Only for Myford lathes

Looks really nice. The only thing I would have done differently would be to have the right hand end of the tray sloped instead of vertical, to make it easier to brush out the last bits of swarf.

George

Edited By Georgineer on 15/01/2020 14:20:52

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It’s well-worth reading Neils’s threads ... he’s doing some great work.

Sorry for dragging this thread away from its title

... but I really don’t think Myford enthusiasts are obliged to be ‘blinkered’

MichaelG.

I wanted it tapered at the front but the guy who made it ended up bringing it like that. Never mind.

Another of my hobby horses!

Check that the bed is not twisted. If the bed is twisted, the lathe will cut tapered, rather than parallell.

Various books will tell you how to check, and correct.

L H Sparey's "The Amateur's Lathe" will be an invaluable help on many aspects. It is very much written around the ML7, although some of the drive suggestions seem dated. Chapter 6 deals with lathe tools and grinding them.

"The Myford Series 7 Manual" by Ian Bradley tells how to check if the bed is twisted and how to correct it, on pages 42 and 43. Tool angles are covered on page 52.

Ian Bradley's "The Amateur's Workshop" covers things other than lathes, but Chapter 9 is devoted to lathe tools.

Pages 27 and 28, again, cover levelling the lathe.

Another good reference book on many aspects of Model Engineering is Tubal Cain's "Model Engineer's Handbook". Again, it contains details of the angles at which to grind tools, in addition to a HUGE range of information that will be useful in the future.(Screw thread dimensions for instance )

The money, and time, spent in buying and studying these books will be invaluable.

Howard

Howard many thanks. I need to purchase some books that you recommended, then sit & read.

Regards Steve.

All 3 ordered thanks Howard

Monday's job is to drill & tap the backplate to take the 4 jaw chuck. Then to machine the 250-101 toll holders down by 4mm. Not recommended by most forum members.

Managed to get the 4 jaw chuck fitted. Need a proper back plate when i can locate one. It runs fine up to around 900rpm & after that is a bit out of balance. Great addition though. Got the toolholders cut down to the size I require. Had a txt to say my QC toolpost has cleared customs & out for delivery. Fingers crossed I will have it in a few days. Then i can see if it was a mistake buying the larger one. These take up the 13mm Not sure what size you can get in the 000 version. In one picture cutting oil can be seen up the back wall. I need to make a decent splash back.

Edited By Steviegtr on 20/01/2020 21:37:13

Sorry to add a pic. It looks in one picture that one is not flat. It is where I filed the burrs off, which is showing missing paint. Better pic.

Does anyone know the answer to this. I turned down 2 Chinese toolposts yesterday & they were very hard. I spent ages resharpening the HSS cutter that I used. I tried a brazed on one that I had but it just squeaked it's head off, with or without cutting oil. With the HSS bit I got 3 passes of 5 thou a time before it was blunt. Again with & with out oil. I tried speeds from 300 up to around 700 with no gain. I settled on 450 ish. Having to take 4mm of it took a lot of passes. So if I had some cutters with the inserts would it have been better. Also if I get some of those which insert types do I need. I have no idea of what the steel was. At 1st I assumed case hardened mild, but no way it was hard all the way through. A pic of one done & one before shoot.

Edited By Steviegtr on 22/01/2020 21:46:25

Inserts don't tend to like interrupted cuts, you might have got away with it but you might have used the same number of inserts as you sharpened your HSS. I suggest your brazed carbide tool wasn't sharpened correctly and had not enough if any at all clearance on it. Many brazed carbide tools are supplied as a blank canvas and are not sharp at all, relying on the user to add the correct angles prior to use. Did you sharpen it and try again? You really need a green grit wheel to sharpen them. A carbide tool will cut anything an HSS tool will. I suspect if they were through hardened they were a higher carbon steel than mild but they couldn't have been that hard or your HSS wouldn't have touched it.

Paul.

Apart from the question of the tool, might you have done better to have reversed two of the jaws on the 4J to limit their projection from the chuck body?

At 1st I did reverse the jaws but could not get the work in. Did not try to reverse 2 of them. I have 2 more to do so will try that. The green stone yes. I have an oil stone for chisels & it just wore it away trying to sharpen the tipped tool, so one of them on the shopping list. So do you think the tipped tool would be better. As in the brazed ones. I only have 1 that will fit until I receive the new tool holder. Then I will have quite a few as they are 1/2". So maybe better to wait a few days until it arrives. Then I can use them.

Steve.

They did not make those tool holders that tall for no good reason. It would have been far better to widen the slot, not shorten the holder - especially if you wish to fit 1/2” cutters in a 12.5mm slot. Less metal to remove, for a start. Never mind, done now, too late to undo it.

Steve quotes machining speeds of 300 to 700 rpm. At, say, 2" diameter, 300rpm equates to >150 sfpm. This is high for HSS with an interrupted cut in hardened steel. The tool will rapidly lose its edge, then it's downhill all the way. I'd suggest no more than 100rpm.

Edited By Clive Brown 1 on 23/01/2020 08:57:21

Edited By Steviegtr on 23/01/2020 15:04:50

I did wonder about the speed. This is where experience over very amateur comes in. I am doing a couple more so will take your advice on the speed. Have 3 books that were recommended to me by a member on here so when they come , it's some night time reading for me. Do I speed up a bit when getting the cut nearer the centre. Many thanks to all..

