Myford tailstock bed ways refurbishment

Pete Barker uses a vertical slide to recast his Myford lathe as a shaper to machine its own worn-out bed ways which were allowing excessive tailstock movement

When the adjustable gib on the base of my ML7’s tailstock was set to fit the unworn righthand end of the bed, it had .005” of slop when slid to the working end of the bed nearer the chuck. With the tailstock barrel extended and a drill chuck in place, that five thou of movement became ten thou and more at the drill tip. A recent wide guide conversion (see previous article) had brought the headstock spindle to saddle movement alignment back to well under Myford’s tolerance of .0006”. How could the two worn inner bed shears that guide the tailstock now be brought back to the same high standard?

As with all machine tool reconditioning, the first step was to measure carefully. photo 1 shows how the varying gap between tailstock base gib and the bed way was checked with feeler gauges along its length.

In photo 2 a micrometer was used along both ways to confirm we had about two thou of wear on the rear shear and three thou on the front in the left to centre section of the bed. For the tailstock to slide freely but without shake between the vertical shears, labelled 2 and 3 in photo 2, we need to have the same gap between the pair all along, within half a thou or better.

The lathe as shaper