Member postings for Roger Custance

Apologies to all for this belated response. I have been away from home and also somewhat distracted by my attempts to improve the fit of the butt of a BSA Martini International .22 target rifle - one of my other interests.

Basically, Hopper is absolutely correct in his advice. It has been confirmed by Paul at Meddings (very helpful).

Undo the grub bolt on the underside of the part of the body holding the return spring. You can then left off the latter. It comes off in one piece, with no fear of the spring acting like a jumping jack, provided you prise the inner part of the spring from its slot in the pinion shaft.

Prevent the quill from dropping by use of the stop nuts on the scale rod.

Undo the other small grub bolt on the underside of the wheel side of the main body. (This was missing in my case, which makes me suspect some tampering in the past.)

Then tap the pinion shaft out from the the retrurn spring side. In my case this required considerable force and a heavy mallet (cushioned by a piece of wood). I am wondering whether the shaft was/is not binding in the nylon sleeve that locates it in the main body.

Then take out the quill. Check and clean the teeth and the pinion wheel gear. (There was liitle sign of debris in my case, which suggests that my problem lies elsewhere.)

Re-assemble in reverse order with grease where appropriate.

I found the rise and fall mechanism moved more easily after the cleaning, but still not as freely as I would like or expect, and the return spring is still not effective. That is why I suspect the nylon sleeve of being somehow overtight. Or, much worse, perhaps someone allowed the whole drill to fall on its side at some point and the impact slightly distorted the pinion shaft, strong though it is, leaving it to bind against the quill teeth. In that case, there is not much to be done but live with the defect.

Many thanks to all once again - and greetings to Michael Gilligan. I hope the milling machine is proving satisfactory, Michael.

Roger

Thank you all very much for your interest and help so far.

The machine is, I discover, a Drilltru Mk 11, 15 inch, bench drill. Not the most expensive Meddings drill.

I will certainly enquire at Meddings, Ivybridge.

I can't understand how the presumably straightforward and well made 'rack and pinion' type rise and fall mechanism is binding, if that is the cause. And I can't see how to get at it.

I like the suggestion that a lock nut or screw is tightening itself too much, but, again, where is it and how to get at it?

Roger

My Meddings pillar drill has become extremely difficult to use. It requires real force to move the handle in either direction. I have applied light oil wherever I could see that it might be useful. This freed it up a bit but not for long. I can't see how to get at the inner workings. Nor can I find a manual online.

The tensioned spring to provide the automatic return looks fine but it is powerless against whatever is causing the friction.

Can anyone help, please?

The key seems to be o.k. but I'll check, though it is difficult to do so when the head is in its normal position.

Roger

Thank you very much for looking anyway.

Roger

Matt,

That's extremely kind of you. I'll send a pm.

Roger

David,

That's very interesting and helpful to know - thank you. I will take a closer look at my machine when I can but at the moment I'm afraid I have too many other preoccupations, and it came with a three phase motor that needs to be connected up and given an inverter (never mind a new drive belt). So, I am only over the first hurdle.

Roger

Thank you very much for the advice, which I will follow, and for the kind offer to look for a manual.

Roger

Matt,

I'm sorry to say that I somehow missed your original reply - my apologies. As it turned out, no dismantling was required. The drawbar is metric after all and the collets just needed a firmer upwards push to engage the thread than I had previously dared to give them. All the result of my ignorance and inexperience, I'm afraid. However, there is still a problem to get them out. They stick fast because of friction even when unscrewed and my only method so far is to give the drawbar at the top a sharp tap, which causes the collet to fall out but at the expense of possible damage to the drawbar's bottom thread. Is there a better way? I have done nothing with the machine this winter anyway, for all sorts of reasons.

Nice to be in touch.

Roger

This is rather a long shot as I don't imagine dismantling an Aciera F3 headstock is commonly attempted. However, I need to do this on a machine that, although not an Aciera as such, is equipped with an Aciera F3 high speed vertical milling head. The reason is that I suspect it may have an imperial thread at the end of the drawbar to take Schaublin W20 collets. I have tried metric Schaublin collets and the thread does not seem to want to accept them. The whole machine was imported into this country, about 60 years ago I would guess. (It featured in an earlier enquiry of mine on this forum.) If it is indeed an imperial thread, I will need to find or have made a metric drawbar as I have an excellent selection of metric collets and the imperial ones seem rare.

I have looked at the Aciera diagrams available online and the cross section of the head leaves me no wiser as to how to dismantle it. The obvious screws etc. seem to be there simply for adjustment purposes and undoing them gives no access to the innards. I have a nasty feeling that it will require a puller or pullers to undo the bearings at one or both ends (plus a press to reinstate them), but that is merely my ignorant conjecture, and anyway I do not see how to attach a puller. (I remember recalcitrant bearing assemblies and pullers, without much enthusiasm for either, from the days, long gone, when I did a certain amount of automobile maintenance.) I have taken the head off its back support, which was easy enough, but that merely gives access to the gear controlling the vertical movement of the sliding column and nothing else. The drawbar seems to be firmly contained at top and bottom, except for the limited movement needed to tighten the collets.

