Headstock problem

Hi everyone,

I have a problem with the headstock guard always rubbing against the gears producing noise.

when I move the lever as if to change the belt the headstock lowers a bit and stops rubbing.

the 2 pictures try to explain it.

when I’m turning is there supposed to be a gap under the headstock as in the pic, the other pic shows the headstock lowered if you were changing the belt.

thanks

chris m…..

If I understand you correctly, the answer is no, the cover should stay latched shut when turning.

If you have a look at the drawing in the manual (either buy one, or do an internet search and download it), that Swarf' uploaded for your clutch thread, there're a pair of adjusters (bolts 33 with locking nuts) the heads of which bear on a pair of flats on the pivot spindle (the one with the handle) - confusingly it has two different numbers depending on the drawing, it's 72 on mine!

You should be able to adjust the thing so that the pulley clears the inside of the cover when under tension.

Be aware that occasionally, the cover can shift - there are (or should be) a couple of metal plates 20, that 'close' the bottom edges of the oval slots that cover slides on, if these are missing, loose, or misaligned / not correctly engaged on their spigots on the bushes 26, the cover can slip and allow the pulley to foul the inside of the cover and prevent it closing properly.

If all parts are there, in place, and and adjusted correctly, and the problem remains, you probably need to replace the belt.

Edited By DiogenesII on 01/06/2022 18:10:14

Edited By DiogenesII on 01/06/2022 18:11:14

+1. If it's going up and down with the countershaft as you tension/detension the belt, those long oval slots on each side of the belt guard must be hanging up on the countershaft swinging H frame. They are supposed to fit over two stepped rubber bushes on the end of the casting and there should be room for the countershaft to lift all teh way up to tension the belt without hitting the end of the oval slot. If it is lifting the cover by the end of the slot, your belt must be too long. Standard belt is an A23 code number. It might be marked on the belt still.

Edited By Hopper on 02/06/2022 03:35:05

The more of these threads from Chris come up, the more I feel this lathe sale was, perhaps/possibly, a triumph of paint over performance.

It may well eventually work very well, but it seems to me to be a message to reinforce that of ‘buyer beware’ - as this seller appears to be a dealer of sorts. However their feedback score is 100%.

It makes me think that the turning performance, previously posted on another thread, may also have some origins in the set-up of the lathe spindle and saddle.

The same seller has one of the ML8 wood-turning lathe stands on their BIN list. Anyone comment on whether that would be suitably substantial for a metal lathe such as this?

I don't know why you say that. The lathe clearly has well worn but preserved original paint. All the problems so far are a totally inexperienced newbie trying to figure out how to get the thing set up and working properly. No glaring faults with the lathe. He'll get there.

Edited By Hopper on 02/06/2022 10:08:35

The clearance under the cover is limited, and on mine it does rattle about a bit at times, enough to just touch the pulley. It should have a small spring-clip and I think a little rubber-pad, to hold it in the right place.

Do though examine the adjustment on the tensioner to make sure it's right.

A couple of pictures here of my ML7 showing how it should look.

There should be a gap at the top of the oval slot when the belt is in the tensioned position.

There should be plenty of thread sticking out of the belt tension adjusters.

If the gap is not there and the adjusters are screwed way in, it means your belt must be too long. Either wrong belt or incredibly stretched -- which would be unusual to be that much. Your belt should be an A23 or AX23, and is often labelled as shown.

Sorry about the sideways pics. They were right way up when I posted them. This site is beyond me.

Hi,

thanks for the pics.

no I still can’t figure it out, I’ve looked at your pics and altered a a few things you show and still the same.

it was ok before I started sodding about with it.

obviously Ive done something and can’t rectify it.

I give in, maybe I should of bought a new lathe after all, this one doing my head in.

thanks

chris m…..

i

No, don't give in!

