BAZMAK-Diary of a Myford ML7 lathe restoration

goldstar31 said:

Thanks Russell but when I went to the Nuffield for my cataracts, the operations were done in the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle.

Logically, I'm attending the RVI in Newcastle!

My thanks

Norman

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In a British Government test yesterday, the treatment of my good eye at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle- England has resulted in my score going from 6/12 vision to 6/6. Whether this means that I can renew my driving licence is unknown.
The hypodermics continue- remorselessly.

With luck, I might get the Myford Super 7B clutch working better------one of these days.

Regards




N

As for the hole in your cover id clean it up and leave as is. Over the years machine tools do suffer modifications and damage that adds character.

If it is a safety issue well that is another matter. In general though trying to fix these things can often lead to a less than desirable outcome.

There's one of those covers on eBay Aust. for $30 right now. Almost as cheap as buying glue and bog to fix the old one.

Myford no 3 all finished.Just have to reassemble the tailstock and fit the motor to get it running
Thanks Hopper,i racked my brains with what to do with the bodged up handle to the compound slide
and bingo there it was staring me in my face.I used the handle from the vertical slide
I then made and fitted a brass graduated dial to a chinese cast 3" handwheel and boy does it look sweet
Will now fix up the end cover,and fit thrust brgs to the leadscrew + any other mods that spring to mind

I see that the saddle crosslide has the cast zinc alloy dial improved. Mine on the ML10 is similar. Not as good as the S7B but a vast improvement.

Whilst on the topic, I recall the dials on 'college' machines would read both for metric and imperial divisions.
Can you, Barry, or someone else suggest how to get metric and imperial measurement-- from the old imperial feeds screws?

I'm now working in both types of measurements i.e. on the two Myfords and the really metric SiegC4 and on the Mill Drill which is Imperial.

Clearly, it HAS been done-- but how?

N

Sorry Norm cant help,maybe someone more wise can comment
Myford no 3 is up and running with the motor cleaned and repainted and fitted
Just need to recable and fit the new slide switch when i know which conns to make
Is it just a simple thru live switch as per household appliances Photos show the finished lathe
with the vertical slide and collet chuck/milling setup

Thanks Barry and I appreciate your concern. It's an interesting concept and perhaps I can say that yesterday, I fitted the new X and Y functions on my little RF30 mill drill. As I have a set of 'Jo blocks', in can now see whether imperial dials can be metricated .

My flagging maths suggests that 1" is 25.4 and therefore 0.4mm is the theoretical difference between the 2. By recognizing the true inaccuracies , there may not be a fat lot in it.

Maybe someone will dare to go to print as you suggest. Perhaps we'll see.

As for the Eccentric stuff, clearly, the Acute Tool grinder was left with 'necessary CD's and also what else it was capable of' and the Turnado has emerged.

My thoughts on the 'Acute' are that there are better machines and before someone takes me to task, I echo the advice of the late Arnold Throp who probably designed the simple Kennet but also made a Quorn. I believe that he was part of the defunct Model Engineering Services who--- made the castings for both machines and part machined the Kennet castings.

Sneakily, I confess to having BOTH machines and a fabricated Stent and a Mk1 Clarkson.

As I said-- Very interesting!

Cheers

N

My attempt at milling on a lathe was not very successful as there is a reason that mills are huge heavy castings with massive holding devices. My lathe chattered and made a mess when milling unless the cutter was small, feed rates were slow and the material being cut was not steel.

I am curious of your test results when milling with this rebuilt Myford. My old Southbend conversion to milling only convinced me that a Bridgeport was really what I needed for the long term. BTW, the Southbend is gone and replaced by a Super 7 with no plans to try lathe based milling again.

Take care and thanks for continuing the updates. It's an enjoyable story to follow with a new chapter every few days.

