Member postings for Chris Crew

Michael, I have every respect for your opinion and point of view, but isn't this the very point at which 'common sense' should kick in? You can actually see if the chuck jaws are going to strike the bed or just pull the work round to check before you start the lathe. A simple judgement or two second check with a ruler will tell you what size chuck would be the most suitable, surely? I know there are a lot of people who now seem to expect to be told every single step of their lives these days and the Health & Safety brigade treats us all as if we are mentally retarded chimpanzees with a death wish as we go about our daily duties, but I am old enough to remember when a car manual informed you how to adjust points and set tappets, but now it is as likely to state,'do not drink the contents of this battery!'

Edited By Chris Crew on 15/06/2021 14:12:52

I don't know, but I would find it difficult to believe that there are no importers of, or dealers in, Chinese or other manufacturer's chucks in Canada. If you elect for a Chinese made product, then I would suggest you could do no better than look out for a San Ou, especially if they are imported into Canada at the equivalent of UK prices. Also, I would say with the greatest of respect, that sometimes you just have to use your common sense when deciding what size of chuck you need or would be the most useful to you, 'newbie' or not. There will be many times when you will have to make a judgement as to how to tackle any job with individual factors coming into the decision making process such what equipment you have available etc. We all have different workshop facilities available to us, some are fortunate to be very well equipped after a lifetime of amassing tools and machines, whilst others like yourself are only just starting out. An aphorism I always bear in mind is, that in the privacy of your own workshop, there is no 'right' way or 'wrong' way to go about doing any job, there is only 'your' way. And you will never make a mistake, you will only learn lessons; many of mine are in my scrap box! Nobody is going to come round and fire you and you are not being tested on your level of skill. I think you will find that once you get really started you will have more common workshop sense than ever you thought you had and will succeed at most of the tasks you attempt. If it looks right and works right then it is right whichever way you got there so don't let 'Inspector Meticulous' tell you otherwise.

P.S. (In case you are not aware, Inspector Meticulous was a fictional character invented by the late LBSC, a major contributor to earlier Model Engineer magazines and the live steam hobby in general. He always criticised the writer's work and way of working but could never quite understand why everything turned out fine in the end)

I know there are many Sino-phobes when it comes to machines and tooling on here, but please let me recommend to you a San-Ou chuck if you intend to buy new. These chucks are accurate, supplied from within the UK and exceptionally economically priced. I bought an 8" 4-jaw self-centring chuck via a dealer on eBay which was so cheap I thought at first it was a scam. Another member of the MES to which I belong bought a smaller 'Myford' size chuck on my recommendation and he was equally delighted. I have now seen that they start as low as around £45.

You will have to fit a back-plate and you will need to take a lot if time and trouble to get the chuck nicely seated and adjusted upon fitting to achieve the most accurate results. I have always made my own back-plates for 'Myford' size chucks out of noggins of mild steel but I understand both CI castings and fully finished back-plates are available for Myford machines. You will need to face the back-plate and turn the register in situ on your machine.

I have never had any issue with buying Chinese but I know others do.

I note you are in the USA so are you aware that the 'real' Myford in Beeston, Nottingham ceased to exist at least 10 years ago? As far as I am aware, and I stand to be corrected, the material assets and name were acquired by a tool importer and dealer called RGD, based in Mytholmroyd, Halifax UK. This company does appear to produce new lathes, although whether they actually manufacture the machines from left-over parts, contract out the manufacturing or actually acquired the old Myford's production facilities, I have no idea, but I suspect not.

Nevertheless, RGD is a reputable company and I have bought a few parts from them and received good service in the past. I think you would have to check as to whether they could supply every Myford part as indicated in the exploded diagrams, which is something the original Myford company would do as 95% of the machine was manufactured in-house. I believe the original beds were actually cast by a foundry in Scotland. The late Myford production manager told me that when there was a rumour going round that Myford's were starting to import parts from China although later Myford collets were imported from India when Crawford's in the UK declined to produce them at an economical price. The same Myford manager told me that as well.

The old Myford was a very helpful and approachable company and many people toured the works and witnessed the lathes in production. Everything, it appeared to me, was done on a small scale by skilled craftsmen with every care being taken, which is probably why they could not compete with far-eastern imports.

Perhaps someone could enlighten us all further as to the availability Myford parts, otherwise I suspect you will be resorting to eBay for anything not available from RGD. There are other used Myford parts dealers in the UK who strip and break Myford lathes, so its worth searching around for them.

