Murad Bormilathe

A traditional way to provide repeatably fixed positions to decent accuracy is to use taper dowel pins in reamed holes through both components. Obviously destroys infinitely variable adjustment of the screw and slide system but for pure lathe use 3 or 4 centre heights should be more than enough in practice. Fixed heights makes it easy to sort the tool on centre line issue by simply making a set of spacers. One for each height setting. Means drilling holes and spoiling the originality of the machine. Would be somewhat unfortunate if a hole is misplaced too.

Pull the headstock pin when vertical milling traverse is needed.

An alternative that would probably work almost as well would be to clean up the bottom faces of the headstock and tailstock castings along the tops of the L shaped supports so that they are smooths and each pair mutually true. Spacers could be inserted and the head and tailstocks wound down into alignment. A magnet on the spacer seems a good way to keep it in place. Theoretically best practice is to either let a round bar in top and bottom of the spacers or to accurately chamfer them to narrow contact faces. Line or narrow edge contact onto a wider face being potentially more accurate than contact between two wide faces. Whether the difference is, in practice, of any import if the job is done carefully I know not. Maybe making the spacers in two pieces with provision for adjustment by inserting shims or sliding angled faces across like an adjustable parallel would be a better Home Workshop technique than trying to make everything dead accurate in the first place.

Clive.

The actual headstock can be locked at a required position the use of a dial comparator makes the alignment of the tail stock straightforward .

the lathe was purchased for its ability to used as a bor mil lathe for basic machining ,I have been using the ability of the head stock vertical movement to cut the new gears required to replace the missing change gears .

I shall fabricate the gear banjo's, machine a new chuck back plate with an 1-7/8" 8TPI thread, remove stuck chuck "machine off as last resort" which will release the full potential of the little Murad.

I have retired from a working life in engineering ,time served indentured apprentice at John Thompsons Boiler makers worked their most my life as:- draughtsman ,boiler maker, fabricator ,maintenance fitter, welder. Had to change jobs as the work gradually declined. The lathe in the Mars shop was so big the turner had a table and chair on the tool post it's a housing estate now.

Regards Eric

Let us know how you get on with it, Eric.

Neil

Hi Eric, I'm very impressed with the Mars lathe with a housing estate on the toolpost.

Congratulations on your purchase, very nice and unusual machine.

There is some information on www.lathes about other combination machines, it's worth looking at these. Some of the accessories may give you expensive and time consuming ideas.

Dave

Hello Dave .

English composition was not my best Forte ,I see from your photo's you have a die file I also have one, use it to make dies for my fly press was going to try to use it for the keyway on the gears ? or broach with fly press ?. I have manage to aquire a large 10-3/4" face plate with a 1-7/8" 8TPI with type thread of the bay

.

Regards Eric

Hi Eric, no criticism intended, you were perfectly clear, just the way I read it. I recently sold my die filer, we are planning on moving soon so decided it was time to downsize. Just the idea of moving several tons of machinery and tools in one go had no appeal whatsoever. 1 ton surface grinder and 1 ton shaper also gone this week, haven't seen so much empty floor for years! The filer will do keyways OK but I prefer doing them in the lathe, you can hold a suitably ground tool sideways in the toolpost and rack the carriage back and forth (with the machine switched off), feeding the tool with the cross slide. Hemingways do a kit for a saddle mounted slotting attachment which is probably kinder to the lathe if you have a few keyways to do. When using the filer, I found it useful to clamp a flat bar to the table as a guide, holding small parts with a vise or engineers clamp, sometimes soldered to a bar, just so there's something to hold. I always used the hold downs (after the first lot of bruised fingers), I made an L shaped hold down, much more useful than the standard ones which have a very small contact area. Most filers will saw too, best not to use hacksaw blades though, the cheap ones are useless and the good ones shatter. Bandsaw blade works very well, hold downs still required! Dave.

Well Nearly there have just had the saddle traversing first time in many years.

Purchased some change gears 16 dp of the bay for a good price, the one I really needed was a 48 tooth it arrived with one tooth broken due to poor packing .

The seller offered a 50% reduction so I decided to keep them a try to repair it.

Got some ENC1 2.5 99% nickel rods and welded it up with my AC oil cooled Oxford ,Using the cold method

no pre heat.

Went well no slag inclusion or cracking half inch weld at a time with rapid peening after each weld.

Will attempt to remove the well stuck three jaw chuck next fingers crossed then make a back plate for my 4 jaw chuck, recut the repaired gear tidy up the gear train fit guards .

I will also remake the 48 tooth 14 DP gears as the three jaw chuck was not able to hold the dia ,so had to drill three holes in the gear blank for the jaws to get a grip making the gears a little sloppy.

Shall have to learn how to post photo's nothing better than a pic.

Regards Eric

Edited By Eric Arthrell on 29/05/2017 14:18:50

I have several genuine Bormilathe change wheels and the horizontal milling attachment if your interested -let me know!!

Update managed to get the stuck chuck off hip, hip, hooray . removed back gear to avoid damage made a head stock spindle insert ,and removed chuck from back plate . I then used two large pairs of stilsons ,much to my relief it came off. Did a lap of the garden shouting thank you thank you. will make a back plate for my 4 jaw chuck after re cutting a gear change gear that needed a couple of teeth welding up due to postage damage. Regards Eric

Hi I have just got a Bormilathe in my garage. It came from a friend who had it for decades he moved and had to downsize. I am checking it over and deciding whether I can use it. Does anyone have a copy of the screw cutting charts?

message sent.

Regards Eric

Keeping Headstock and Tailstock in alignment. Have to admit to not knowing the machine, (must look it up) so hope that the bed is not round, otherwise what follows no longer makes sense.

How about this suggestion, as used for my Rotary Table and it's Tailstock, on the Mill?

Take a Stub Arbor for the Headstock, and bore / ream to a suitable size.

Take a Stub Arbor for the Tailstock, and turn to a really snug fit in the Headstock Arbor.

Set the Headstock height, clamp, and then to align, fit the female Arbor into the Headstock. Fit the male Arbor into the Tailstock and bring it up to the Headstock, so that the arbors fit together over maximum length, with the Tailstock clamped to the bed..

Clamp Tailstock in place for vertical alignment , and you should be ready to go!

Have just VERY quickly looked at the pictures, so my suggestion might be worth trying, as should be cheaper than buying a tramming device., and will align the Tailstock both vertically and horizontally.

Looks an intersting and versatile machine.

Have lots of fun with it!

Howard

Edited By Howard Lewis on 03/11/2017 11:50:54

Update on my progress on my Murad ,

I have manage to obtain a milling table of a Myford/drumond M type lathe the dove tail is at 60 Degrees,

as required but will need machining, to open it up by 0.144" to allow the gib to fit.

I will then need to make a nut at 0.5"x 10tpi LH to fit the table I have a piece of Ph bronze at the ready.

To date

Sort out and machine change gears as required ,fabricate banjo's fit guard cover

Release stuck chuck make back plate for four jaw chuck.

Fabricate adaptor ring for cross slide to allow me to mount angle plate to gently machine milling table dove tail.."the ability to raise and lower the head stock means it can be bolted firmly to cross slide adaptor no vertical slide required"

Still to do :-

Make a cross slide nut for milling table machine and fit.

Make milling arbour.

fabricate belt guard.

and last but not least start a project ?

I have posted some pics but they rotate on up load even if I rotate the 90 degrees before up loading ?

Eric

That's looking good, Eric

MichaelG.

Thanks for the update. It's coming along nicely.

Rod