What must be remembered is that ALL the old boys used a vertical slide. The first home workshop mill was 'Ned' Westbury's mill drill and Prof Dennis haddock made his Quorn tool and cutter grinder to make the 1/10th diameter milling cuttes for his V12.


I made my copy of the Mk1 Westbury from 'aero chocolate' castings from the local Technical College. Chaddock actually made a Dore-Westbury.

I still have two fixed vehicle slides and vices. One was modified to fit my Sieg c4 and the other one to go on the two Myfords.

If one doubts the ability of such items, might I suggest that you read what Lawrence Sparey accomplished in his Amateurs Lathe book.

I haven't room for a large mill and don't want to devalue my property with such a thing anyway.To increase the value of property, it seems prudent to hang either a Mercedes or Beemer and say a Lotus and a 'Shopping trolley' in the drive!

Ooops

N

goldstar31 said:

Following 'Hopper's' excellent resume, may I add mine?

If the bed is worn- which is likely due to age, it will be some 6" from the chuck end. Access to a Lumsden Blanchard machine will make quick work of the upper surface and will be surprisingly inexpensive.
It doesn't compare with a proper sideways grind but will save hours with a scraper.

Again, as Hopper says, there will be wear on the narrow guide on the saddle but provided that the Number 1 shear wear is built up with one of the Devcon or whatever plastics, the unused rear Number 4 shear can be used.
Martin Cleese wrote this up in the years gone bye and I wrote it up in Model Engineer as well in PostBag of my experiences then.
Again, there could be wear under the saddle and today, it can be built up again with Devcon or whatever but mine on the present Super7B is Turcited- and none the worse for its years.

I think that most who have gone down a similar road, will agree that it takes longer to write up than do.

Hopefully, I hope my comments will help

Norman

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Sometime, back in the 70s, I needed to remove the wear on the saddle of my Super7B. The short guide idea may be theoretically sound, but in practice it's hopeless. I looked at the articles in Model Engineer that tried to deal with the problem but decided that they were all too complicated. I decided to use the rear shear on the bed and the corresponding face on the saddle. The short shear face on the saddle was milled away and a suitable strip inserted to pack the saddle away from the rear shear and restore it to its original position. I modified a couple of friend's S7s the same way. I wrote an article that Model Engineer published. It might have been coincidence, but shortly afterwards Myford changed over to exactly the system that I had on my S7!
I'm now on my second Super7B. This one was a metric version when I got it but I quickly converted it to Imperial. My first one was very easy to adjust for spindle clearance, but this one proved hopeless. It didn't like any sort of end thrust from a reasonable size drill. I changed the rear bearings a couple of times, even paying a king's ransom for a set from Myford. Then an article in Model Engineers Workshop described how to convert the rear bearings to a pair of taper rollers. I carried out this mod and it transformed the lathe. I can now run it up to 4,500 RPM and feed a 1" dia drill from the tailstock! I long ago changed the motor to a 1HP 1400 RPM 3-phase one driven from an invertor, so to run at higher speeds I simply wind the frequency up from 50Hz to around 80Hz. A local model engineer also had exactly the same problems, cured by changing to taper roller bearings. Other mods are a Cowell Rack Feed Tailstock and NuT drive belts. A Lavis Vernier Handwheel is fitted to the saddle and Geo. Thomas dials are fitted to the top slide and cross slide, of course!

DickG

Yes, I recall Martin Cleeve 'doing' an article in Model Engineer and I did one on Blancharding and later on Turciting on various fora on my present Super 7B after the bed was slideways ground.

I'm rather enjoying having the SiegC4 indoors in my study. I have modified it somewhat to take Myford chucks and Myford collets so as things can be made 'interchangeable'. Again, I am trying to standardize the use of 1" PGMS on my various tool and cutter grinders and these fit the mill drill too.

What it is all about- I suppose.

