creating one of the UK’s largest sites dedicated to the teaching of engineering.
They were after workshops fully set up for work on real-life engineering projects, and we were happy to be able to undertake a bespoke installation of Warco machinery.
We’ve included some photos below of Warco machines in place just after being fitted and installed. Note that rather than the usual Warco green you might expect, as part of the request we supplied all the machinery in bespoke JCB themed colours.
The range of machinery we supplied and handled all aspects of installation for included:
JCB Academy was officially opened by The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall, you can read about that on the BBC news site. It’s now in its second academic year of training a new generation of engineers and business leaders, something we’re proud to have been a part of.
For further reading about the scale of the project, there was an interesting article published in Technology In Education magazine which we’ve included below.
Technology In Education article about JCB Academy opening and Warco machinery.
We’ve released an all new brochure featuring all our metalworking products. From bandsaws to lathes, milling machines to sheet metal folders, drilling machines to grinders, they’re all included. Also featured is our full ranges of milling and lathe tools, accessories and much more. The brochure has nearly 100 full colour pages and full specifications of each item, and includes all our latest products.
New Warco brochure
You can download a full copy of it on warco.co.uk, or if you’d prefer a printed copy to flick through, just contact us with your details and we’ll pop one to you in the post, totally free of charge if you have a UK address. And of course details of our entire range is available at warco.co.uk.
Update: Since this was originally posted the Warco GH1232 has now been superseded by the GH1236 – which now offers even higher specification including increased distance between centres. The Warco WM 250VF has evolved into an upgraded version called WM 250V – which now has an inverter drive. The most up to date specification on these and all of our lathes can be found on warco.co.uk.
Original archived post below.
This has shaped up to be a particularly busy year at Warco so far. We’ve revamped our product range, have a raft of new products on the way and perhaps some of the most significant changes have been the additions to our lathe lineup.
The revamped Warco lathe lineup
This year so far has seen a total of five new metal lathes joining our range – a mixture of new and improved specifications on existing machines, as well as all new machines that now fill in the gaps in our metalworking range. From smallest to largest, here’s a run down of the all new additions to our range. (See our next forthcoming blog post for a full introduction to one of the new machines we’re most excited about – the Super Mini Lathe.)
For years now we’ve noticed increasing demand for a compact belt drive lathe, finding that many of our customers prefer the more straightforward belt driven mechanism for their metal turning needs. With that in mind, the WM 240B is our answer to all of those requests. Based on our popular existing variable speed machine, the regular WM 240, the new WM 240B still features exceptional Warco quality as standard, comes with a large range of standard equipment, full 12 month guarantee and as many features including a hardened and ground double vee bedway. The key difference with the 240B is that speed selection is by belt change, which we’ve found to be in high demand as an alternative to more the more commonly seen variable speed.
WM 250VF
Warco WM 250VF Lathe
The WM 250 has been a long term favourite with hobbyists / model engineers and professionals alike – particularly those in the market for a relatively compact machine with no compromise on rigidity, accuracy and robustness. We considered the difficult question of how the WM 250 could be in any way improved upon as part of a revamped range, and found an answer with the addition of a power cross feed. The WM 250VF has a high level of power and flexibility, with the added bonus of this all new power cross feed, which we supply fitted to the machine – so as always with our machinery, once it arrives simply power it up and away you go. You can rest assured our team of engineers will have already set up and tested the machine before it gets to you. Overall then, an extremely versatile machine, the 250VF also features a powerful motor, huge torque in the low speed range, and at this price point offers superb accuracy, precision and build quality.
GH1232
Warco GH1232 Lathe
We’re introducing the GH1232 with the all new addition of a digital readout counter as standard. This gear head lead still features induction hardened and ground bedways, a high tensile cast iron bed and the high levels of quality that ensured its long term popularity with industry, tool shops and schools/colleges alike. As an upgrade to the previous specification, now each one has the bonus of a coolant system too – as well as a huge range of standard equipment, providing everything needed to get started with professional level turning on an extremely robust and high precision heavy duty machine.
How to buy?
View these machines along with our complete range of metal lathes for sale in our online shop, where you can also find full specifications and dimensions of each one. If you’re interested in any of these lathes but find they’ve already sold out, that just means we’re expecting a new batch soon to meet demand, so stay tuned.
And if you like, you can always place a pre-order to ensure you’re towards the front of the queue when we restock, with no payment in advance required – simply call us on 01428 682929.
Alternatively, when an item’s in stock you can always simply order securely online. Whichever way you choose to buy, remember we don’t believe in hidden charges – all Warco machine prices include UK mainland delivery and VAT at 20%.
We’ve been supplying lathes to model engineers for four decades now, and thought it was about time we created a new section of the site dedicated to lathes that are ideal for this purpose. Over the years, we’ve seen hundreds of customers create very impressive scale models of all descriptions using Warco machines, and we’re proud to have been involved in this constantly innovating field.
A selection of steam powered models at Warco
Model engineering continues to be a massively popular hobby, appealing to all ages and levels of experience, and the turnout at exhibitions up and down the country just goes to show how it continues to go from strength to strength.
More steam powered engineering creations at Warco
We understand if you’re getting started with scale engineering it can be a bit of a minefield selecting the right machine, so with that in mind our new model engineering lathes subcategory aims to make the selection process a little easier. In this section, we’ve filtered out the industrial, larger sized machines more suited to heavy duty applications, instead showing only the best lathes for model engineering.
As with all the machines we sell, there are no hidden charges – all prices shown include VAT at 20% and UK mainland delivery.
From our new entry level favourite, the Warco Super Mini Lathe, to the WM 240B Lathe – offering traditional belt drive popular with old school engineers, right up to the fully equipped WM 280V or 290V, which offers high capacity, variable speed and just about everything you could want from a lathe at this level, we aim to cater to all budgets and experience levels.
Here’s to another 40 years of model engineering with Warco machines, we can’t wait to see what you build next! You can find our full range of lathes for model engineers by clicking below.
We just wanted to take the opportunity to wish all our readers very Happy New Year.
It’s been another big year for Warco, with the launch of our new website, the introduction of raft of new products, the Warco Open Weekend, a new woodworking brochure, and of course a range of machine tool installations provided across the country.
Warco will be temporarily closed for the holiday period from 23rd December, and we’ll re-open on 3rd January – so any online orders received during that period will be processed from the week beginning 3rd January.
2012 looks set to be another big year for us. The first few months of the year will see the launch of two all new lathes, including the WM 250VF. This lathe will come with a power cross feed as standard, and nicely fills the gap for those after a more affordable variable speed metalworking lathe, with only a slightly reduced capacity from the WM 280. Next, we’re introducing the WM 240B. We regularly receive requests for the supply of belt drive lathes from our customers, and this compact machine looks set to be popular. More details on both machines coming soon, so stay tuned.
Warco Open Days got increasingly popular in 2011, and we’re pleased to say there’ll be another one in March – we hope to see you there. And of course, we’ll be attending all the major model engineering exhibitions in 2012.
We especially want to thank our customers for their continued support, and we look forward to another fresh year of continuing to provide our services to model engineers, industry and education. Wishing you all a great 2012.
We just wanted to take the opportunity to wish all our readers very Happy New Year. 
Warco Blog 