Member postings for peak4

Are you anywhere near Wiltshire, you could save a serious amount of money if you have the time.

For-Sale post on here

Bill

I understand your comment; However I've been using a plain old fashioned mineral chainsaw oil, rather than one of the newer biodegradable rapeseed oil chainsaw lubricants. Maybe I should have made that clearer.

I save the vegetable oils for cooking, though I understand Castrol R smells good in a lawnmower.

Bill

Try chainsaw oil if you want "stringiness". It also wipes off the hands easier than motorcycle (or forklift) aerosol chain lube.

Bill

Ian J, if you find it's not sensitive enough, you could try these folks **LINK**

I'm almost certain they are the ones I visited when I was looking for some round bubble levels for photographic use; tripod indicator.

Couldn't have been more helpful, with drawers and drawers full of assorted vials.

Bill

No experience of these myself, but Tony has a comment on his web site requesting any owners get in touch with him, presumably so he can add more machine details to his database.

Regarding the pressure angles etc. assuming the gears are say 20dp, they always run as a pair on a backgear, so if one were to replace both gears as a pair pair from HPC, then the pressure angle wouldn't be an issue.

If they have internal splines, then bore out the new gears to a larger ID, and turn the teeth off the old ones. Pin and Loctite the two parts together and re-fit.

Bill

I'm using something similar to these on my Warco copy in the new workshop **LINK** which allow for the uneven concrete floor.

Beware, the Myford is a bit top heavy, with a tendency towards the rear. I've only used adjustable feet in the short term, as I'm not sure where the lathe will finally be sited when its bigger cousin arrives.

In the other workshop in Sheffield, my original genuine Myford is rawlbolted to the floor with appropriate shims.

My Dore Westbury mill is on an angle iron cabinet, with a couple of further horizontal lengths of angle iron at floor level. These carry 4 heavy duty castors, with another set of these adjustable feet outboard of them. It means I can move the mill round, and then wind down the feet for stability.

Bill

I though one mainly needed the electrical section for one of those (along with instructions for renewing the heater O rings)

Don't have a photo handy, but what is essentially an anglepoise lamp arm, but with the light replaced by a clipboard with a sliding ruler.
I presume they were originally designed for typists.

One of these, but not at that price, look for office clearances

Bill

Edited By peak4 on 16/11/2017 11:18:14

Well I didn't get it so the search continues; it was a Willson Slant bed, with no discernible wear anywhere.
I was in serious negotiations with the vendor, having driven for 3 hours to view it yesterday, but for various reasons didn't manage to get a formal bid in on ebay before the auction closing time.
I'd even arranged a lifting party to collect it. Went for £600 with one bid

Bill

Hello and welcome, Does the last photo on This Page assist any?

Bill

I also have my eye on a short gap bed M300, for rather less than you're looking at, but apparently in good nick, though I've not seen it yet.
I'll put you in contact with the seller, If I decide not to go and view it later on in the week.

Bill

I guess some of it will come down to if you meed the extra centre height on the M300 and/or a gap bed.
I considered an M250, but decided that for the same footprint I could get something a bit bigger and versatile with the higher centre height and a gap bed.
As it happens I'm off to look at something entirely different tomorrow, so I'll let you know if I have a rush of blood to the head and commit to it.

Bill

p.s. I was going by this comment;

In the last years of production only Bantams with an increased centre height (6.5 inches) and a top speed of 2000 rpm were offered - but these machines should not be confused with the completely different Mk. 3 Bantam, which Colchester called the "Bantam 2000" - and which was actually a Harrison M250

Edited By peak4 on 14/11/2017 00:28:19

Edited By peak4 on 14/11/2017 00:28:56

Gary, if you have a looks at Tony's Website, it suggests that its more or less the same as a Harrison M250

Bill

For folks who've never used a water level;

I've just had a new garage built over in Buxton and made one of these myself to check various levels as the building progressed. The builder himself hadn't seen one since his apprenticeship and the guys working for him hadn't come across one at all.

In my case I used a spare gallon plastic container with a brass fitting near the base to accept a long length of 5mm bore plastic pipe. This leads to a 2' length of 2x1" timber, with a spare steel rule attached. I then plugged the plastic pipe into a length of translucent CO2 line from a mig welder, clipped that to the steel ruler, and terminated the lot with an old motorbike petrol tap. ( I added another one at the container outlet.)

The container can then be stood at any convenient place in the garage at about the level you need to measure.

Note that the container stays put, and you wander round with the ruler and pipe marking the walls accordingly.