I have no idea as to the availability and price of tools etc. in Oz but if they are just about similar to those in the UK, and I understand Oz and China trade extensively with each other, then I would have thought for the price of about a fiver it is hardly worth the bother of trying to make a 1MT dead centre which needs to be hardened in any event. Only the head-stock centre can be left soft. There are a lot of sino-phobes in the UK but I have never had any issue with what you get for your money and the quality of Chinese tooling has improved greatly over the last twenty years. In fact it seems to me that it is only the brand that differs. I strongly suspect that these days even the so-called quality marques are only constituted of Chinese components and re-badged accordingly, although I have no way of being certain.

I am not familiar with modern VFD devices, but I can tell you that I have been running a Colchester Student equipped with a two speed 3-phase motor off a Transwave static converter for the last 29 years with no real issues whatsoever and it was as simple as 'plug and play'. The lathe is stopped and started very frequently too. This converter also doubles as the power supply for a J&S 540 surface grinder and will run the wheel, hydraulics motor and extraction unit simultaneously without as much as a murmur. I also run a Harrison M1 mill from a separate Transwave and a Qualters & Smith hacksaw and Union industrial grinder from yet another Transwave which have all proved to be very reliable and virtually trouble free for many years.

One thing to check, if your Harrison 250 is equipped with a suds pump, is that it is connected to the 'broken' side of the NVR, not the 'live' side. My Colchester's sud's pump wasn't and without realising it, when the main motor was stopped, with the NVR open, the suds pump was still connected directly to the Transwave's output. However, such a low power motor could not trip the starting capacitance of the converter but just silently oscillated the pump until eventually it overheated and burnt out. I cured the problem by fitting a small auxiliary NVR to the suds pump but it had cost me a pump motor rewind in the meantime. This may or may not be an issue with a VFD device although you don't need a suds pump running at various speeds!

I don't want to dampen your enthusiasm because the ML10 will do everything it says on the tin, but I think you will find operating on it very inconvenient to the point of being a pain in the neck. I can say this because, although I am a Super 7 and Colchester user, I acquired a late colleague's ML10, mostly out of respect because I had no real use for it. Despite being in superb condition and very well equipped it was being left to rust and rot. Having had the opportunity to compare the two Myford machines I concluded the ML10 was not one of Myford's better ideas. Obviously built down to an entry level price with a lot of corners being cut, IMO it does not do justice to the Myford marque. A few days fiddling with the back-gear and change-wheel arrangements which does not include any sort of reversing mechanism, coupled with a guard that hangs off a stud and a belt guard that opens awkwardly forward forced me to the decision that it must be moved on. Clearly, there will be some people who will cherish their ML10 as much as I cherish my Super 7 and Colchester, and vehemently disagree with my opinion, but the ML10 is not a lathe that I could recommend to anyone despite mine being for sale.

When I was an impecunious 'newbie' I had to make my own tool-holders, both four-way and quick-change. Admittedly, I was fortunate enough to have a vertical slide which allowed simple milling operations on the Myford but, nevertheless it was a good introduction to machining operations.

I am not familiar with the size of the Fortis lathe but if it is around the Myford size may I recommend your make the Radford quick-change tool post and holders. This is far superior to any proprietary design for this size of lathe, IMO, and has stood me in good stead for many years, in fact I keep meaning to make a few more holders in addition to the sixteen I originally made for it. You will find the details in Radford's book which is still in print from TEE Publishing.

The DHSS no longer exists it was replaced by the Department of Social Security in 1988 which was superseded by the Department of Work and Pensions, i.e. DWP in 2001. Do keep up!

Bill, you just gave away my secret for winning 99% of the auctions I enter because you either really want the item or you don't, but I nearly came unstuck once for a Myford S7 cross-slide. Someone just pipped me in the dying seconds of the auction and, in a panic to enter a higher bid, I inadvertently entered £1222 instead of £222. I got the item for £231 which was forty quid more than I really wanted to pay but I was just relieved that the other bidder hadn't also entered a ridiculously high price!

For parting I would highly recommend that you either make or acquire a suitable rear tool post. I am not familiar with the Boxford B or whether Boxford's ever produced a rear tool-post for it but they are easy enough to fabricate. You may find that mounting a parting tool in a front mounted quick-change tool holder may not give you a sufficiently rigid tool-holder as parting-off produces all sorts of problems, especially for a beginner with dig-ins and tool breakages etc. IMO you must always use copious amounts of cutting lubricant/coolant to assist successful parting. There is another thread somewhere on this Forum all about parting because we have just had a debate on it ad-nauseam so I won't begin to repeat the advice here.

Edited By Chris Crew on 26/04/2021 20:20:21

I have a metric Bantam 2000. The only advice I can offer is to take a degree in Crypton Factor to allow you to figure out the screw-cutting gearbox. It just about makes sense when you get there but I suggest you add your own notes in the manual because it covers all variants of the gearbox which are very easily confused until you become really familiar with it.

