Unwanted Taper ?

[goldstar31]

I'm deaf, part blind and cannot hear the phone or doorbell except very close. There is a present coming from my daughter and I'm indoors.

So time to find a lathe alignment chart- to get rid of all these confusions.
Lathes. co uk has a Colchester lathe set of test charts which should show how things should be conducted.

Again, Boxbord Lathes( a South Bend clone) also has a chart. You may be luckier than me but I hope that the foregoing is of use.

I had to use an illuminated magnifying glass - but that's old age

Norman

 

[IanN]

The question which has rattled through what might pass as a brain is 'Why do people in their ( hopefully) right minds. disturb the setting of the headstock and spindle.

Would someone explain why?

Hi Norman,

OK - I'm willing to take you on.

My lathe is designed to allow the headstock to be rotated to allow short work to be cut to a steep taper.

The pic below shows my lathe. The headstock is designed to rotate around the stud/nut just to the left of the belt round the spindle and the headstock is locked by the stud/nut on the radius "arm" next to the front headstock spindle bearing

What is the big deal with checking and setting the spindle of a machine?

As I have said before, I teach apprentices. I teach them to check the alignment of their machine, the "tram" of their mill, before ever doing any work. You never know what "raving loony" was on the machine before you...

Aligning a machine is a very simple and very straight forward procedure - people have been doing it for a couple of centuries

The rreal issue is that it takes five years of college and employment - 40+ hours a week for five years - to qualify as a machinist. If an "enthusiastic amateur" were to spend an hour a day and a few hours over the weekend on learning to use machine tools and reading text books (say 10 hours a week) it would take them 20 years to get to the point where they were as competent as a newly qualified apprentice....

People expect to be "experts" immediately. I would advise an inexperienced new comer to the hobby to join a club, learn while an experienced mentor looks over your shoulder and accept that it takes time and effort to achieve your goals.

All the best, hope you stay safe and well,
Ian

 

[goldstar31]

Hi Ian

Sorry, I don;t think that I come into either of your categories.
I sort of appear near the edge of the 3 Standard Deviations from the Mean but still don't quite understand how I got an IQ of 135.


The way that I worked it was how to retire for the last 36 years

Whimsically

Norman

 

[awake]

Ian, I've never seen a lathe like that. What is the make & model?

 

[BaronJ]

Hi Andy,

As a guess, a very early Myford with the bolt on headstock, probably an ML1 or ML2. Quite a rare lathe.

 

[goldstar31]

I've overhauled a ML2 so no!

I'd gamble on a Myford Drummond but I haven't seen one since seen one since ???? 1944

I'd been making a simple athodyd jet engine from Cpl Henwood's articles in Aeromodeller- amd I wanted metering jet.
We did daft things like that at 14 in war time

 

[goldstar31]

This is the time of the Plague. At 90 and with a heap of physical problems, I thought it sensible to update my little workshop as I am unable- in law NOT to venture out- nor have vistors except those bringing food.

So why not make a profit out of my hobby? I can't go to the Working men's club, or the Conservative Club or the Masons where I'm a Provincial Office, mentor, auditor and 'something in the Charity.

Surprisingly, my last two bank statements indicate a rather large 'growth' after making sensible payments for nursing home staff and such.

So the over used TV blew up and the two printers- didn't print and my white dinner tux is new except that it has the price labels removed


So the 'new' price of a Super7- without anything in tooling etc is £3000 and again adding a motor( Oh Yes) and the gearbox , PXF and stand are nudging £7 to 8K. Again, without even chucks or faceplate or whatever.

And the bank rate after tax and allowing for inflation or 'devaluation' is a vast depreciation like giving money to a millionaire beggar. So I bought to enjoy and as an investment when I'm 9 minute puff of smoke at the crematorium.

That's what I did when all these other people where 'going to the pub'

Verb Sap

Norman

 

[IanN]

Hi,

My lathe is a Drummond - according to the makers, it was catalogued as the "3 1/2-inch Centre Back Geared, Self-acting Sliding, Boring, and Screwcutting Lathe" - not a very snappy title, and after drummond introduced a lathe called the"A Type" it was referred to as the "B Type"

My model dates from about 1910 (from the serial number). Based on the motor rating plate the conversion to electric motor was done around late 1950s, long before I took custodianship of it so I do not have the original stand, flywheel and treadle. On her 100th birthday I sat in the workshop and shared a couple of beers with her - I told her about all the future project I would be building on her, and she told me a few things too.

For illustrations of far better examples and more info, see Tony's site:

http://www.lathes.co.uk/drummond-flatbed-1902-1912/
All the best,
Ian

 

[JCSteam]

Ian, the bolting arrangement on your Drummond B is similar to the myford ML4 I have, (from 1938, I managed to date it) Whereby the headstock has a single bolt where the pulley is, and can pivot (only slightly for the ML4, and also ML2) around this pivot point, and two studs and nuts go from underneath into the headstock. So the head can be dialled in (I use rollies dads method), and then secured to the bed with all bolts tightened.

As it happened a new saddle and cross slide turned up for my ML4 with only 3thou backlash on the leadscrew, a vast improvement to my 20thou I had before with the old one. Looking at the serial number stamped under the castings, it was built around the same time as mine, wish I could have found the rest of the lathe and not just a few bits from it. Just need a new gib strip for it for the saddle and to redrill for the thread dial indicator on the front. But it also gets rid of a 10thou error when traversing the cross slide, from someones previous attempts to re-machine it and set it up wrong.

As for the Drummond been rare, a friend has three B's sat in his garage he hopes to make one good one from the bits for himself, and sell the other ones as spares, one as complete. I may end up doing it for him simply for the pleasure of it.

I believe i've managed to get my headstock somewhere near true for now, and ill proceed to bolt the lathe back together, then check from there using rollies dads method and also a MT1 to MT2 socket adaptor in the spindle, it prodrudes 6" from the chuck and measures within 0.00005" at both ends. test bar would be better but it will work for me. as long as what I make is within +/-0.0005" then I will be happy with that and it'll work for what I need.

Jon

 

[goldstar31]

A zillion years ago, I bought a Round Bed Drummond Lathe and a Drummond shaper. If I recall it was £9 for the RB.

Not an earth shattering event then and only a couple of Chinese beers now- or before the virus struck the Chinese New Year!
aS far as lathes are concerned Drummond Bros were taken over by Myford, Then it was Raglan and then Myford went into administration and the name was bought by RDG who are now restoringMyfords from £3000 to-- well, astronomical figures. All that I have dome is too buy ' one of the last of the many' at a price more or less at the bottom of the present prices and a fraction of the price of a cruise that did not happen.

In the middle of this crisis, I am still going further and further into the black- sitting watching the dismal news on the telly- and bored rigid like most and almost ready to take my little bag across the park to adjoining mental hospital.

So Drummonds and taking a 7 x12 to bits and not knowing how to get it back again? No, not realy.

Have a nice day


Norman