Member postings for Martin of Wick

| Are there any tool post holders on amazon which will fit the ml10 without mods?

Nope! the ML10 is a frustratingly awkward beast.

Until you know exactly what you want for your particular jobs, get either some 10mm HSS or some cheap carbide tool holders of the ccxx and or dcxx type with a supply of tips.

Purchase from a metal factor some ally strip of same widths as tools, but in suitable thickness to bring the tools up to approx. centre line.

Purchase a bunch of cheapo feeler gauges, clamp and saw in half to give you some ultra fine shimming.

Make up your tools to just below centre height with thicker shimming when clamped using the simple tool clamp and araldite or super glue the shims to the base of the cutting tool, then find a fine shim from the feeler gauge to bring to exact height (by facing a bar to leave no pip). This will take you an evening to do a few tools, but they will then always be ready for use using the basic clamping system (which is actually quite versatile).

Then your next job will be to make whatever toolpost you like - a Norman patent would be a good first project or make a version of a tangential tool cutter that you can set on height and can do most of your cutting.

Don't be overwhelmed, don't sweat the small stuff, just plough right in and just treat it as a fantastic learning experience.

Trouble is, for some reason you expect the higher priced machines from the commercial importers to be better than the budget version of their ranges that we all have in the garage to do menial work. Having looked to upgrade for over a year at various machines in the £200 to £300 category, I came to the conclusion paying more only gets you a bigger drill, not a better one.

They are without fail characterised by any or all of the following; wobbly quills, off centre spindles or chucks, flexible columns the thickness of a baked bean can, inadequate mounting hardware, rough actions etc etc. And yes, you could probably remediate the deficiencies to some degree, but WTF - for some crazy reason I expect the product to work properly out of the box without requiring a full rebuild, at least for the first week. Sheesh! how hard can it be to get a good quill fit with todays manufacturing processes?

In the main, the current crop of general purpose far east drill machines are all of the same fundamentally bad design, badly implemented, but no doubt very cheap to produce and profitable for the manufacturers.

You then turn to the recycled brit-tool market and quietly despair at the collection of knackered old dogs on offer, but at least you go into that market fully expecting to carry out a rebuild. Be prepared to be aghast at the prices those dog eared specimens attract. I suppose if you can source or make the spares required you would end up with something worthwhile eventually, but it hardly seems worth the cost in blood and treasure.

nb. This is where someone usually chimes in about how they found a pile of unused Awesome Specials (or what ever) for a fiver each outside the local tech. Well good for you, but that doesn't help rest of us that have to keep vainly searching.

Personally I have never had any issues parting off on ML7 or S7 (that were not directly attributable to poor setup or not paying attention).

I now use a S7 standard bed and hardly ever use the power cross feed, I think the only major job I did use it for was to skim the faceplate once. If I was buying again, I wouldn't bother with the power cross feed.

………. Would you supercharge a Morris Marina?

or possibly an Austin Allegro - especially the purple ones with the square steering wheel.

Awesome!

Well it is horses for courses. As I understand it, the OP needs a machine running a relatively secure OS to browse, e-mail, write letters, do banking, run the odd spreadsheet or 2d cad.

You don't need the latest and greatest machine for that sort of work.

Yep, there may be other issues with the device to be aware of so need to balance risks, although a replacement SSD is relatively low risk upgrade as it can always be used in another machine.

A good spec brand x recon small screen laptop 3-4 years old will cost about £200-250 (or less if lucky). So not worth committing too much on refurbing old machines unless it has special features like large screen-

2Gb ram is a tight even for Lin-mint, my 14 year old Dell did much better on 4 Gb (max for 32 bit machines), but was acceptable on 2Gb ram although did exhibit lock ups with multiple browser windows open sometimes.

I use my old Dell for all domestics and it is just fine, Linux and its attendant software is adequate for most of my purposes and I can boot back to w10 for stuff like devcad-cam cura and other oddities as needed.