PS. I can send you a scanned copy of the relevant pages of the manual with my annotations if you contact me through the messaging facility on this forum.

Edited By Chris Crew on 26/04/2021 07:55:45

May I just add, because 'ega' has mentioned the Radford quick-change tooling system on the tool-post shown in one of the photographs, that I made this accessory and found it to be the veritable answer to a maiden's prayer as my late colleague also used to say.

It worked so well and is so very convenient to use that I went on to make sixteen tool-holders for it and I have actually been meaning to make half a dozen more. It very rarely leaves the Myford and, in my personal opinion, it is far superior to anything that is available commercially if carefully made with the jigs that Radford also describes. It holds the tools securely and repeatably at centre-height and can be made for next to no outlay compared to the prices of commercially available models. I can't recommend it highly enough!

BTW, I am very grateful for all the responses so far received which I have found both interesting and informative.

Edited By Chris Crew on 24/04/2021 13:44:35

I am fortunate enough to have an Ainjest rapid threading attachment fitted to my Colchester Student lathe which makes screw-cutting as easy as feeding buns to elephants, as a dear old colleague of mine used to say. Being an admirer of the late Jack Radford, I have recently been considering making his Six-Position Saddle Stop for my Myford ML7-R which works in a similar way but disengages the lathe's own half-nuts, rather than an auxiliary half-nut as on the Ainjest.

Could I enquire as to whether anyone has made and used this particular attachment and how effective it is? The design calls for a modification to be made on the apron and I don't particularly want to 'butcher' the machine if the overall end result turns out to be hardly worth the effort. Radford himself admits that there is small delay in the tripping of the mechanism equating to about 0.125" of saddle travel but I think this could be eliminated in practice when setting up for arresting the movement as with the Ainjest. Something in the back of my mind tells me that Martin Cleeve also designed a similar 'gizmo'.

Personally, having made one years ago for an ML7-R, I think the GHT rear parting tool-post is awful. As with all GHT designs, it is 'flimsy'', difficult to adjust to the correct working height both in construction and use because of the angled blades and not particularly aesthetically pleasing either. Having been mightily disappointed by it after a week's worth of construction time, not to mention the cost of the castings etc., which were then supplied by Reeves, I bought an OEM Myford rear tool-post and found it to be very satisfactory, although I don't use the 'boat' to adjust tool height. For my Student I fabricated, as near as I could get to the OEM design, the Colchester rear tool-post and I have easily parted 6" noggins of mild steel for Myford back-plates and gear blanks with it, so perhaps making a cross between the two types would suit the 254, although I am not familiar with this lathe.

Probably not so important when just cutting 5TPI with a 6TPI lead-screw, but the advice when cutting threads coarser than the lead-screw is to drive the head-stock from the lead-screw, rather than driving the lead-screw from the head-stock, although I would take a few more lighter cuts just in case.

I do this when cutting multi-start worms or even a worm of a larger DP to relieve the stress on the change-wheels. I am not mathematically or technically competent enough to calculate the actual stress on the gear teeth or at which point they would fail, but I take the advice given by Cleeve and Law et. al. for doing this.

It is no great pain to wind the lead-screw by the hand-wheel when cutting relatively short threads or worms but it could be if the thread is longer. I have jury-rigged up a reversible motor, reduction box and sprocket drive to the lead-screw of an ML7-R because you obviously cannot dis-engage the clasp nuts when cutting pitches that do not contain factors of the lead-screw thread.

I suspect that the teachers at the school I attended in the early 1960's  didn't have the best interests of their pupils at the forefront of their minds. I would hope that things are very different now.

Edited By Chris Crew on 30/03/2021 22:35:59

Edited By Chris Crew on 30/03/2021 23:13:38

Well, I suppose on one level that makes sense but we are not really supposed to wire 13amp plugs these days, that is why all new appliances now come with a moulded plug attached. I know we all do have to do it from time to time and hopefully the majority of us do it competently but I would put money on it that there will be some horror stories out there caused, for instance, by poor colour vision. An appliance will still work with the earth and neutral reversed because the neutral is earthed at the sub-station but any imbalance in the distribution could produce potentially fatal currents that could not be dissipated.

The domestic wiring regulations preclude any unqualified person, as I understand it, from doing much electrical work within our own properties, save perhaps taking a spur off a ring main or wiring a lamp. There two ways of looking at this. I am not a 'qualified' electrician, whatever that is supposed to mean but I have worked on and around electrical installations for most of my life, from 50V DC very high current equipment through to 415V AC three-phase distributions and consider myself more than well 'qualified' to undertake most installation tasks to the highest standard, although I could not 'certify' the work as being 'safe'. However, what may still be termed Part P regulations prevent me from doing much in my domestic environment unless I had the work independently tested and certificated.

