Parallel turning on a Myford ml4

Hello Andrew,

Yes, you are of course right and I remember now what was odd about the feedscrews. They were fitted with dials of 80 divisions, not 100 as I said earlier; so tooling moves more than you expect.

Sorry for the confusion, but it was a long time ago.

Regards Brian

I've been turning tubes recently that needed to be 0.01mm parallel.

I used a small Myford M Type (1949) . I turned centre - centre. The headstock was a piece of steel that I put a MT1 taper on one end and a 90 degree taper on the other. At the tail stock I used a live 90 degree centre.

Due to the age and type of lathe it took a long time to setup but eventually I got it to 0.01 parallel over 300mm. Further parts have been the same tolerance too. I found 90 degree tapers to be far better for tubes as opposed to 60 degree centre that you would normally use. Also, making a cross-slide lock got me down from 0.03mm to 0.01 mm.

I had spoken to a couple of engineering companies to do the work for me, they said they couldn't do it!

Well done Chris ,given a bit of set up time these old lathes can produce accurate work

Edited By Kevin Fenrich on 18/04/2013 22:35:33

Now that you have got your ml4 to turn diameters parallel try machining a bore to the same standard.

With the work piece held in the chuck or on a faceplate of course, not with a boring bar between centers.

If your lathe can do this you are as jammie as a jammie thing covered in jam!

An ml1 owner.

Edited By jason moore 1 on 19/04/2013 09:04:01

Hi Jason , it does bore true over a depth of 50mm ,I've found it helps If you take a few ' spring cuts ' befor you get to your required I/D

You have got a good one there.I wish my ml1 was as accurate. More work required on my part i think!