Rebore on a mini-lathe!!!

[Howard Wright]

Hi All

I'm beginning to look for a smallish and cheapish lathe. Several Drummond round bed lathes have come to my attention. They are early 1900s mini-lathes. I think they are too old for my use but what surprised me most was the reference to reboring an Austin Seven block on one!


drummondroundbed

Cheers

Howard

[Reckless Rat]

Depends really Howard what you plan to do with it. I have a Myford ML7 which is fine for small stuff, but if you need to do anything bigger than 7" (brake drums etc) you'll need something bigger.

There are plenty of Myfords available, but it depends on what you mean by cheap - a good one with all the bits can be over £1500... they are great for A7 stuff because they have an imperial lead screw although you'll find the later models (Super 7) more user friendly due to the change speed gearbox. Mine is from the 1960s and you have to manually change the gearing to set your cutting speed.

It's a nice little lathe, providing you have all the accessories. Buy one with the cabinet & suds tank if you can get one. Mine is just mounted on a metal tray but it does the job:

[Zetomagneto]

Hi All

I'm beginning to look for a smallish and cheapish lathe. Several Drummond round bed lathes have come to my attention. They are early 1900s mini-lathes. I think they are too old for my use but what surprised me most was the reference to reboring an Austin Seven block on one!


drummondroundbed

Cheers

Howard

Boxfords are plentiful and not overly expensive.Will swing 9”.
Didn’t Paul Bonewell fully machine a Seven block casting for Chris Gould using a Myford lathe?

[Martin Prior]

Hi All

I'm beginning to look for a smallish and cheapish lathe. Several Drummond round bed lathes have come to my attention. They are early 1900s mini-lathes. I think they are too old for my use but what surprised me most was the reference to reboring an Austin Seven block on one!


drummondroundbed

Cheers

Howard

Should I try it on my 1912 Drummond B?

[Duncan Grimmond]

My first lathe was a Drummond round-bed. It was very useful if limited.

I suppose you could re-bore an engine with almost anything that will spin a fly-cutter and progress on a lead screw...it's the setting-up of the block that would tricky and time consuming.

[Steve Jones]

1960's Bruce? A modern one then. Mine dates from 1948 according to the serial number but it's not had that much use so its age is of minimal consequence. Not something I use every day but when you need one, you need one and for that reason alone I wouldn't be without it.

   

It replaced a 3 1/2" flat bed Drummond that I'd had for 25 years. Great for small stuff but at 1917 and used a lot it was getting tired. I sold it on ebay for exactly what I'd paid for it.

Steve

[Tony Griffiths]

For a good, all-round lathe the Boxford is hard to beat - but you must avoid the Model C and go instead for an A with gearbox and power cross feed or a B with just power cross feed. The power-feed apron gives a far slower rate of sliding feed than can be obtained by the changewheels alone. It also, importantly, as the drive is transmitted by worm-and-wheel gearing in the apron, saves wearing out the now hard-to-find leadscrew clasp nuts. Best of all is variable-speed drive Boxford VSL, especially the later model with a much larger spindle bore. For full details of the range see: http://www.lathes.co.uk/boxford
A good alternative is the similar Viceroy - also made by the original makers of the Boxford, Denford Small Tools: http://www.lathes.co.uk/viceroy
The Boxford was a developed version of the American South Bend 9-inch - and lots of these came over in WW2 and are still around: http://www.lathes.co.uk/southbend9-inch/
There are, of course, lots of others with most of the ones you are likely to find being found with hyperlinks on this page: http://www.lathes.co.uk/faq/page2.html
If you want an all-singing-and-dancing job, there's a Hannifin version of this for sale - but it's in the middle of Alaska: http://www.lathes.co.uk/gilman/page2.html
However, if you want to see the full range, here you are: http://www.lathes.co.uk/page21.html

[Bob Culver]

Around 1930 model Engineer carried many adverts for the round bed Drummond utilising photos of a quite large model working radial aero engine made entirely on it by ingeneous offsetting of the parts.

[Charles P]

The M Type Drummond of the late 20s is a very usable lathe, much more so than a round bed. I lightened an Austin flywheel in one once. However the price difference between that and C type (or CUD) Boxford isn't great and if you can get a decent (ie not shagged out) Boxford you'll be much better off. Avoid the really cheap plain Boxfords without a leads crew - it'll frustrated you in time.

[bob46320]

+1 for a BOXFORD Model AUD. There are also long bed varieties (39" long ??). They also come in Imperial or Metric lead screw versions. Mine is imperial and i use a 100/127 tooth conversion gear set for cutting metric threads. Although the AUD has a gear box, when cutting metric threads, you may need a couple of extra gears, but these appear on auction sites. IMPORTANT, when you buy a lathe, you need various chucks, tools, centres and centre drills etc. Often a second hand machine has these, whereas new ones may not have them. The attachments can add up to a hefty bill !

The standard Boxford comes with a plain cross slide (Without "T" slots) whereas the Myford has these as standard. Slotted cross slides are available for a Boxford and can be invaluable when doing "in-line boring" such as big ends on con rods etc. However, the Boxford was made industrial strength whereas the Myford in my opinion is Hobby Strength - (Wait for the shrapnel to start falling any time now !).
BobH - Boxford used for 50 years or so.