Casting Filler?

Hello.

The ML7 was overhauled mechanically by Myford's. So it is a case of making the beast look respectable, all the fettling has already been done, including a bed regrind! Pity that I lost the Trimite (Thanks for that ID) although it probably would be well past its sell by date now!

I think there is a psychological aspect to making your working environment smart, including the appearance as well as the mechanical condition of your machine tools. I don't like working with dirty, ill kempt machines even if they are mechanically sound.

Andrew.

As the years go by Myford lathes are now becoming historically interesting machines, so I thought his link would point you in the right direction for restoring your lathe.

**LINK**

Our local 'men's shed' have just been donated a lathe, an old lathe made in the late 1800's so the donor says, haven't seen it yet but I've been told it's been converted to electric drive.

Hello Folks,

Seems to be a lot of topic drift here! As it happens, I have several 5 litre plastic containers full of BDH (that dates it, they merged with Merk twenty or thirty years ago!). It is a liquid with somewhat higher viscosity than water, so unless it is mixed with lots of solid powder it will run straight off the job. I am very dubious that such a witches brew will be anything like Trimite to sand down.

Equally all the two part body filler I have ever used is much harder work with than Trinite. The guy at Myford even let me try sanding the filled casting and it was quite amazing how easy it was to take off large quantities of material with very little effort. Filler putty is not good, you must put multiple thin layers onto the areas to be treated and wait for ever between coats,, otherwise it will never set below the surface. Even then it will shrink long term.

Sounds as though I am being finicky about this filling job. To get a good surface takes a fair amount of work and choosing the wrong filler, is not a good idea. I don't want to start all over again!

When I say that Myford's used a lot of filler, I mean that it was spread liberally all over the casting NOT just in the holes! My guess is that the surface of an ML lathe is ALL filler to maybe a depth of several millimetres!

Andrew.

Whoops, the words sodium silicate should appear after BDH! My apologies,

Andrew.

Although it's not quite the same, I heard a story that it took 7 tonnes, that's seven thousand kilograms, of epoxy based filler to fair in the under waterline surfaces of a 3,000 tonne frigate.

I'll bet that not even Myford used quite THAT much!!

cheers

Bill

Hello Bill,

Weight for weight, I reckon Myford used as much filler!

Andrew.

AND every other machine tool manufacturer!

Per Lathes.co.uk

Boxford catalogue (optimistically, one would have imagined) until at least 1977. With the introduction of the Under-drive models came a superior cosmetic finish with the castings carefully fettled, filled with cellulose knifing putty, rubbed down by hand and spray painted. While not to the standard of the very much more expensive Raglan lathe, with its use of special Trimite paints, this new finish (generally in a grey cellulose to BS692 sprayed over a filler) was a considerable improvement over the earlier lathes, the first of which had, to be blunt, a decidedly utilitarian appearance.

At one point I worked for a while for Raglan Machine Tools who also used Trimite, in fact the trucks used to deliver to us and then to Myford's

I wrote a few observations up of my time there including the prep and painting and sent to to Tony at lathes.co.uk and he was good enough to include it on the Raglan page.

I was never involved in the painting or prep work but solely did aprons and screw cutting gearboxes.

Here is the link,

Painting prep, bottom of the page.

A friend refinishes machine tools as part of a rebuilding process. He uses MIPA products, which are spray based (sprayable hi build fillers) but they do have "spreadable" ones

**LINK**

Ken, that link is just to a two pack car body filler

John,

I was not suggesting it was an equivalent of the original TRIMITE product, but that it appears to work as a paste type filler on iron. The chalky original had a very high build capacity, cellulose putty works well for small area repairs but starting from scratch on a large rough casting would be tedious.

Much as I would like to respond fairly comprehensively to the posts that have appeared following my previous post commercial sensitivity and IP considerations prevent me.

However it seems that most comments are on track. John's memories of Raglan usage are about right for the late 60's but that was a tiime of considerable progress in formulations and a different type of 'stopper' gained favour led, of course, by the rapid production needs of the automotive industry.

On a slightly different point raied earlier I can state with some knowledge that it ia highly unlikely that Trimite ever refused to supply anybody with small quanities. Company policy was definitely against any such restriction. Of course my experience goes back before the takeover by Weilburger.

Monoman

Ken, I was just going on the 3 to 4 minutes working life.

Half the people on this forum would have a heart attack if they had to work that fast

After I had turned the wheels for my first loco I ended up with a pile of fine cast iron so I put it in a tin and kept it, I have used it on several castings even blow holes in wheels. I just mixed it with fibre glass resin when dry it blends in well.

Stan

You just need some iron filings and epoxy for a good filler for parts that need a good fillet, or a hole filled.

Ian S C