Ml2 lathe

Depends on how large the chip is and how big it is. Often a chip does not matter. Round the edges and the carriage will pass on over it.

How worn is the bed? Ignore scratch marks etc. Have you measured up the front shear wear on the vertical and horizontal planes in the high wear area vs the far end? You may be able to get away without regrinding it. The cost of a regrind, and to do the job properly a regrind on the matching carriage and crosss slide, is probably more than the lathe is worth. A better used be might be a good idea. Not sure with the ML2 but if it is like a lot of other flat bed lathes of the era, you might be able to do a "wide guide" conversion on it where a piece of gauge plate is added to the rear of the carriage dovetail so it runs on the unworn rear vertical face of the rear shear, instead of the worn vertical face of the front shear.

Can somebody explain what the rear sheer is please. I can't visualise what it could be on the ML4!

Thanks for the reply Hopper.As a beginner too can you point me in a direction as to how I would do the wide guide conversion and attach the gauge plate . I think it must be worth a try whilst I look for another bed.

The shear is the way on the bed, the ground/scraped flat surfaces the carriage runs on. There are two of them, the front one and the rear one. The carriage sits on the wide top flat surfaces, but the turning load generated by the tool is taken by the vertical surface of the front shear. This is where wear takes place. The vertical surface of the rear shear is machined on most (but not all ) lathes but is not used as a contact surface. The trick is to attach via screws or loctite a strip of gauge plate to the surface of the carriage such that it contacts the vertical surface of the rear shear, and guides it, moving the carriage clear of the worn front shear surface.

JA Radford mentions it in his book Accessories and Improvements for your Lathe, still in print. It has been covered in ME and MEW over the years, and discussed on this site so a bit of searching should dig up details. I think there was an article in MEW recently on refurbishing a Myford that mentioned it but without a lot of detail.

That is most helpful thank you It looks like the way to go for the moment

Hopper, I think you may be confusing the ML1,2,3,4 with the ML7. The ML7 has vertical shears as you describe, whereas the ML1,2,3,4 have angled ones (are they still called shears if they are angled?). You can see this in my photo of an ML4.

George

EDITED...Deleted post. Georgeneer made my point and did it first and with a picture

Edited By Nige on 09/08/2017 20:40:50