ML7 lathe carriage

Hi all

I have bought an ML7, not my first lathe but different to my others. I have the saddle cross slide and top slide in bits to carry out GHT's mod for slide locks and gib dowels. The saddle has its own lock but the gib is not dowelled. Has anyone tried dowelling this gib and did it make a noticeable difference? Also the saddle gib only has pockets for two of the four adjusting screws. Is this standard? Possibly this is not the original gib.

Thanks

Dave

Hello David,

I haven't carried out the pinning on the jibs so can't comment on that aspect. Your other question on the jib itself, they usually had pockets for all the adjusting screws

Regards

Brian

I dowelled my saddle gib some years ago but this was done as part of a conversion to "wide guide" inspired by Jack Radford's article in ME so I can't be sure that it improved the motion of the saddle; I would expect it to have done so for the reasons given by GHT.

I dowelled the saddle gib on my early Super 7 about 20 years ago after reading an item by either GHT or Jack Redford. It was certainly an improvement, and allowed the gib to be set very closely without tightening up when the saddle was moved. Interestingly, Myford changed the gib design on later models so that one of the screws provided the equivalent of a dowel function. However I don’t believe this was carried across to the ML7.

Mike

Gents,

thank you all for your replies. I will modify the saddle gib once I find my round tuit.

cheers

Dave