Hi from East Lincolnshire

Hi All

I have just retired and moved into the area. I am in the process of building a new workshop approx 4m x 3.5m which is brick skin with insulation and inner surface of ply. I hope this will be a good and dry.

I do not have much experience with lathes etc. School boy access to a lathe, then about 10 years ago was given a 1912 Drummond B. My father was helping clean out an old boys garage and found it between the fence and garage where, it had been regularly soaked in old engine oil so not much rust. I started to restore it, lots of bed scraping got the slide moving over 3/4 of the bed. Also repaired cross slide thread. However the big blocker for me was the worn bed feed screw and nut. At some point it had been repaired with white metal being pored into the thread. Works fine for 1/2 the travel, Solidly jams after that.

I have recently inherited my fathers Myford ML1, not in great condition, not too worn but the chuck end bearing pinch clamp broke off, and has been replaced with a hand made cap.

I have always wanted a Super 7, but the price is beyond my budget. So I have decided on a new lathe that meets or beats the Super 7 spec. The short list is; Warco WM 250V, Chester DB10 Super possibly long bed, Chester DB11GVS or Chester Craftsman.

I have always wanted a mill too, but recent price rises have made that unlikely to be in my budget. I already have a Myford style vertical swivel slide that I used on my Drummond. This on the Craftsman I think would do me perfectly. But I am not sure if it can be fitted without a lot of modification. Possibly making a new cross slide, which would be difficult with out a mill. Good old chicken and egg!

An alternative is to go smaller on the lathe and buy a mill, possibly even down to the WM240B.

My other consideration is metric and/or imperial, I am of an age where I work in both, but have inherited a lot of imperial tooling. The Drummond spoilt me with a 127 tooth change wheel. So metric threads, no problem.

These new lathes seem to not have the 127t and only offer approximations, and I don't know if this is an issue for me.

I think my interests lie mostly in tool making. Dreams of making index heads, hobbing tools etc. I do have an interest in sterling engines and do wish to make some too.

So enough of my ramble, time to get back to building the workshop

Adrian

Welcome Adrian, you will find lots to interest you on here. If you fit a DRO to your machines you can stop worrying about converting to inches or mmand you can also stop worrying about backlash.

I'm guessing that you are not too far from me (I'm near Mansfield, Nottinghamshire).

All the best with progress on your workshop.

Brian

Hi and welcome. This could get confusing as you have another thread here

I suggest we keep this one for the 'hi, welcome and find your local engineering club to get more advice' an continue the technical discussion on the other thread.

Yeup, sounds sensible, a local engineering group would be great. So far I have not been able to find one.

Welcome along Adrian. Always hard to justify the budget but we do NEED our toys.

Adrian, there is a list of Model Engineering Societies here **LINK**

Maybe there is one near to you.

Brian

you can also try men's sheds

Evening Adrian, I am also in Lincolnshire but in the West. Grantham area. There are several of us here who meet up regularly and have just started going to the Melton Mowbray and District Model Engineering Society meetings and Steam Ups at Whissendine. They are a very friendly, helpfull and knowledgable group. John