Office of Steam Forum for Model & Toy Steam Gas & Hot Air Engines

Hello all,

As most will know. About a year ago with no machining background I bought a Myford ML4 lathe off ebay. In the hope that I would be able to build steam models, at first this was simple steam engines such as occilators like Mamods, wilesco ect. A machinist friend of mine offered me an alomco milling attachment, which is designed for a myford ML7. As the two lathes have different sized beds, my friend offered to machine an adaptor plate to suit the smaller ML4 base. My interests have somewhat got larger and I hope eventually to build a 5" gauge locomotive, maybe a small traction engine, or steam wagon. In the short term I will be making some tools, as hopefully I can show you that you don't need to spend fortunes on tooling, and can find tools in the strangest of places. I hope you will all enjoy my journey as I tool up and start making things on my lathe and mill.

Please feel free to join in and post your own efforts, ideas, and comments or suggestions.

We all start somewhere, and I hope this will be a start to encourage young and old alike who are just thinking about buying a lathe and starting to machine.

Please if you are a more experienced model engineer feel free to join in and help encourage and pass on your knowledge.

My simple setup
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On to the first project
So tonight started making myself two angle plates, one is 2" long and the other is 5.1/2" was going to be 6" but I slipped with the cutting disc, ah well. Still a lot of work and filing gone into these tonight. Cutting filing and getting them to where they are, they'll be welded up and then onto the next stage of machining them. Saved me a few quid, and once I have these made I can move onto machining a slip vice so I can hold work in the cross slide and use my milling machine properly. 😀

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Dont forget Harold Halls web site lots of info and some nice toys to make
http://www.homews.co.uk/index.html

Hi Jon,

Nice to see you making some useful bits of kit.

A couple of things that may help: -

1/ When you weld the stiffeners onto the backs place them away from the outer ends by about 1/2" on the small one and about 3/4" on the longer one.
This will allow you to use clamps around the ends without the stiffeners getting in the way.

2/ Make sure you machine the long rounded outer edges square, and parallel, to the two outer flat faces before you try and machine the outer faces... clamp the parts down onto the cross slide top face to do this.
You can then use the newly machined edges as registers against the top of the cross slide when clamping to the 2 posts.

How are you planning on mounting the 2 posts? whilst also making sure they are absolutely vertical relative to the milling spindle?
If this is not perfect then you won't get a perfect 90 deg between the 2 outer faces.

They must also be parallel to the cross slide travel or the ends won't be square to the long faces when you machine them, ideally at the same setting.

Which way round are you planning on machining the longer angle plate?, I am concerned that you don't have 5 1/2" of clear available travel in either X or Y directions under the mill spindle... so you may need to move the part machined work piece and re clamp in order to get the whole length of the surfaces machined.

The engineers clamps will be very useful and it might pay you to make a couple of pairs of different sizes if you have the material to do so.

I look forward to seeing how these 2 projects go.

Best regards to you and the family.

Sandy.

Thank you all.

Frazer, the Harold hall website is where I got the idea of machining these from.

Sandy, firstly I will face, drill then bore two posts for a M8 clearance hole, while each is in the chuck ill use a revolving center in the tailstock to support it while the OD will be turned, making sure the bore and OD are true to each other. This will of course mean making sure there is no taper in the lathe, and that it's levelled correctly. Though if I can setup to within 1thou over 6" then I'll be happy. It is a cantilever bed after all though that mill does help with twist, last time I checked it, (after 3months idle it was writhing 1thou over 4" and this is over winter too lots of movement.

The posts will then be parted off and faced the other side, this side isn't a reference and is just somewhere for a washer and nut, the tee bolts will be coach bolts filed flat on the sides and a little to the dome top to fit in the Tee slots.

These can then be clamped to the cross slide and indicated with a DTI against a steel ruler held against them to get close, fine adjustment will be with a gentle hammer tap and the DTI measuring the high spots against the rounds.

This setup should mean that I have two truely vertical posts 90° to the bed bolted to the cross slide that are parralel with each other and then I can setup the angle plate.

This will be dialed in as best you can on a unmachined surface, and this cut will set the datum for all other sides, what you say about the 3.5" available cross slide travel is a good point and one which hadn't occurded to me actually. I suppose the only option would be to move and indicate the freshly machined face. The other option been to do the machining for the larger one with it mounted to the faceplate to skim it. I know I can get to about 0.00025" tolerance across the face. The setup been the same as previously described only turned 90°.

I was wanting to machine it all at one setting using the mill. But I will have a think on that one, faceplate would get upto 7" of travel from the 3.5" on the cross slide, so more than suitable, though I only have a DTI that measures in increments of 1thou, and is also a plunger type so could introduce error of reading from its angle of dangle to the surface.

The machinists clamps came about as I will need them for the Clayton eventually but will be useful for a multitude of sins.

Sandy i should add that i have turned a DTI indicator post for the mill spindle, so insert collet, insert post attach DTI lock upto where its needed for indicating.

Sandy just to clarify your point 2. Is this what you meant? Using a peice of stock bolted down to form a stop for moving the larger one along to machine the outer rounded edges true to each other. The machined face is then indicated true to the spindle and adjustments made.

Two holes drill through the portion of the angle plate to be milled out for attaching work. The cut can then be taken to make sure the two outermost ends are parralel and square as these will be machined in one setting giving me a datum to always work to.

Second crapagram shows how I was going to attach to posts, to give clear access, (the posts been shorter than the crapagram allowing machined surface to contact the cross slide) the circular arrow is I believe rotation of milling cutter and working in the direction of the arrows, will ensure that I avoid climb milling. Which I'll leave for a finish pass. If the spindle goes the other at then obviously reversing direction of arrows.
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Cheers Sandy.

Hi Jon it’s great to see you have got to grips with the machining side of the hobby. It comes in really handy when parts are needed. Great thread Jon.

Thanks Kevin, it's taken a lot of research, and often patience from my teachers, but there is good information out on the web. With practice and more importantly knowledge of work holding and tooling, everything can be made on a lathe, it can even make itself. In a fashion anyhow, obviously it finds casting itself difficult😉