To make the fluid more visible, the commercial ones seem to add a bit of flourescein to the water.
Not having such stuff to hand I took the filling wadding out of a normal coloured highlighter pen and squeezed the ink into the water. Seems to work fine.

Don't forget to open both petrol cocks and the lid of the container. A friend of mine didn't quite think it through and used a borrowed one of these water levels to set the RSJ when he was building his garage. He used the container at one end and the tube at the other, leaving the cap on the bottle. the end result was a lean to one side of about a full course of bricks after he'd cast the two concrete padstones for the beam.

A friend of mine recently bought the WM290 complete with makers cabinet.

A rigid cast iron plinth, it certainly isn't. I loaned him my big crowbars and precision level, along with some basic instructions of what needed achieving. He has his own DTI. We has a play for a couple of hours together and I retired back home. The following day he went out and bought something to bolt it to the concrete floor of the garage.

The base of each of the two pillars on the stand has 4 mounting holes, so with careful shimming and the level, plus 8 Rawlstud anchors in the concrete floor, he was able to get both pillars level and vertical. Thus the lathe itself then has a rigid mount at both ends, independent of each other and firmly fixed to the floor, to allow differential shimming of the lathe mounting holes if required.

It was remarkable how just adding a single thin shim to just one of the 8 mounting studs under the cabinet changed the readings on the DTI.

I think it took him the best part of a day to drill the floor for the 8 anchors and shim it all up to get the cabinet bang on level.

Bill

I've not done any calculations but at only 12mm, I'd have thought it would sag a little bit, plus a bit more due to the pressure of the DTI tip.

With 4 mounting bolts on the headstock, I'd have thought it possible to fix it down pretty rigidly, such that the two at the tailstock end could drag that end down a bit with respect to the, now rigidly mounted, headstock.

I originally thought I'd come up with something novel, then subsequently read that it's been a dodge for donkey's years.

For the home made centre in mine, I used an old broken solid carbide centre drill., fitted to a mild steel sleeve to take it up to 1/2" to fit the hole in the boring head.
Obviously not the easiest stuff to re-profile, but since no-one told be how I should do it, I came up with yet another bodge.

The Clarkson T&C Grinder was near the lathe, and I have a flexible drive shaft with a drill chuck on the end.
Another drill chuck on a spindle was secured to the bed of the Clarkson and the broken centre drill chucked up in it. Drive for the nescent centre was provided by the flexible polishing arbour, itself driven by the Myford behind me. Hardly conventional I assume, but did the job nicely. Yes I did cover the lathe bed with paper towels first.

Bill

Edited By peak4 on 12/11/2017 00:22:16

That's pretty much what I was describing Neil, but with a longer projection on the left hand end, so it can be held in a chuck for the initial setup of any required twist in the bed.
Unfortunately I lost mine due to a shed roof leakage and a subsequent attack of tinworm.

Since then I've found a 2 morse extension bar, but unlike most seen on the net these days, it is nicely ground all over. Ex military from Anchor Surplus in Nottingham years ago.
I now use this as a test bar from the headstock spindle taper, and for between centres use, add a blank stub arbour to the female end. Again not up to calibrated test bar standards, but adequate for my use.

I can get more "tenths" DTI deflection by gently leaning on the lathe than the bodged "test bar" idnicates.
Our lathes normally just ain't that rigid unless you are fortunate to have a high quality toolroom machine.

Part 2

You can use the bar between centres with a dial gauge on the saddle, whenever you have need to offset the tailstock in the future and want to return it to the correct alignment.

If you have a boring head consider making a centre to fit one of the holes in it, put the boring head in the tailstock and use the diameter screw of the boring head to offset the home made centre; that way tyou don't need to disturb the tailstock offset, and you have a nice screw adjustment to set the amount of taper you're turning.

Also, now you've made the test bar, set up a DTI on the bed/saddle running on the right hand collar. Slacken the tailstock bed clamp, and the barrel clamp slightly and wind out the tailstock barrel, pushing the tailstock casting itself off to the right hand end. If you observe the DTI whilst winding the handle, is should give you an idea if the tailstock barrel is projecting in line with the bed.

In some ways, the Myford setup is slightly easier as there are only 4 bolts, so there is less chance of "bending" the bed.
Also the mounting bolts are able to "push" as well as "pull" with respect to the lathe cabinet/workbench. 
There's a hollow bolt under the bed which runs in a threadded hole in the cabinet raising block.

Passing through the lathe foot is a thinner stud which goes though the afore mentioned hollow bolt and is retained in the cabinet.
This means that you can impart a true twist, without pulling the tailstock end of the bed downwards.

