I've slowly been building up a collection of machine tools. They are housed in what was a large garage although the large door has been bricked up and I have dry lined it throughout.
This is another eBay purchase (heh) bit of a pattern forming here. I had a quite a bit of teething trouble with this when I first bought it and was getting quite upset with it but over time I have tuned it up and it is probably the machine tool I use the most. The main problem I had was with the 'O' section belt slipping, the original green rubber belt was perished so I bought some clear 6mm belting from a Watch Making suppliers. This was jointed using the hot knife method. But it still slipped. I've used some spray "belt dressing" which helped but I think all I needed to do really was wait for the belt to stop stretching. Overall I'm really pleased with the machine and think it is an ideal one for Model Engineers. I've recently had to modify the drive system to repair some wear.
I bought this at the same time as the Dore-Westbury. It has had a hard life but is still capable of some accurate work. I've managed to polish out some high spots where previous users had dinged the ways. This pic shows it in its natural environment covered in swarf :-) I've since moved it from the beefy wooden bench to a South Bend Lathe cabinet, which fits really nicely and is much cheaper than the Myford stand too. Having a Metal cabinet has meant I could accurately level the lathe which improves accuracy.
You can see I've fitted a Quick Change Tool Post from RDG Tools I buy a lot of stuff from them and can heartily recommend them. The QC Toolpost has been a boon the ability to quickly find centre height is great as I find faffing around with shims a bore. The only complaint I have with the QC tool holder is that some of the threads are not quite straight
I've stripped down the saddle to examine for wear this week. See Myford Maintenance Page.
I've wanted a shaper for a long time so when this one came up I went for it. This picture was taken by the vendor you can see there is a weird jig and tool holder fitted. I removed these and made a new tool post. My first attempt at Silver soldering. I'm still getting to grips with using it a the moment, I've made some Tee-Nuts to assist with clamping but long term it will need a low-profile vice. I've been using a indexable lathe tool which gives a reasonable finish but I really need something with a large radius. This has been earning it's keep reducing the steel angle used to hold "Spencer's" Buffer beams see this Small video clip.
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