I'd say there is little if anything fundamentally wrong with this lathe but really you need someone, not necessarily but preferably a Myford owner, even better an ML7 owner, visit you to help you examine it carefully and sort it out together. Hence advice a while back to join a local model-engineering society if there is one near enough.

As with any machine, you can "sod about" and put things blindly wrong; or be more systematic and see you've put it right. It is good practice to alter related parts in no more than one step at a time as far as possible, testing as you go. Especially so when the faults are not obvious but might be no more than small mis-adjustments, a single part loose or worn; or an incorrect replacement (as that belt might be).

Don't give up on it. Your photo shows that buying a brand-new machine would not have stopped you turning that bit of unknown steel bar into a rasp, not good for the poor machine, never mind you.

If you don't already have these, as others have advised, get the proper handbook for the lathe, one or two turning "self-help" books; a bench-grinder and a small oil-stone, and some HSS tools. You can probably buy a basic grinder from any tool-factor; the other goods from the traders who advertise here and in the magazines.

.

I'd recommend you don't try using carbide-tipped tooling at this stage. They work very well but the inserts are pricey, fussy, fragile little things that demand some machining experience from their user. (I use both HSS and carbide, governed partly by the material I am turning.)

.

Consensus on this thread, and I agree, seems to be that you've bought a basically sound machine that may need setting up correctly and might be suffering from small, arcane servicing problems. They are not yet apparent to you only because by your own admission, you are not yet sufficiently experienced with it.

Don't give away too much, but what area of the country are you in?

.

Hopper -

You sent me down the garden to verify my ML7's belt adjustment ! Yes - the value of a second opinion:  it all tallies with your photos. Phew!

Edited By Nigel Graham 2 on 03/06/2022 15:45:52

Chris, I can empathise! When it's all going wrong it's immensely frustrating and you really feel your lack of experience and knowledge.

But when you finally get it sorted, all that frustration will be forgotten in an instant, no matter how long it took.

A piece of advice I often give my students is that you don't have to solve a problem in a day. Work on it, think about it, research it, then sleep on it. Brains are strange things and sometimes need time to make new connections.

O K, you have rushed in where angels fear to tread.

Experience lallows you to spot the mistake the next time that you make it.

One thing that you have learned is not to exceed your knowledge and capabilities.

They enlarge as you learn.

If possible, try to reset everything to where it was before you adjusted everything.

As already said, first ensure that the correct belt is fitted. Unless it is you don't stand much chance of putting things right.

Make one adjustment at a time. If it doesn't solve the problem, reverse the adjustment and then try something else.

Above ALL, think and work logically. Failure to do this will produce an expensive doorstop, and a bargain for someone who does know what to do.

You CAN fix it, if you go about in in a sensible way. It is a matter of making the correct adjustment, but only do one thing at a time, and make small incremental adjustments, rather than a few large ones.

Once upon a time, the machine was right. Your task is to work steadily to find out what someone else did wrong, and whet you did to compound that error. Armed with that knowledge, you CAN put things right.

As you do that. you will be learning. But don't imagine that you are going to become sub contractor to NASA this month! A skilled turner takes years to really learn his trade.

Find and join a local model engineering club.

Someone there can probably mentor and advise you, face to face, and save you a lot of time and possibly money.

Howard

If you say where you are, some kind soul might volunteer to come over and help you.

Not only will you stand a chance of sorting this problem, but they may well mentor you and teach you how to operate a lathe.

(Today, I had a second session with a newbie, letting him get experience of operating a lathe. This morning he made three nuts and faced up the column for a Cehtre Height Gauge. He has now faced, chamfered, drilled, Tapped and parted off for the first time. He was quicker as his experience and confidence grew. )

This is what you should be trying to do.

Howard

If you have a gap at the top of that oval slot then the slots must be getting caught on one of the stepped rubber bushings on the countershaft swinging H frame that the slot is supposed to locate on. Careful inspection should reveal just what it is hanging up on.

