Rare Myford Lathe rebuilds.

[Retired]

Hi,

Thanks Paul; 3 phase speed control is a bit too ambitious for me but I don't need it as my dust extractor is fine on fixed speed and my big Startrite Volant bandsaw is 10 speed.

It's such a pity these huge machines are becoming rare now David and the skilled operators tend to be near retirement age; in fact Robert Skinner who owns the company is retiring this Christmas but the new owner will continue with the work.

I fully agree with you David regarding taking on a lathe to restore. It is a difficult task and can prove costly; I recently sold a lot of my vintage radios and a number of my machines to finance these Myford restorations. Such work cannot be done quickly so you did right to let the lathe pass by; I don't have enough common sense to do the same.

My guardian angle died when I was born and I've done everything the hard way ever since. I never expect any of my restorations to be straightforward and so I'm not disappointed with these lathes. So far little is going to plan. The lathe as bought was very poor then "van man" let me down leaving me to transport the beds in the car. This afternoon I went into the garage with the intention of degreasing the newly applied etching primer which I did but whilst masking the newly ground ways I wasn't too surprised to find one of the "V"s had been missed by Robert. I wrongly assumed the beds had been fully ground as agreed.

I'm not even annoyed and have not informed Robert of this and don't intend to either. I just can't be bothered heaving this bed round any more transporting it once again to Halifax. I intend to hand scrape the saddles so at the same time I'll hand scrape the V.

I'm not kidding about our weather in fact I was amazed that I could spray both beds with etching primer when I did. Now that I wanted to experiment with spraying synthetic enamel for the first time the weather ensured this did not happen as it put down hailstones and was windy. This meant I couldn't open the garage doors to get rid of the fumes and the wind would had rendered the paint surface anti-skid. Again it didn't bother me because both beds are now looking much better with their first coat of green enamel applied by brush. I'll let this enamel dry for a few days then give a second final coat possibly by brush because Bron has just informed me snow is forecast. Problems are there to be solved and I'm getting used to solving them!! To put it politely the weather can get stuffed.

Thanks for your kind comments about my 3 phase system David; I enjoyed demonstrating it to you. Yes it even worried me when I was trying to establish the primary turns; this 3 phase transformer is rather larger than an output transformer in fact it takes two strong guys to lift it; the primary is wound with household 2.5mm insulated conduit wire. Following the instructions I experimented with the primary winding to get it perfect but during this experimentation I kept tripping the 30A breaker which as usual was done mid winter therefore knocking the central heating off each time. With patience and taking my personal safety into consideration I eventually obtained 1.5V per turn on the primary with the transformer idling at 0.8A. It was most interesting to find I could wind the primary then power up without having to wind on the secondary. I enjoyed doing this 3 phase but admit I found it a trifle worrying knowing a mistake could have been my last. Perhaps I have a guardian angel after all?

Kind regards, Col.