I hope this reads OK as I've not had time to proof read it as dinner's ready.

Good luck

Bill

p.s. there is an argument which suggests that the test bar should be a thick walled pipe, as it would deflect less under its own weight, but I can't imagine it would make much difference in the sizes of our "hobby" lathes, and also you would lose the advantage of being able to use it between centres to set the tailstock.

Edited By peak4 on 11/11/2017 23:03:04

Edited By peak4 on 11/11/2017 23:03:49

Chris, Firstly I should stress that I'm not a trained engineer, well I am, but in telephony not mechanical. Everything I've learned has been self taught, so read anything I write with an appropriate pinch of salt.

I'd suggest that the reason you've struggled with the vertical alignment is to do with rigidity of the workbench and lack of mass in the headstock, plus it would only really work for lathes with 6 or more mounting bolts, 4 at the headstock and 2 at the tailstock on a very rigid bench.
If your lathe is significantly out of vertical alignment, I wonder if having a word with Warco might be a good idea, as that really should be running more or less true when it left their depot. I'm assuming here that the headstock was correctly bolted down when it left the factory, without any flecks of paint underneath (Think Hubble Telescope)

I think you understand the principal of putting a twist in the bed to make it turn parallel with a chuck mounted workpiece. The vertical alignment would require the whole of the bed bending a tiny amount with respect to the centre of rotation of the headstock spindle, and I can't imagine that this should be required in a lathe of this size.

The caveat to that is, have you actually put a bend in the bed whilst adjusting the twist in it. If so, don't worry as I'm sure it will be within the elastic limit of the cast iron. That is, in the ideal world, if all four bolts at the headstock are firmly fastened and cannot move at all in relation to the ground, then everything about the headstock is fixed and all adjustments at the tailstock end are in relation to it.

"Levelling the lathe" (with a capital L) refers not just to getting it level from headstock to tailstock, indeed, that is the least important, though obviously it should be as "level" as possible. The main one is fore and aft, which should be the same at both ends of the bed, hence the "twisting" scenario to make it so.

I think you should be able to see that, if the headstock casting is truly immovable, then if the tailstock bolts were pulling that end into the bench as the wood squashes, the the bed would deflect downwards at that end. Obviously a similar scenario if you put a couple of washers under the tail end of the bed before tightening down the headstock, then the tail end of the bed would deflect upwards, with respect to the headstock.

I'm assuming that since you have neither a calibrated test bar or precision level, you will need to sort it out by turning and measuring.

I'd suggest making sure that in your case the "level" between head and tailstock in neutral, and that any differential shimming only adds a twisting, rather than a bending moment as well, in order to keep the vertical alignment correct.

Here's the way I set up my Myford, which may or may not be approved of by the many apprentice trained engineers on here.

Take a decent length of steel bar, similar to what you've been using and maybe a foot or so long, clean one end and mount in the chuck. thin down the middle section of the bar by a couple of mm or so, similarly the far end as well; no need for accuracy. The intention being, that you well be left with two collars standing proud of the main bar as far apart as the length of bar will allow. (make sure you leave enough room at the right hand end beyond the collar to allow a drive dog to be fitted later.)
Now sharpen and hone a HSS tool to the best edge you can get. Hopefully by now if you've been honing for long enough, the formative test bar will have cooled down, so take the very finest of cuts to both collars.

Measure them with a micrometer, ideally a "tenths" one - mine are all imperial. If they aren't exactly the same diameter, which is most likely, this should tell you which way you need to apply a twist to the bed.
Once you've managed to get two identical collars, you know the two ends of the bed are "Level" with each other.

Only now can you turn your attention to the tailstock.

Centre drill both ends of the bar. Either fit, and check, a centre in the headstock taper, or chuck a bit of steel in the 3 jaw and turn a taper on the end to make a centre which you know is true - it must be you've just made it.

Fit a drive dog and turn the bar between centres; with your nice sharp tool, again with the finest of cuts true up and measure the two collars. Keep minimal projection on the tailstock barrel during the operation.This will tell you whether the tailstock needs to move towards or away from the front of the lathe.

Once you have the tailstock correct, true up the end of the bar that you held in the chuck prevously, as it will now be slightly out compared to the centre drillings.

You now have a lathe that's reasonably well set up, and a re-useable test bar as well, so keep it in a padded box with some rust resistant paper. OK so it's not as good as a calibrated precision ground bar, but if you could afford one, you'd have already bought it.

Bill

Part 2 to follow