So if OP can't get 4Gb ram into his spec machine, perhaps right to suggest a newer model although if tied to Toshiba it may cost rather more than a refurb Lenovo or HP

Because in the world of personal computing it is debatable whether you are actually getting anything better. I have old machines that run the old software very well, but that doesn't raise money for the likes of Intel and microsloth.

So con the gullible punters by generating ever more bloated software with its attendant extra quotient of embedded spyware and 'oh well sir, you need the latest megadweeb special...' at some vast increase in cost to get the unwanted and generally useless features of the supposedly improved software.

It is all a right con, and resistance is definitely not futile.

As above,

back up all you want to keep external drive

get a cheap but branded SSD for between £25 -35 and either clone disk, or better still reinstall your Mint (because your performance issue may be due to something more sinister). And just for fun see if you can up the memory to 4Gb if the board will take it (assume it is 32 bit device)

I did this with an old Dell laptop of the same vintage and performance was perfectly satisfactory even on win 10 (using dual boot with Linux). Easy to do - I am not computer minded and managed OK. Will probably get another 5 years out of the device, maybe more on Linux, which is WTG for the future IMO.

+1 peak4

it stays in place all the time, clean off all oil in the location slot, thin smear of Loctite (so you don't glue the locking cam as well !). Tap lever in lightly and leave to cure.

A common issue with many posts for various lathes. Much has been said.

We assume you are not using a top slide and you are driving using the leadscrew and cross slide. You don't state length of cut.

You can check whether the problem is chuck or headstock with a decent length of silver steel say 20mm but it wont tell you whether the problem is with the chuck or headstock but unlikely to be chuck if you took a full cut (unless the piece moved during cutting in some strange wa.

You can check headstock alignment alone by purchasing a MT2 test bar six inch will do.

Good news is probably not bed wear if Dmax is at the headstock (unless the tailstock end appears untypically worn)

May be saddle is twisting slightly- check saddle gibs are tight and confirm it moves smoothly from head to tail without any loosening or tightening.

It might be some bed twist issues.

Edited By Martin of Wick on 06/01/2020 19:49:26

What will I sacrifice if I go to a smaller machine?

Rigidity, power and usability - you will be confined to very light cuts and may have great difficulty milling harder materials - you will probably be OK on non ferrous stuff. anything else will just be a frustrating pain in the arm as you wind the table back and forth a gazillion times.

Is there a significant and consistent difference between the available makes

for machines in the same class, not really - brushed vs brushless / belt vs VSD / bigger vs smaller table / spindle taper etc.

The only thing that really matters on a mill is mass rigidity and power . Every time I have brought a hobby mill, I have always regretted not getting the next size up. Still looking for the perfect Centec - one day....

large one with the nose on front is probably for mounting a chuck on a rotary table

why? wouldn't you just bolt a chuck directly to the slots on the rotary table?

the one with peg on is a catch plate used specifically for turning between centres - likely will be tight because they are not used often (mine is and needs wringing on with lots of oil!). Should be left as is rather than turned into a chuck backplate.

Suggest you check your spindle for burs flats etc if the catch plate is really getting hung up as opposed to tight - should go on as it looks like Myford type

The Large undrilled one is no good as it has a nose on the front which has the threads

Difficult to see or assess dimensions but if the thread is 1 1/8 in and of correct 12W form, you can clamp it to the face plate and bore out the register in the 'nose; section to 1 1/4 in to fit the lathe spindle to make usable.

I don't know if the backplate in the third picture from top between faceplate and catch plate is the 'large undrilled one' or just the one plate that you say fits.

items bottom right are  lathe dogs for use with the catch plate when turning between centres'

the backplate that you say is too big for the chuck actually requires machining to the correct size with the correct register to fit your chuck

If you want another backplate, I would advise a new one from the usual sources rather than a used one (unless you can view and check over yourself). It will come as a threaded blank which you will have to machine to fit you chuck.

Google  'The Amateur's Lathe' by  L Sparey on amazon and get a copy - you will find it very useful.

