Myford Drummond headstock adjusting

Definitely not a purist thread this one, is it

I'm aiming more at that swathe of people who are starting off with nowt but an M series lathe

More capable and resourced people will automatically do what's best for them

What really set me off was an ebay lathe with castellated nuts which had been chewed by a pit bull terrier, either a chisel / screwdriver or a huge stillson had been used

I'm hoping to reduce any reliance on chisels, large bladed screwdrivers hammers etc.

Edited By Ady1 on 17/05/2015 12:57:52

I'm planning on fitting a new thrust bearing - spoil the old girl a bit. Might even fit a second one so they can be set up with a little preload as described recently on the Drummond Yahoo group.

Yes, my son and I've had mine mostly sorted for some time now and it has more than earned its keep turning out motorbike parts and tooling as well as model bits. Bloody old thing will take a 100 thou cut at 7 thou/rpm feed -- providing we use the tailstock centre to hold everything steady.

The small mandrel with the small hole up the guts is the only shortcoming as you say. we are in the process of making a good solid fixed steady out of a lump of 1" plate so instead of shoving larger jobs up the mandrel, they can hang out from the chuck through the steady and off we go! But I blew out the 240v power outlet in my mate's shed trying to get his hobby plasma cutter to cut the 1" plate. Not looking forward to chain drilling and hacksawing that lot, so got to wait until he gets a 3 phase power outlet sorted.

Hi Ady,

I remember you, you used to post a lot of messages on the Drummond yahoo site.

They were always of real interest, where have you been?

You're dead right about the M, the spindle bore is way to small, a real pain in the ****.

I would also add that the rack feed is barmy, winding the hand wheel clockwise and the saddle moving towards the tailstock. How anybody thought that was a good idea is beyond me.

Do fit that second thrust bearing as recommended by Eugene, trust me it really is worth doing.

Get yourself back on that drum site asap.

regards geoff

Sorry Anticlockwise geoff

> Sorry Anticlockwise geoff

You had me going there, until i saw the next post!

Neil

Hi Neil,

You have a solution in your email box.

What are the chances of it appearing in MEW?

Sorry Neil couldn't resist that!!!

best regards geoff

where have you been?

I stopped posting at every site I was posting at, I was spending too much time talking and not enuf time doing.

Anyway, that change in the Yahoo board system was a disaster for me, I just can't get my head around it, everything was so simple before they changed it and I realised that any contribution I make on any site anywhere on the internet can disappear within a very short space of time and some posts can take 1-2 hours of effort

So I combined my new ME interest with this place. I only really visit about 5 places now, the bbc, ebay and a few others and don't have the time for anything else

Nice to see that the Drummond site has survived. The BBC basic site was another huge mine of information on Yahoo and now it's gone. All that specialised knowledge, thousands of hours of human effort, gone forever because some policy wonk at Yahoo had a brain fart

Edit: Had a look at the extra thrust bearing suggestion though. Great to see that these units can still be improved by such simple tweaks. Have put it on my to-do list

Edited By Ady1 on 18/05/2015 01:03:04

+1 on the Drummond Yahoo site being a giant pain in the derriere to use. It's a wonderful resource and great bunch of blokes but I cannot get my head around navigating it either. Drives me absolutely nuts.

No problem here with the "reverse" rack traverse. Guess I am just used to it. IT helps too that I no longer use any other "normal" lathe.