N

Yes thats the fun of it Norm,probably get less use out of the mods than time spent doing it,but its fun
As to using the vertical slide in the Myford,no chance,been there and done that and once you have a mill
no matter how small and chinesy there is no going back.The VS and collets are a selling point for Myford 2
Like me and many 100,000s of others that was all we had at the time,its just a starting points.Works but limited
As a numismatist i started collected coins at a young age.Sticking 1/2d in a davey crockatt book.All worn from
my change and others pockets.Worked my way up thru 1d to 1s.Could not afford 2s and 2/6d until i started working
Then i bought books,albums and eventually rare crowns.Point i am making is that you start off small and build up

Every time i looked at the butchered end guard i had to grit my teeth so i bit the bullet
Could not leave it like that.I didnt mind the hole but disliked the cutout partly going thru the name
2 choices, repair or remove the raised Myford name so i took the easy option.Cleaned off the name
made and fitted an alum cover plate then linished and painted the outside.Much better

Perhaps if you copy the font to create a stencil you can then spray on the 'Myford' name in a contrasting colour. Or create your own logo ('bazmak' would be OK) to brand the lathe as a custom Myford rebuilt.

You have options so no need to feel sorry.

Ideally i would like to make and print sticky labels but i dont know how to do it
my computer skills are very limited

Being a simple sort of chap, why not take a rubbing from the 'raised 'Myford' logo on the bed casting?


If you were friendly with the local dentist, you could 'get' a dental impression and have a raised logo from the bed casting.

Amazing people these dentists= I know or knew three or more with Myford's. One was Bill Bennett who edited Geo Thomas's two books.
Another played the organ at our wedding- not at the same time as playing with his lathe. I suspect that my doctor, who married a dentist friend of my dentist wife, has a Myford tucked away. Another made a lot of his instruments on his '7'

I've just taken a call from a organist friend of mine- her husband has a 'Seven' in a room with flock wall paper.


Hint to self, get the'10' out again.


Cheers

N

This mob in Brisbane make stencils
https://www.stencilsonline.com.au/

This post will be in 2 parts. One the big advantages of the Myford over the chinese variable speed lathe is the low
speed and high torque for screwcutting.So i wanted to have go and decided to make a screw on ER32 collet chuck
I had to cut the 1 1/8" x 12 tpi in the myford and cut the M40 x 1.5mm in the chinese lathe.I also rough turned in the
Sc4 and then finished the the taper etc in the Myford. Although the internal taper on the collet was within 1 thou concentric
when the end mill was mounted it increased to about 5 thou so i put it on the shelf to give it further thought for later
Photos show my progress.I had to first cut a male thread and a 1.250 plug gauge but enjoyed the excercise.Next post
goes a stage further

Following on from the above post.Someone on gumtree advertised wanting a myford slimline 6" 4 jaw chuck
I replied that i had one and sent photos.He then told me mine had an adaptor plate and he wanted one with
a threaded body.He sent me a photo of an example but it appeared to have a threaded insert fitted to the body
I have in the past had one threaded directly in the body so i know both types were made.The advantage is the
without the adaptor plate the chuck fits closer to the headstock and allows the external jaws to fit in the gap
and give more clearance for turning large diameters. Could i use the the collet chuck i had just made to fit the
6" chuck body which would also give me a spare adaptor plate to machine for fitting the chinese range of chucks
etc from the Sc4 to use on the Myford. Fairly simple and only took 2 hrs. Although noimportant/critical the chuck
body did clock up to less than 1 thou concentric.Result is the chuck is much improved mounting and i have a spare adaptor plate

Still waiting to sell Myford no 2 and hopefully try to find a suitable Super 7.Weather has been bad so have not been doing much
Reading Norms posts about an adaptor plt to fit the Sieg with a Myford nose,i was unsure of the benefits.However looking for a
small project,having the materials and having collected a no of chucks etc with the Myfords i thought iy would be advantageous
to be able to swap all chucks etc between all lathes Very successful but i did find it easier to screwcut in the Myford rather than the Sieg