Edited By Martin of Wick on 03/01/2020 09:55:24

Edited By Martin of Wick on 03/01/2020 09:56:14

Thanks Andrew,

inspired my to have another try.

re the drill arbour, lock down tailstock, place towel to protect bed and drill chuck and either use a deadblow hammer or normal hammer and piece of wood to protect the back of chuck and give a smart tap (or use a drift through the tailstock shaft if using ML7).

Check state of taper for burrs or scratches and remedy if necessary. Sometimes a thin wrap of appropriately cut paper with reduce propensity of chuck to spin but mostly technique is keep the speed up and the torque low when drilling.

Re the main chuck, as per Pete, It is always a bit tricky first few times and likely you will get one jaw too deep or one wont engage the scroll but stick with it and you will get there. If necessary, take all jaws out completely line up the scroll rotating backwards just past 1 slot, locate all jaws correctly in their numbered slots and try closing up again while keeping pressure on the jaws as you do so they engage the scroll correctly.

strewth! at 0.4mm nozzle too..

Thanks for that Andrew,

I have an old plastic frame Anet 8 project machine which I am in the process of re configuring into the popular Al profile frame version (project with more stops than starts).

Some time back I did try to upload a Ramps/arduino combination board only managing an epic fail after a couple of days - I must have reviewed every online video on Utube but still never figured it out.

Perhaps I will try a MKS board as there are less steps to loading Marlin, but how do you manage without an SD card reader? - does that mean that the control screen has to be changed to a version with SD as well? Are there any recommended for the MKS board?

With not much effort, results on my bottom end printers generally exceed expectations, the limit for me using a 32 bit machine is being restricted to Cura V15.x. (cant bring myself to pay for a slicer!) I did try to use a 0.2 nozzle for a while although it gave quite good results for small fine work it was very prone to clogging and sooo very slooow printing, gave up in the end. Might try again one day with a better quality nozzle and hot end.

I like the idea of calibrating the extruder on the output result rather than the filament input side - good tip.

My bone of contention with the 'economy' end of the 3d printer market is the hot ends are limited in the software to about 260 degrees (or less) and it appears to be something of an intimidating trial to load alternative user configurable firmware. I would like to try printing with polycarbonate and nylon one day.

It would be nice if someone produced a decent generic mainboard already loaded up with Marlin and some start profiles for the common budget machines, rather than having to nerd surf the web to piece together what is required.

To answer your question, I am not aware that Myfords produced S7 lathe spindles of any other form than W12 1-1/8" (unlike Boxford where an export version had a metric spindle nose).

If you purchase a new backplate from any of the regular UK vendors, it should fit your Myford (unless your machine spindle has undergone some from of damage or alteration). However, my experience with some new backplates is that they can be quite (very) stiff to get on and off initially and may need the crests in the plate relieving.

Regarding your existing non fitting backplates which I assume have not been machined to fit a chuck, purchase a combination Whit/metric thread gauge and measure up the thread and recess as instructed above.

If they appear to be of the correct dimension, then it may be that a good clean and oiling, or passing a tap through as suggested above will retrieve them. If the backplates were home shop made, it is possible that someone cut the 12 tpi with a 60 degree metric form instead of the correct 55 degree Whit form - In that case I am not sure if using a tap to correct the thread is possible - someone here will be able to advise...

If after remedials the backplates fit your spindle tolerably well, then machine  as required to fit your chucks.

Edited By Martin of Wick on 02/01/2020 10:12:48

Edited By Martin of Wick on 02/01/2020 10:19:08

Try this link for table BS shaft tolerances - scroll to bottom to get descriptive chose the one you want and look up on clearance/diameter tables

**LINK**

1 redrill leaning on the drill or try another make of drill (they are not all the same)

if fails measure accurately carbide bar

then -

2 use a 3.1mm (or larger drill to suit carbide tool)

put a flat on the bar (as in grind with carbide (green grit) wheel I would suggest)

You wont get very far using emery paper on carbide.