Member postings for Mike Crossfield

If you want to measure carriage travel you don't need to go digital. Graham Meek's resettable carriage handwheel dial integrates perfectly with the lathe, covers the full travel of the carriage, and provides adequate accuracy for most tasks. Interesting project to make, or you can buy ready made. Photo of my example attached:

Stephen,

Congratulations on your DW. I rebuilt my Mk1 about 15 years ago and have been very pleased with it. Not the most rigid of machines, but very versatile. There are some pictures in my album. It would be useful to know if your machine is a Mk1 or a Mk2 because there are some important differences. In particular the reduction gearboxes are different. The Mk1 uses straight cut Myford change gears, and is lubricated with grease. The Mk2 uses helical gears and is oil filled as Brain has described. I hope you have the Mk2 because it’s a better design and much quieter in operation. I fitted a 3/4 hp motor and a VFD to my machine, so most of the time I don’t need to use the reduction gearbox.

regards

Mike

Geoff,

I was in the workshop yesterday, and remembering this thread I thought I would check the Jacobs chuck that I use regularly with my Super 7. The chuck is a Jacobs 32mm No 34 fitted with a MT2 arbor. I bought is as new old stock 20 years ago. I fitted the chuck into the lathe spindle and fitted a piece of 5/16 tool steel into the chuck. The runout at 1 inch from the chuck was 1 thou, and at 2 inches from the chuck it increased to 2 thou. I was so surprised by these low numbers that I repeated the test several times, repositioning the tool steel in the chuck each time. The results were essentially the same within 1/2 thou. I also have a small 5/16 Rohm chuck on a MT2 arbour, so I repeated the tests with this chuck using a piece of 1/4 tool steel. The figures this time were 1 1/2 thou and 2 thou at 1 inch and 2 inch from the chuck respectively. Finally I tested a Chinese 13mm keyless chuck which I bought from Chronos a few years back. This was essentially as new because I have only used it a couple of times. The figures for this were 4 thou and 6 thou.

So my conclusion, apart from being very pleased with the accuracy of my chucks, is that the new Jacobs chucks you purchased are defective.

Best regards

Mike

Liam,

if the lathe is big enough for your needs it is a bargain. I owned the identical model some years ago, and thought very highly of it. The long bed Speed 10 with its roller bearing headstock, higher top speed, and other standard features such as leadscrew clutch and leadscrew handwheel was the ultimate version of the ML10. Look after it and it will hold its value very well. Incidentally, because they are unique to the ML10, fixed and travelling steadies are like rocking horse manure, and fetch crazy prices on the second hand market, so very nice to have.

Mike

Chris,

Not a sound arrangement to take the cutting forces on the tips of the clamping screws. If the HSS does not fill the slot, and you’re worried about the tool top face being on centre line, just add packing underneath.

Mike

By coincidence my workshop fan heater recently failed catostrophically. Out of curiosity I opened it up to investigate the over-temperature thermal switch. As suggested by John Baron, I discovered that built into the bimetallic switch assembly was a chip resistor. This was electrically across the contacts, so that when the switch opened it came into circuit. It measured around 17k ohm, so it would dissipate around 3 watts, sufficient to keep the switch open until the mains supply was removed. Neat arrangement. Picture of the chip resistor attached.

Mike

Hi 1Pots,

I have a 1957 “Mk1 1/2” Super 7 myself, so I thought I would chip in with a few comments on your prospective purchase: Difficult to be absolutely certain just by looking at your photos, but your lathe looks to be a Mk1 dating from mid 1950s. The headstock oiler and the early clutch are the obvious giveaways, and the rounded edge on the front of the bed in the gap suggests it is the original bed. It has obviously been recently repainted in a non-original colour, and by the condition of the paint it doesn’t seem to have been used since the repaint. The finish on the paintwork looks good in the photos. The gearbox is later than the lathe itself, which in itself is no bad thing since the later gearbox is better than the early model. Also noticeable is that the handle on the front cover looks to be homemade, as do the knobs on the backgear lever, the tumble reverse lever and the primary drive cover. The knurled lock screw on the lead screw cover is also missing and the adjuster for the drip feed oiler looks rather odd. All of this might suggest an old neglected machine which has been given a makeover in preparation for sale. It needs careful examination to see what the true mechanical condition is. Aside from any nasty noises (and the associated causes) and general wear, the things I would be looking at particularly would be wear in the bed, and play and runout of the spindle. Problems here are expensive to fix.

The accessories with the lathe are a mixed bag. The 3 jaw and 4 jaw chucks and the tailstock drill chuck are virtually essential, and so very nice to have if they are in reasonable condition, and the fixed and travelling steadies are valuable too. Good to have a catch plate, though odd to have two. A shame there is no faceplate. The change gears might come in handy, but they are really intended for a lathe without a gearbox. A vertical slide is a nice accessory, but the one in the photo is not a Myford part, and seems to be attached to a cross slide from another machine. Similarly some of the other bits and pieces don’t really suit the Super 7, so of limited value.