I really should be extremely grateful for any help or advice as to how to get the drawbar out.

Thank you all very much for your helpful replies.

Roger

I though I had better start a new thread for this aspect, if I am not trespassing too much on members' patience and good will after the great response to my previous question on 'transportability', if you remember that.

What will be needed to undo the bolts that hold the lathe to its original Myford stand?

Likewise, what will be needed to unbolt the electric motor, if that seems necessary? And is this a job that could go wrong, quite apart from the need to record where the wires go?

It may not help that this is a later Super 7 (but not the very last of the line), green in colour, and that I am told that it is possible it had a metric conversion carried out (the present owner knows very little about it all, her late husband being the real owner and an engineer). I don't really know, however, exactly what a metric conversion might have entailed

I don't wish to turn up 200 miles away without the correct tool kit, if someone could be so kind as to tell me what is required. I have a fairly full metric set of spanners and sockets (and somewhere an AF set), and metric and imperial Allen keys, but I have a nasty feeling I may need BA and/or BSF spanners - am I right? (I used to have a Whitworth set when I had a P4 Rover many years ago, but I gave it away.)

Roger

I am extremely grateful for all the additional advice and shared experiences, especially for the loading of an estate car. Have ordered a Sealy CS990 sack truck, which looked the best of a slightly dubious lot of such things. I suppose I should be thankful that it is not a Harrison L5 lathe such as I have just seen on ebay, with an advertised weight of 700 kilos - almost unbelievable. Due to collect in about a week - will report back.

So many kind contributors here and so much useful advice that I shouldn't really be able to go wrong with the move, d.v.

Forgive me if I don't return thanks to everyone individually as they deserve - there are just so many.

Perhaps the main thing is that I now feel encouraged to go ahead on my own, well, with my son to assist (or do most of the lifting, with any luck, since I am 69), though he doesn't know about it yet.

I'll let you know how it goes, though the move is still a little way off.

Roger

I'm sorry that this is not a very exciting question, and arguably it is in the wrong place, but I don't know where else to put it. I am buying a Myford Super 7 lathe and would be very grateful to learn of its approximate weight and how best to transport it. Is it beyond the strength of two men to lift it into a reasonably sized estate car? Are there specialist firms for such heavy and awkward items? Do any members have experience of moving such a lathe, perhaps with cautionary tales to tell? The distance involved is nearly 200 miles.

Well, pantograph issue apparently settled after managing to speak again to the owner. It had a pantograph attachment only, presumably nothing like the complexity of the one in the French advert. No mention of engraving. It has a chuck and a draw bar but he will have to look for collets, he says.

I may just have to take the owner's word for the machine not having had a hard life. He says it was in a university design department, and in the end was only gathering dust. Sounds more encouraging at least than a workshop provenance.

Yes, I'm sure that would be the case and totally off-putting. However, so far as I can remember the photo it showed a conventional set up with the shaft and head poised over the middle of the table, ready for action, and no sign of all the sophisticated gubbins that the machine in the advert possesses. What I was told about 'my' machine having being used as a pantograph may prove to be a red herring, but I'm glad to have been alerted to the possibility that it is not going to be a practical proposition.

I'm very grateful to all those that have responded to my request. What a helpful forum this is. Plenty of good advice and leads have been given. I'll report back when I am in a position to do so. Apologies for the absence of photos. Maybe that can be rectified in due course.

Michael - I'll put you in touch with the machine's owner if I feel I cannot go through with a purchase, though I must say at the moment you have somewhat encouraged me to go ahead. Forgot to mention that the machine is 3 phase but that shouldn't be insuperable for us 240 volters, esp. as there is a single phase motor with it, though apparently its key doesn't quite fit IIRC.

Roger

The problem with the photo is that it has disappeared, along with the original advert, which the owner very decently withdrew when I expressed my interest and likely intention to purchase (no money has passed, however). It was anyway rather a murky photo.

Do I understand correctly that the machine I am pursuing is not a true milling machine but one capable only of engraving? I am getting a bit confused now, as all you kind folks will see. Grateful for enlightenment.

Perhaps I should add, if it is not abundantly clear already, that I am a novice machinist (much happier with wood, though still not very skilled) and that I am now looking for machines to use at home because the school where I used to teach has decided that it will no longer allow ex-teachers the use of its workshop one or two hours a week, when pupils aren't there anyway, which was a pleasant and harmless concession whilst it lasted. I had been using the school lathe, miller, and other tools mainly to make bits and pieces in aluminium for my small bore target rifles, target shooting being one of my new activities in retirement. (I also have my eye on a very nice Meddings pillar drill. Pity that it won't be up to milling, as I am told.)

Frank - thank you for this information, not least because it has indirectly put me onto something called Swissmachines, who might know about older marques.

Michael - yes, that is exactly the advert to which I referred. The quality of the stand, T grooved table, handles, etc look to be the same in the machine I'm interested in, but 'mine' has the motor mounted vertically at the top and it seems to be painted dark grey.

Still worried about finding chuck, collets etc to fit - forgot to ask the owner when we were in touch what came with the machine, but not much if the photo (no longer available) was anything to go by.

Roger