Clubs in Northwest, Manchester?

There are a few clubs around the manchester area, but I don't think any of them are likely to give you hands-on experience with lathes & millers unless you can persuade one of the members to give you some personal tuition on their own (or your) machines. There's a "club afternoon" at Acrington College that might be a better bet:

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I lashed out £1200 on a second-hand Myford Super 7 3.5"x19" lathe recently and regretted it as soon as the vendor had gone, after bringing it to my workshop. There is no rust, but the slides are extremely stiff. The saddle moves comparatively freely away from the headstock, but very stiff and rough towards it. The small gear reversing the handwheel drive, which meshes with the rack is badly worn, as is the bush on which it turns. I have loosened the gib strips, scraped various small dings out of the bed and cleaned out a lot of swarf here and there, but the movements are too stiff to allow me to use the machine at all reasonably. Using the lead-screw to turn a long item would be out of the question.

1) Do you agree that I have been sold a pup?

2) Is the machine a heap of scrap metal or is it repairable?

3) If the answer to Q2 is "repairable," can anyone here recommend someone to do the work?

Please give me your opinions. I got a Super7, after losing my ML7 in my workshop fire, hoping to have a better machine and am very disappointed with my purchase. Help, someone!

G.H.Ireland

All the parts for the lathe are available from Myfords if you have the part numbers, it's a relatively easy job to replace the bushes and gears. If you don't have a manual they can be downloaded at my site

No, you may need to spend a few quid on bits though.

Easily repairable.

If your in the North West I can do it for you, or show you how to, contact me by email if you like.

-- Steve Blackmore

The gears and bushes in the apron are easily replaceable and quite cheap from Myfords. Note that there is an oil way in the apron casting which connects with the bush. If a previous has replaced the bush and not run a drill down through the oilway/bush and then cleaned the bush out with a reamer then the life of the bush and shaft will be very short. While replacing the bush and gear I would take the saddle off the bed and inspect things to see what is causing the stiffness. It should be obvious either by being hard to remove or by showing wear marks. Could be a bit of trapped swarf or one of the shims having been allowed to twist around during a previous reassembly.

There should be nothing which cannot be fixed fairly simply, although a sharp rap across the knuckles of the seller is still an option.

Whereabouts are you based?

regards Mark Rand RTFM

Sounds great! I an sending an email as you suggest. I am in South Manchester. REgards, G.H.Ireland.

Sorry to use more bandwidth. I accidentally deleted Mr. Blackmore's reply to my appeal for help. Would it be possible for you, Mr. B., to re-post it? G.H.Ireland

Manchester. The stiffness could be due to trapped swarf, a slipped shim as you suggest, or congealed grease. I am now optimistic that I shall have a working machine after some more work.

The apron gearbox was full of swarf instead of oil!

Thank you for your helpful reply. G.H.Ireland

** My lathe problems. **

Mr. Steve Blackmore was extremely helpful. The gritty movement was due to swarf in the apron gearbox instead of oil. The cluster gear had been worn, but this was nt causing themain problem.Foreign metal had damaged the surface of the cluster gear spindle and its bearing bush. I took it to pieces as SB suggested, with some difficulty and found when I tried to rotate it in its bearing, that it was extremely tight, not loose and sloppy a I had expected. The slop that I noted was due to the gearbox itself not being fixed in place. Its fixing screws had become slack.

With some trepidation, I put the cluster gear in the drill chuck, wrapped a strip of 400 'wet&dry' round its shaft for a second of two whilst rotating it and found when I reassembled it, after cleaning off some tiny burrs in the bearing bush, that it rotates freely.. All being well, I now expect that the machine will eventually work again, after a lot of cleaning and adjusting.

Thank you for your good advice.

G.H.Ireland,(ex) G3CCL.