Hope this is of some help.

Best wishes

Mike

Andrew,

I think you got a very good buy there. It looks as though all the right bits are still there, and it should clean up very well. I bought my Kerry Super 8 over 20 years ago in rather worse condition than yours, with some missing parts, but after a rebuild it has been a very faithful companion, and I would never sell it. The rotating table is very useful, and together with the column clamp makes it very easy to reposition work clamped to the table. I also added an indexing feature so I could use the table for drilling accurate hole circles. Picture of my machine below.

enjoy

Mike

Andy

Pantograph Services are the go-to company for everything engraving related. Wide range of equipment and materials, including the laminates you are interested in.

Best regards

Mike

Just to draw a line under this, Gray has very kindly checked the MEW drawings against his originals and confirmed that, apart from the two errors noted in MEW 280, they are correct.

Mike

Hello Gray,

I have sent some drawings to your gmail address.

Best regards

Mike

Hello Gray,

The gears I cut ran very smoothly together, but had what seemed to me to be excessive clearance when set up at the specified spacing. Turning one over made no difference. I set them up in my clock depthing tool so that I could play around with the gear spacing and I found that the teeth bottomed out before the play reduced to zero.

Photo 6 in the magazine shows your test rig and your prototypes. I noticed that the hardware was laid out on the gear drawings, and in the top right hand corner of the photo I could see the dimensions for the idler gear cutter. This shows an offset of 0.62 rather than the 0.55 detailed in magazine Fig. 5. I haven’t yet made a new cutter using the 0.62 dimension, but I think it will reduce the clearance I am seeing.

I would be happy to scan the Figures from the magazine showing the cutter dimensions so that you can check them against your originals, but I don’t know if this will upset the magazine publishers? Perhaps somebody could advise?

Best regards

Mike

Hello Martin

The thread you linked to is the one I started when I pointed out two obvious drawing errors, and I am very familiar with it. However no other errors apart from those I pointed out were mentioned. I now think there is at least one more, which is why I am now querying the MEW drawings again with Gray.

Regards

Mike

Hello again Gray,

I have cut the input gear and the idler gear (imperial) using cutters made according to the dimensions in Figure 5 in MEW 279, allowing for the drawing error noted in MEW 280. However the meshing, although close, doesn’t seem to be quite right. I made the cutters very carefully using the DRO on my mill. I don’t think I made any significant error, and I suspect there may be another drawing error in Figure 5. I think I can see in photo 6 In MEW 280 another cutter dimension (0.55 versus 0.62) in your original drawing which is different from that in Figure 5. If you wouldn’t mind I’d be very grateful if you could check that all the Figure 5 cutter dimensions are as you intended.

In view of these problems with the Figure 5 cutter dimensions, it would be reassuring if you also check that cutter data in Figure 6 is as you intended. I’m sorry to bother you with this, but I don’t know how to calculate the cutter dimensions for myself.

Many thanks

Mike

Hello Gray,

Thanks very much for the prompt and very helpful reply.

Just what I need.

Best regards

Keep safe

Mike

Having recently completed my last major project I have started building Graham Meek’s Super 7 tailstock dial (MEW 279/280). At the moment I am puzzling over the best machining sequence for the main body of the device (the Backplate). There are some critical dimensions and concentricities, and few clues in the articles as to how best to achieve them. I would be very pleased to hear from Gray or and/or anyone who has successfully constructed this useful accessory.

Thanks

Mike

Edited By Mike Crossfield on 26/10/2020 07:43:51

Edited By Mike Crossfield on 26/10/2020 07:45:34

Hi Jack,

I remember my recently deceased friend having a similar problem with his ML10 some years ago. Unlike other Myford lathes, the ML10 saddle handwheel does not engage with a separate rack to move the carriage. Instead It is permanently engaged with the leadscrew. Incidentally, not a great arrangement because the gearing is too high to allow fine manual feed. In an ideal world when the leadscrew rotates the handwheel should rotate but the saddle should remain stationary. This Is a delicate balance which relies on the carriage friction being greater than that in the handwheel mechanism. If the carriage is very free to move (gibs set loosely?) and/or the handwheel is stiff, the carriage will move. My friend made some adjustments which from memory largely solved the problem. However to be completely safe he also fitted the optional leadscrew clutch. This also provided the big benefit of being able to use the optional leadscrew handwheel to move the carriage without having to disconnect the change gears.

Regards

Mike

I make all the pinions and wheels in my clocks using shop-made cutters made from hardened/tempered silver steel. I usually cut pinions from silver steel, but sometimes I use EN8. Cutting pinions this way is a slow job. I typically run the mill at around 200rpm, and take 2 or 3 passes with plenty of cutting oil. Picture of one of my cutters and examples of wheels and pinions below.

Mike

Edited By JasonB on 15/09/2020 13:14:12

Thank you Martin.

There is a substantial metal backplate fitted to the case, and the pendulum and the movement are separately attached to this. I’ll post some more photos which should make this clear. The case is anchored to the wall behind it.

Mike