If it was ok when you got the lathe then the problem is not belt length but a matter of holding your mouth right as you finagle the cover back into position.

..I've been out and poked about in mine, too.. ..and discovered something, even to my own surprise..

I can't make the belt & pullies come close enough to rub..

On my ML, no matter how I displace or twist the cover, the only thing that ever rubs on it is the head of the Allen screw that secures the little 'dog' that locks the bullwheel to the spindle..

..the one that needs to released to use the backgear.. Might be worth checking that the dog is properly seated and the screw is comfortably nipped up.

It doesn't take much misalignment for it to rub at all. Below is picture of screw, and them some of the stepped bushes and the way the slot in the cover can get around the wrong side of them, hope this helps clarify things.

BTW - I think your lathe looks good (potentially better than mine), unfamiliarity with a machine is just a preliminary hurdle that has to be crossed on the path to getting to know it - a temporary thing and no reason to be disheartened..

While I was at it I photographed the adjusters themselves and also the range of movement on my machine so that you can compare with other pictures here if you need to.. album 'ML7 Belt Cover'

If the bullwheel screw isn't guilty, leave another post and I / whoever else gets there first can put them and a 'how to' up.. ..dinner & bottled sunshine call..

Hopper, Diogenes -

Interesting!

I will have a closer look at my lathe's countershaft and guard. I've had no qualms about it in the several years of my ownership so far; but quite possibly I had not realised something is not quite right there.

There is always a gap between the end of the slots and the bush, and I'd assumed that normal, but you say it should not occur.

Sometimes too, the cover does touch somewhere; but a sharp rap by hand on the top of the cover teaches it manners - as LBSC would have said. I'd always thought it simply the clip on the bottom of the cover not quite engaging the headstock rim, but from your posts it may be that the bushes are worn. Or missing, unknown to me. Either fault preventing the cover aligning itself correctly.

I will have a look both at that and at any sign of the drive-dog's cap-screw rubbing anywhere, though I am pretty sure it does not.

You learn summat every day on this Forum. So thank you both for your contributions!

Hi Nigel - apologies, I didn't mean to suggest that there shouldn't be a gap at the end of the cover slots, my second phot was to show how the bush can slide off it's spigot and allow the cover to 'slip behind' it.. ..in this condition the bullgear screw hits the cover

Thankyou Diogenes.

I looked very closely again and found no bushes on there.

I take it they are supposed to be a push-fit on those grey areas you point to (bearing-bush flanges?).

On mine, these look narrower than your version, by comparison with the pulley in your pictures; and the cover sits loosely on them but with only about 1/16" radial play, and with similar end-float between the sides of the casting. This enough to let the cover's lower end end waggle about quite a bit, but though it is clear that the clutch screw-head has often scraped the inside of the cover, I found no interference with the pulleys.

There are no obvious signs of my lathe ever having had these bushes, which would need be very thin-walled, but I found some fragments of a papery material clinging on somehow, on one side. Remnants of a 'Tufnol' fabric-based bush perhaps?

Might we have slightly different editions of the machine?

I thought my cover has been modified to enable its removal without dismantling everything else, by taking out a fishplate-like section from each side, but your photos suggest that is original.

A simple solution to reduce the side- but not radial- play, may two large fibre or plastic washers cut rather like piston-rings, and sprung onto the spigots outside of the cover sides. Better would be 'Nylon' or similar bushes - resilient, unlike metal - to take up both travels, with wide flanges trapped loosely between cover and casting. Their fitting would need dismantling the countershaft. It's a matter of whether it's a sufficiently serious problem mechanically, or simply rather irritating as it sometimes is.

I decided I'd better study the manual but typically, when I need something I can never find it!

(I don't keep the handbooks in the workshop, by the way. They are all in the house, for better protection.... but where the gremlins have more places to hide things!)

Oh dear, I hope these arcanities about my lathe have not made Chris worry even more about his!