Myford ML4 restoration, setup, upgrades.........improvements???

As for the chuck I haven't touched it at the moment, the spindle been the more important part at present, get this right, then look at the chuck, get a 1" bar in there and check how far out it is. Then level the lathe, now I have cutters that work effectively. I was still getting a poor finish on the part, even though they were sharp and had a rounded end. So following some advice looked at my spindle which had a lot of slop in it. Which hopefully will now rectify the poor finish. If it doesn't then at least I can rule out the spindle.

Hello Jon,

Thank you for the grub screw information; I recall them now from Dad's lathe. I might be wrong but I thought those were to do with holding the white metal bearing shells in the upper cap half of the bearing and not as you have been using them. I never investigated them though to establish why they were present.

To my mind, local pressure from those would tend to distort the bearing material away from it's support in the cap and wear that part preferentially ahead of the rest of the upper shell. I always adjusted those spindle bearings with the clamp screws, closing down onto a solid section that could be lapped away instead of pealing off shims as even then, shim packs for those bearings seemed hard to come by.

Regards Brian

No need for shim packs. Just buy a packet of mixed sheets of brass shim and cut your own shims of the needed thickness to suit. Easiest way is to cut the shim with scissors then either punch the bolt hole with a wad punch or cut a U shaped notch out of the shim with scissors. I do this on my ML7 rather than pay through the nose for shim packs. If you make a stack that includes a few two thou shims, this allows you fine adjustment. If you want to close the bearing up by one thou, you can take a two thou shim out of one side but not the other. (The purists will arrive at the gate with pitch forks and torches shortly, but it works just fine and is common practice.)

Interesting Brian, though if it were the case that they were to hold the bearings, then surely that would mean they would screw into the bearing shell and lift it, not push it down? Will have a better look today when the spindle gets pulled.

Hopper this is much like I want to do, a piece of steel of around 2/3rds the thickness of the gap forming the main spacer, the rest been taken up with brass shim cut and shaped to suit. Though at worst the shims could be unbolted and a set made up from one this then cut to size would suffice for now. Until the shims were made up.

I've had the lathe since May and still not got it 100% yet, as it's only the last 3months that I've looked at getting it sorted. Involves a lot of questions and info been provided by members of this forum and others too.

Well I had a friend come around to look over the lathe and check wear.

The bearings in the headstock of mine is simply a bronze split bearing turned OD and ID to fit the spindle and the headstock casting. This is a later modification by a previous owner, as the casting will have had to be bored out to fit this type of bearing. There is a slot along it's length of around 2mm which is lined up with the split of the casting. The bolts tighten down on the casting an thus the bearings and close the bearing around the spindle, the grubscrews used to put pressure on the top of the bearing giving even pressure. The spindle was measured too and was 1thou less than an inch all the way around. Which at least means the spindle isn't bent, or worn oval. Reassembled, the play was then adjusted out. The bearings are worn and will need replacement when funds allow, but are serviceable at the minute.

The gibs have been tightened to take out any play, though new ones could do with making in the future.

The major issue found is the tailstock, the bore is worn, giving 8thou play of movement. Which means that drilling a hole would be a precarious operation, this can be reduced by nipping the spindle lock, but still doesn't irradicate the movement, just lessens it. I've had the fix explained to me, so I'll try it one day with some assistance. The end is bored to take a sleeve, then the sleeve turned to fit the spindle and the new bore in the tailstock.

It's not great but any small holes I'll need to remember to nip the spindle lock on a little to take the play out. Until it's sorted that is. Funds at the minute are limited, so may be some months before I can fix all the issues, but it is now levelled and dailed in as accurately as possible, to within a thou, even on the tailstock.

Brian this was done with a test bar between centers and a dial indicator. The test bar at one point been within 1 micron accuracy, a little more these days after a lot of use and years. After all my frustration trying different methods two adjustments and it was within 1thou. The designer of the tailstock been blasted by my friend for its naff design, and lack of register to bed.

A big Thank You to my friend for taking the time out to come and tune my lathe up and identify what is good and what isnt, and where money needs spending.

Hello Jon,

I'm glad to hear you have got things about as good as you might wish for on a worn lathe of this age and had the benefit of some experienced advice.

Thank you for the update on the spindle bearings, those on my Dad's lathe were in white metal and factory new when he bought it---they were still in use when I sold the lathe on roughly 50 years later. Similar design to the bronze bearings you described with a split down one side.

The tailstock soleplate design was an awful thing. Myford did offer an upgrade in the 70's by fitting a tenon across the thing, at your expense of course, I was tempted at the time but never took it up. By then the ML7 had taken over as their lead machine and support for the ML4 began to wane.

I hope you can now begin to enjoy using the lathe, you will make allowances for it's wear and individuality, they were not all bad!

Kind regarfds Brian

Edited By Brian Wood on 11/10/2017 09:08:09

Here's a YouTube video I made, this is part one. It shows (I hope) the setup, what has/hasn't been done, and what I intend to do in the near future. Part two will follow probably tommorrow, as internet speed at home is rubbish.

Video Part 2