Steve

Edited By Steviegtr on 23/01/2020 15:10:06

To move on with the Quick change wedge/Gib type tool post mod. Did it happen, was it worth all the trouble. Well for me, yes because I wanted to use the larger cutters. I got quite a few with the lathe & at car booties there are always lots for sale. Since fitting I also noticed that they are much more stable. I am not saying the 8 or 10mm tools are no good. It's just with the larger tool post holders the spread of pressure on the tool is greater. Bigger grub screws, longer area. If anyone is considering fitting one then I suggest you watch Steve Jordan doing one on his ML7 on you tube.What he does is make a completely new top slide bed to hold the 250-111 tool post. I watched this & many more. The thing I did not like about the ones I saw was that making a completely new top slide from a block of metal. With no adjustments or feed screw was futile. So I took my top slide to a tool grinder & had 4mm ground from it, slating from forum members.

Some pictures already on here of that done. I then machined the 4 tool holders I bought by 4mm from the underside, pictures already posted above. I think the reason others were making a new top slide was to take the 14mm holding bolt supplied by the maker & of course much lower in deck height. This will not fit the Myford top slide. So hence making another one. This is what I did. The height of the original bolt to accommodate the post is higher than the bolt on the Myford. So you have a tool post with a 14mm bore & the end of the stud is below the top of the new tool post, The Myford being 11.10 or 9/16" & a height greater than the stud on the Myford. I made a bush from alloy for the bottom & a sleeve nut from some very hard stainless hex bar I was given by a friend for the top nut. See pics attached. I tapped the sleeve nut to the same BSF size of the myford. I will be posting this mod on You tube to compliment my other vids on anything garage. Steviegtr. Slag me as you will. The 4 holders now cut down by 4mm hold any tool up to 14mm thick. It is stable & once adjusted without silly bits of packing & cut down hacksaw blades is set permanently without need for any further adjustments. Fit & use. The tool holders are very cheap to buy on ebay, so you can have as many as you want all tooled up with what you need. Fit the cutter, adjust the depth screw & lock. A great mod for me. Some will knock it as that's what a few members do. But what the hell. I did it. Another thing I did last night was every time I used the tail stock to use for drilling bar ends. The screw would seem ok & then other times was very tight as if something was jamming inside. I took it apart from the rear. 1st taking off the handwheel. Then removing the rear collar by releasing & unscrewing from the body. Behind was a small ball race which was all good. Unscrew the backnut & it all comes apart. The thing was all gunged up. I guess never touched since 1977. I cleaned & carefully lightly sanded the parts & re-assembled with some synthetic oil & now it is smooth. So since buying less than a month ago what have I done. A few members told me to use it & gain experience. I have basically stripped the whole thing down, taken the 3/4 hp motor off & replaced with a 1 1/2 hp 3 ph motor. Built a control panel & fitted a quality Omron programmable inverter. This has so many parameters. I have set a 1.5hz jog speed, which basically slows the motor to tortoise mode 20rpm & has no torque whatsoever so if anything is not right the chuck will stop. . Some will say why. But set up your work & sw to jog or inch mode & you can make sure you work is set properly, fit a dial gauge against your work piece & you can watch the results without manually turning the chuck. Again will post on you tube. I have also set it so stop-start is soft with around 5 second up & down slope. Nice & steady. But what if you have a problem & need to stop quick. So I set the e-stop to instantly cut the power output. It goes with a thunk & stops. Not chuck spin off just a quick stop. I can monitor the current at any frequency. I have set it so if I get a jam & the current rises as it would the motor cuts out immediately. Another thing I did was from my old contracting days of making inverter panel for Blue chip companies was to fit a 10 turn potentiometer for speed control as there spec's & again got lots of negative comments from forum members. I only ask you to try & make a set frequency & you will find it very hard with a 1 turn pot. I can select any frequency / speed I require so it was a wise choice. I have perfect control over the motor speed. Another mod was to fit a cheap rpm or DRO meter. Slow to react to changes but works pretty good. I have stripped the headstock to fit new standard belts. Some say they fitted the linked belting but for the hell of me cannot think why. This belting was invented many years ago for industry by a company called fenner, where a line shaft was used through a shop floor which drove many machines from one source. To change a belt on any machine with a broken belt mid production was impossible with say 20 machines all running at once. The linked belting allowed the fitters to change a broken belt without stopping production. I have worked in such an industry. One being Trebor basset's in the polishing pan room & Rowntree Nestle. The new belts were obvious by there clack clack sound & were changed for proper belts on a P.M. People are fitting these things & think they are the best things since sliced bread. What is wrong with people, they are rubbish & temporary belts. What else. I stripped the cross carriage slide as it had a bit of play in it. 5 thou back lash. Since putting it back together it is down to around 2 thou. I need a new nut. Will get one soon, but not important as this can be accommodated in use. Made sure the bed was level & with a test piece all seems good. So what is next. I have decided to cut down my garage. In that I mean to put a partition at 1/3 rd of the garage & make it a dedicated workshop. I probably will not be doing many motorcycle or car rebuilds due to old age. It means I will have a workshop 4m x 3m which will be easier to keep warm. It will give me an extra wall to fit another workbench & over head cupboards. Regards to all & what have you been doing with your Myford or other lathe.

Steve.