What is this cross slide attachment

Hi this is my first post.

I am a professional engineer from an old style background, where it was considered a good idea to train young draughtsman how to use machine tools.

My uncle, an accomplished engineer and steam modeler has passed on aged 92, and has left me his Ml7 and a considerable assessment of tools and attachments in his will. I am looking forward to honing those skills acuired many years ago.

So to the question. What is this? It looks to have a part missing. I can't see anything to attach the face plate to the angled piece. It' aa cross slide milling attached perhaps but what are the waky arms.

Clive

Hi Clive welcome to the forum. I havn't seen this piece of equipment before, what machinery have you inherited as it may give a clue to its use.

David

Parts are from the old style Myford swivelling vertical slide but some nuts, studs and washers are missing. What the wonky (?) arms are for I don't know.

A standard swivelling milling vice but

there are 4 holes in the corners of the T slot plate

so

The arms may attach and be used to steady or adjust something specific

So don't chuck 'em out

One simple and useful device for milling is a simple stop, rigged to locate workpieces laterally in a vice against a datum, so as to produce repeat cuts or drillings on multiple pieces. I'm wondering if the arms are there for that.

Hi Thanks for your interest. I may need your help again as there are a lot of unusual tools in this lot.

Dave : Request for more information. I think this is an ML7.

He made a train or two. He ran this round the garden.

In his early 80's started making grand farther clocks when he found a dividing head at a car boot sale. Fly cutting all the gears.

Also painted red but in the photo are a say 8 x approx 8mm dia rods of lengths from 50mm to 150mm threaded at one end. This T slot bed is considerably younger than the lathe.

There is a cap to hold the angled part to the cross slide but nothing to hold the T bed to the angled part.However there are a number of boxes to search through.

John : Wonky arms. One end has a spike and one end a plunger. The plunger could fit the dividing head.

Ady1 : I will look into that and see if they fit.

Thanks Clive

As John says the main parts are for an early vertical slide. See here **LINK** for picture. Back view showing clearly how it all goes together.

Arms are built up weldments so almost certainly shop made. Alignment, holding or locating devices. You mention clockmaking, the fine points suggest that they were made to assist in that sort of precise but lightweight work.

Clive

Hi Clive

I am at work and so a photo will have to wait until tomorrow but the revers side of the T Slot Plate does not suit that kind of assembly, but thanks for the link, very interesting. Your link shows a way of mounting a dividing head to the rotary table, I shall took for such a thing.

He did make the clock face plates too, perhaps scribing the minutes around the dial.

Clive

Can you post more pics of the reverse side, and those welded plunger arms etc?

It's possible your old chap modified his swiveling vertical slide to eliminate teh swivels, which tend to move under heavy load, and fitted it to a more solid angle plate or the like. Anything of that description in the pile?

Looks like a nice lathe in your pic. Some kind of carriage stop mechanism bolted on the front of the headstock by th elook of it.

Aren't the knobs on those arms some form of detent? If so, could possibly be part of a gear cutting arrangement.
And is that part of a dividing head to the left of the lathe?

Dave
The Emerald Isle

If the red paint matches the inside of the loco frames then it indicates he made the attachments, if not he may have acquired it from someone else with bits missing. the dividing head appears not to have a detent so it could be the red arms are for providing the detent with plate in horizontal or vertical orientation rather than together.

The bottom arm / fitting looks like some sort of indexing device - is the pin on the lower arm / fitting spring loaded ? Looks an awful lot like the locating pin on an indexing head .

Edited By XD 351 on 30/04/2018 14:42:46

Hi thanks for the interest.

My bag, I told you I was new to this. I think more this way round. On closer examination, very faint is PT No MA68/7. So I know what it is but are the other bits part of it?

The arm with the pin fits the indexing plate perfectly. Also the clip is a snug fit on the rim.

I have only referrd to the rods because they are red, but these bits are the only red tools he had and are definitely the same paint.

Seeing the flat end on the other arm looks like that may be for indexing using the bull wheel, does the end fit nicely between two gear teeth?

Hi Jason

I don't understand the significance of 'bull wheel' but yes snugly. The blade is on a sprung plunger.

Clive

The grey vertical slide shows you what a standard one looks like, and what missing bit to look for. The slotted unpainted 'disc' on the red one is an addition to allow it to be mounted on the grey one, or perhaps just on the cross slide, for further versatility in mounting arrangements.

The red rods look to be in 1 inch increments and possibly fit in the block on the left of the saddle so they reach the rotating brass stop on the side of the headstock. If they do no fit here look for some bits that do otherwise the saddle stop doesn't work.

Hi Bazyle

Yes 1" increments save the last one which is 1-1/2" longer.

Clive

If you look on the red arms at the relationship of the T-nut to the plunger on each one you can see that one must be acting on a face in the same plane as the surface of the slide and the other at right angles. This indicated how the hole plate might need to be mounted. If the plate is currently on some sort of arbor it can probably be removed and replaced by a Myford change wheel, or perhaps he started with a simpler home made set-up before getting the index plate. It is a little odd as the pictures linked by Clive earlier show the normal Myford dividing head is typically set with the index plate at an angle to the slide surface.

Hi Bazyle

Yes 1" increments save the last one which is 1-1/2" longer.

Clive

Thanks for everything.

Great forum by the way.

I need to get the lathe of the floor and motor reattached and wired up , after that perhaps this arrangement will solve itself.

Clive