Regular maintenance myford speed 10

Hi all

Having aquired a 40yr old speed 10 minus manual, what are the regular maintenance points? Eg oiling greasing, gib adjustment.

Also are there any common issues that I might need to address due to age and wear?

I think the leadscrew has been replaced as there are no obvious wear marks on the first 3rd of the screw and the backlash is only 15/1000".

The cross slide is more serious having 22/1000 backlash and the dial can be pulled at least that distace from the indicator. Consequently the cross slide can be joggled back and forth when backlash hasn't been dialed out!

Backlash is nothing to worry about. As long as you approach from the right direction. Sometimes this means winding the dial out past the backlash and re approaching from the right direction.

In your cross slide case it sounds like you could eliminate most of it by adjusting the dial and handle to close up that hap.

Not sure about ml10 manual but the ML7 manual is available as a free download all over the net. The basics are much the same. But check on the headstock bearing lubrication on your 10. The 7 is all oil lube but I've a vague idea yours might be grease. A search of past threads on here for ml10 should help.

You should also buy a copy of the book The Amateurs Lathe by LH Sparey. It is the bible for old British lathes.

Edited By Hopper on 12/08/2020 23:34:08

Oiling things should be second nature to an engineer. The two areas that come up from lathes with several generations of users is inadequate cleaning of the leadscrew which leads to wear of the half nuts and cleaning of everything after machineing cast iron.

Not all of us are engineers I was a merchant navy deck officer but I can use a sextant amongst other things.

+1 for Sparey, and not just for old British Lathes! The book's only flaw is it was written in 1948, so it knows nothing of Carbide Inserts, VFDs, and DROs etc. Apart from that, it's rock-solid on lathe basics.

I think Hopper is right about the ML10s being greased rather than oiled. Although sold as Myford's cheap alternative, it's a later design and benefits from some modernisations, like roller bearings. Myford 7's have plain bearings and a total loss oil lubricating system. Ie the owner has to top the oil up very frequently. A famous Myford booby trap was using Grease Nipples as oiling points, causing endless trouble due to hapless owners blocking the oil-ways with grease! Alas poor bearings!

I expect a 10 owner will be along to confirm, but I believe your machine is occasionally greased. It's low maintenance, like the older cars needing to be topped up with a grease-gun every 6 months. An easy way of checking is to run the lathe off-load from cold and feel how hot the bearings get by touching them at 5 minute intervals. The danger sign is rapid heating to uncomfortable to touch temperatures. Hot bearings usually mean trouble.

Agree about backlash too. Lathe backlash doesn't matter much because all the operator has to do is turn the handle back far enough to take up all the backlash before going back in for another cut. As tightening up to eliminate backlash causes lots of wear and tear on most lathes it's kinder to work them with moderate backlash than to remove it obsessively. Backlash is less acceptable oh high-end lathes because it reduces the productivity of paid operators. Better anti-backlash arrangements are available, but the owner pays ££££ for them. Hobbyists generally tolerate backlash until the cause is severe wear.

Dave

IME in the ML10 this more likely to lead to wear in the leadscrew than the halfnuts. When I cleaned out the halfnuts in my 25+ year old Speed 10, they were chock full of impacted bits of swarf from assorted metals, but laboriously picking this stuff out with a pointy-sharpened rat-tail Swiss file left the halfnuts perfectly pristine, like new.

The top corners of the leadscrew thread were not as sharp in the working length as at the much-less-used ends, but the accuracy of its pitch in use for longitudinal movement never gave me any issues. I think the swarf maybe reduced the engagement enough to save the flanks from heavy wear and/or scoring.

Speed 10 handbook is the same as the ML10 handbook.

Beware of lubricating, make sure the headstock is ball bearing and can be greased, plain bearing oil.

Re. backlash, adjust the nut under the collar or do the mod. that can be seen on Arc's page at the end where they have some instructions.

Hi Jon. As said in earlier posts do not sweat over a little back lash all lathes and mills have some and you soon learn to live with a little. There are things that can be done to get rid of some of it but just run the lathe for a while before you start pulling it to bits. Then you will slowly build up a feel for what you can and cannot live with and if there are other problems that need fixing at the same time..

Just a tip. Although there is basically nothing wrong with the measurement format that you gave they would normally be written 0.015" & 0.022" in an engineering environment. It makes it easier for everyone to read and write measurements in their most common format.

regards