This must have been covered?

Sorry this must have been covered before,

My old engineer buddy died earlier this year and left me all his gear including a ml7, I have a super7 but couldn't face letting the ml7 go as it is the first lathe I ever used. Anyway over the last few days I have made room for the little 7, transferred the it to mine and set about the installation and that's when I thought no matter what other advice is given the most important starting point is correct installation of the lathe?

So my question is this, has this been covered on here and not just for the ml7? and if so could it be pinned in a topic under "setting up machinery" then how to set up drills, bench grinder, mills etc could be added so beginner or not can follow the CORRECT and safe way to set up their machines.

Apologies if I have missed this somewhere.

Matthew

Hi Matthew, you will no doubt now be told at least 30 different ways to set up the lathe correctly. Best of luck deciding which one.

Cheers Derek.

Matthew,

As Derek says ... you will probably get lots of variations on the theme.

Searching this forum [thus] will bring up several relevant threads.

How you go about it will probably depend upon what measuring tools you have available.

MichaelG.

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Edit: Myford's own version starts on page 13 of the book

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 20/09/2014 18:18:44

HiMatthew,

as you say this has been covered in earlier posts, for instance:

New lathe levelling

MEW 205; Lathe levelling

Lathe levelling

Harold Hall describes how to set up a lathe on his excellent website, or Steve's description.

I hope these links can be of help.

Thor

Edited By Thor on 20/09/2014 18:03:53

I think Matt knows how do do it - he's asking if there ought to be a special thread dealing with the subject for beginners.

Neil

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You may be right, Neil

... In which case the answer, most surely, should be Yes!

MichaelG.

Michael,

3rd topic down the list is Beginners Questions.

I think its the ME site search engine that needs an upgrade so that a wider range of words will bring up results.
I seldom have any success with it.

Bob D

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Bob,

Apologies, the hyperlink on the word [thus] seems not to have worked.

I will try again.

MichaelG.

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Edit: ... [thus]

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 20/09/2014 20:12:52

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You may be right, Neil

... In which case the answer, most surely, should be Yes!

Michael,

I thought I was picking up, perhaps imperfectly, on your reference to needing a special thread for beginners with maybe reference to levelling an ML7. You are well able navigate this site and I, too can hack my way around. But what about the beginner, perhaps new to the site who finds his way to the forum with its limited search facilities. That was the one I was referring to as needing a make over. It has a beginners section but search there and I don't get 306 hits, just 1 for levelling and none for ml7 levelling !

Bob D

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Sorry, Bob ... we were obviously at cross-purposes, and I thought your comment was in some way referencing my first post; which is how I came to notice that my hyperlink didn't work.

The inbuilt search is next to useless; which is why I showed the "google search" [which can be accessed through a convenient box on this site's home-page]. ...

In my later post; my response to Neil was meant to imply: "Yes, Neil; perhaps you, as a Moderator, could make that so."

MichaelG.

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Bob, just to clarify ... My response to Neil's post [quoted] should probably have been ...

• In my opinion: Yes, there should be a special thread dealing with the subject of "levelling" lathes, and this should be in the "Beginner's Questions" section, along with other FAQs. It should be made "sticky" and should preferably be "locked" once the Moderators are happy with its content. Any follow-up questions, etc. should then always make reference to that thread.

... Whether this is practical remains to be seen.

MichaelG.

Sorry Matthew if I misunderstood, I tried to give an answer to if the subject had been covered before. I agree with MichaelG that this subject should be placed in "Beginners Question's" and be easy to find for everyone.

Thor

Hi, thanks for all the replies, and yes magpie at least 30, but saying that a few here I have not seen. The idea was to find out if people agreed that may be a new post under a heading of where to start would be a good idea? sorry for any confusion.

I have noticed a few threads asking questions about problems that in a lot of cases relate back to the initial installation of the machine be it lathe, mill or what ever. So I thought a section showing how to set a machine to run true not just level and above all safe would be good for beginners and old dogs a like, so say you buy the new machine you have wanted for the past 30 years this could show you the way.

Going off a few replies it looks like a few are in agreement, thanks Thor, Michael to name two. This could be a good reference for everyone.

One last point I am in total agreement with Bob and others that the search box is almost useless, hard to find anything unless you know what you are looking for, then why search? this must be frustrating for anyone wasting what can be hours searching for things that google can find on here quicker.

Anyway thanks for taking time responding to this and maybe something for Neil to think about, thanks in advance Neil if you do.

Matthew

Edited By matt sw on 25/09/2014 17:14:21

It's your forum, if you (forum users) want to start a new 'lathe levelling thread' please do so, but from a personal perspective I'd suggest avoiding the debate about whether or not this means "getting the bed perfectly horizontal in all planes" or "ensuring the lathe turns parallel at all diameters and all points along the bed".

Neil

Please God, lets not go there. Every so often the Harrison Lathe forum gets choked up with this debate. Civil Wars have begun over less. I leave the country until it all dies down.

I think I 'crossed posts' with Matthew.

I'm quite proud that the 'google search box' on the front page was my idea. It does work very well.

The thread search facility just does a very literal search of thread titles, so yes you need the exact wording, or at least a couple of words from it in the right order. Unfortunately it seems to be part of the underlying forum software so a rapid change is very unlikely.

We aren't alone, very few websites can afford an intuitive search engine with the power of Google (including local and national government!) For other sites put something like "site:www.example.com <search term>" into google.

Thanks to those who point searchers at the google option.

Neil

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I thought it was that bloke Stub Mandrel who asked David to put it on the front page

MichaelG.

He stole my idea

Neil