Drummond/Myford M Type

Good Evening,
Ive just been looking over my new to me 1944 M type.
Seems to be mostly complete and original but I'm now after a few as supplied original bits as follows:

Hand turning rest.
Fixed steady.
Tensioning lever for the Drummond benchtop countershaft unit.

If anyone can help with any of these I'd be very pleased to hear from them.
Cheers
Chris.

Welcome to the world of M -Types. A very useful old lathe. '44 should be a good model too with the V belt drive.

Plenty of previous threads on here on the beast.

Good luck finding a hand turning rest or fixed steady. Everybody wants one and nobody much has one, so prices reflect it. The fixed steadies come up on eBay very occasionally. More general parts come up fairly regularly.

Best sources are the Drummond lathe group here: **LINK**

and the Drummond/Myford lathe page on Facebook.

Good Morning Hopper, and thank you for that.

Actually and I understand unusually mine has flat belt drive, but I'm used to that and so quite happy.

Yes I've joined those groups but thanks as I hadn't thought to ask on the Facebook one.

Have a great day & stay safe!

Chris.

Just looking at another thread that mentioned Owl Castings, so if not a bench top countershaft handle to keep

maybe I could borrow one to get a casting from....just a thought!

Does it have to be cast.

Steve.

Hi chris

Have a look on ebay, hand rest for sale

Looks like you have one of the very early myford built M's

These would have been made from parts supplied by drummond brothers in 1943.

The later post war lathes had the myford "improvements"

Post some pics in your photo file, let us have a look at it

Geoff

Edited By geoff walker 1 on 02/05/2020 09:23:46

Thanks Steve, well yes & no. My lathe is pretty much unmolested and original which is what I wanted. My aim will be to keep it that way and therefore I'd much prefer an original arm, failing that a cast copy and failing that..... what had you in mind?

Chris.

Thank you Geoff, yes I saw that but the top rest is not original sadly.

That's interesting about what you say re Myford improvements, what were they?

Yes I will post pics in due course.

Cheers

Chris.

If you have the flat pulleys, the best belt I have found is a modern Poly-V "serpentine" belt run straight on the flat pulleys. LK7 series from memory. The V-groove side of the belt grips the pulleys better than any of the old leather or leather substitute flat belts I've tried over the years. Only rub is, you have to remove the headstock spindle to change the belt. But once installed, it should last a lifetime.

Edited By Hopper on 02/05/2020 11:10:46

Thanks for this Hopper. I'm sure you are right about the belts, for now though as the bearings seem to be set fine I will keep to a jointed belt to save dismantling. As a beginner Ive also found the belt being able to slip not such a bad thing!

Ah ok, I do have steel handles though I'd have preferred the horn ones myself.

Were the Tumble Reverse and Thread Dial indicators optional extras, I don't have either.

Cheers

Chris.

Yes you're right Chris it's not original, I didn't read the listing.

Improvements, well the vee drive definitely, the stand and self contained countershaft, the bench countershaft.

They also prototyped a new apron which incorporated an extra gear to reverse the rotation of the saddle handwheel. I suspect that is all it was though, I have seen no evidence that it ever went into production. However I would love to be proved wrong on that point.

On the downside Myford did stop using the horn handles replacing them with their standard pattern steel ones, they cheapened the half nut arm with a more lightweight casting pattern and what I appeared to me was an inferior grade of cast bronze. They were no where near as durable as the drummond arm which was originally made from cast iron and later models from bronze. The drummond arms were much heavier and thus more substantial the later Myford ones were much more prone to wear and subsequent fracture damage.

geoff

Facinating Geoff, thank you. I think I'm right in that you posted a couple of catalogues in another link last night for someone else, thank you from me too, most interesting!

Cheers

Chris.

Tumbler reverse was optional, castings sometimes available to make your own. Geoff knows more about that.

Thread chaser dial on mine is a homeshop-made job. Not sure if Drummond ever made one themselves? I've never seen one in any of the old pics. A Myford ML7 indicator uses the same gear to engage the leadscrew so could be adapted possibly.

One handy thing is you can use the leadscrew dog clutch for screwcutting threads that are a multiple of 8. IE, 8, 16, 24, 32 and 40tpi etc. No need for a chaser dial. The dog clutch always engages in the right position for these threads. It's a super-handy feature that is sadly lacking on Myford's later lathes. I miss it every time I use my ML7.

Edited By Hopper on 02/05/2020 11:40:55

If you want a fixed steady while your searching for an original it's fairly easy to adapt some of the Modern mini-lathe ones . I don't think I've ever seen an original fixed steady so good luck with that. The original traveling steady was a fairly poor item ,if I wanted one I'd make it. Tumble reverse go for about £90 to £100 and are sought after items as they also fit the B and pre B Type. A member on the FB group milled the usually cast part and that works well.

Thank you Lee, that's good to know! (-:

Cheers

Chris.

Thank you for your PM Diogenes11, sent you one back as I cannot find what you are referring too.

Cheers

Chris.

Is there a way of searching for a members posts of this forum?

Chris, under the member's avatar - forum posts link - click on this and it shows all their posts.
DaveD

Drummond/Myford M Type original parts sought.

Good afternoon all. I have come to realise I'm missing the original 4 way tool post conical packer and ball handle. Whilst I'm very keen to mainly use the Norman toolpost holder I'm aiming to keep the lathe as complete and original as possible. Whilst I'm at it also a Vee pulley block for the headstock, which I understand is identical to the one on the countershaft.

Its another long shot but if anyone has these parts that they are willing to part with I would be very interested?

Cheers

Chris.