I have to say that I probably agree with all the restrictions because, although I consider my workshop to be cabled and wired to a very high standard with an auxiliary consumer unit for double protection and all conductors contained in trunking and conduit etc. (all done prior to Part P so perfectly legitimate) I have visited some workshops that appear to be no more than electrical accidents waiting to happen. And this by men who I have considered way above me skill-wise. Bits of cable either twisted together and wrapped in insulation tape or strip connectors hanging over machines etc. or trailing extension sockets all over the place. Just for the sake of a few pounds being spent on doing the job properly and safely.

I know this could be a controversial subject for those who consider their workshop environment sacrosanct.

Edited By Chris Crew on 30/03/2021 20:11:43

I haven't had this particular scam email yet, and I don't know if this happens for everybody and every type of vehicle, but DVLA always sends us a reminder in the post when the road tax is due on both mine and my wife's car with a reference number to pay online.

My problem is that the wife always passes hers on to me!

The Sino-phobes aren't going to like this post, sorry!

Whilst undertaking a certain task I began to muse how much easier it would have been if I only had a 4-jaw self-centring chuck for my Colchester Student. At a lose end, and purely out of curiosity, I started to search online for one expecting it to be way out of my price range when a new 8" (200mm) chuck came up for £108! Nah!, it's got to be a scam, someone's hacked an eBay advertiser, I have had it before when looking for a Makita drill. The make was San Ou so obviously Chinese. I had never heard of them before but started searching for reports and reviews and looked at the company website. Not much to be found really, some debate in this very forum a couple of years ago and a YouTube video of somebody in the USA having to correct an in-accuracy in a 4-jaw independent he had purchased. The reviews were around 50/50 either way to be fair, but in any event you don't get an 8" 4-jaw self centring chuck for £108 delivered do you? Of course you don't!

But something kept eating at me to call the scammer's bluff. PayPal and eBay had protected me well enough over the Makita drill hadn't they? And whilst no one wants to be conned out of over £100, even if I lost it I would not starve to death and it would just prove to myself what a fool I really was for allowing myself to be duped. So I took the plunge and clicked the 'Buy it Now' button. The order and Paypal receipt emails duly arrived indicating that the item and delivery from within the UK actually cost £90 plus £18 VAT. Expecting an email from eBay or PayPal withdrawing the purchase because it was not genuine I was astounded when another email arrived later in the day indicating that the item had been dispatched and supplied a Yodel tracking number. What? Is this genuine after all? Apparently it was.

Imagine my surprise when a package that I could hardly lift arrived by courier within three working days of placing the order. OK, so what's inside? Err..... this actually looks like a decent piece of kit, complete with a set of outside jaws, a substantial chuck-key and mounting screws, it will need a suitable back-plate of course but I'll worry about that later. For now, let's just put it on the bench, take it apart and look for all the faulty manufacturing that some people keep telling me is a sure sign of cheap Chinese crap which is an utter waste of money. Well now, everything looks to have a nicely ground finish, there doesn't appear to be any slop in the jaws so let's take it apart and look at the scroll It's got to be bad even though it does feel quite smooth when un-winding the jaws, the Sino-phobes have got to be right sometimes, haven't they? Jaws out, back removed, scroll pinions out which looked to have close fitting finely ground journals and the gear of the scroll looked nicely cut, plus there was no slop on the hub on which it mounts. Scroll out and quite unbelievably it looks very nicely machined indeed. So let's clean everything in petrol, lubricate it with H32 and put it all back together.

Now let's find a back-plate. Good Grief! An L.0 fitting is going to cost almost double the chuck from the usual suppliers. Ebay to the rescue again when I won an auction with fifty quid for a fitting that would require an interstitial plate making but would fill the bill. Made a suitable plate and turned everything true in the lathe in which it was to be used including a close fitting register for the chuck taking a great deal of trouble along the way. Mounted the chuck and put a ground 0.625" bar in it to be clocked for concentricity. Moment of truth, this thing's going to be way out just like that guy's in the US and a bit of tool-post grinding will be required to true it up. But wait, should I have gone to Spec-savers or is that clock needle really only moving 0.75 thou. near the chuck jaws with the lathe running slowly. Move the clock a bit further along the test bar and let's see that needle really start to swing. No, it moves about 1.5 thou. 12" out from the jaws. That'll do, as they say in Yorkshire!

Delighted? Jumping for joy more like! I still cannot believe I only paid £108 for this obviously well made and accurate piece of kit and just proves that price isn't a measure of quality.