My lathe is quite old. It is a Myford M type. This design was originally manufactured by British company Drummond until Myford took over manufacture in 1941.The manufacturer’s plate of my lathe has 1949 stamped on it.
It’s a pretty basic lathe, but it fits into the very limited space I have in my garage workshop. Recently I needed to use power feed on the lead screw, which is when I realised it could do with a modern upgrade.
As with most low tech lathes, the lead screw is driven from the spindle via a set of gears, and by changing these the feed speed can be set. On my lathe the gears are proper 1940s metal things, and the gear assembly involves interlocking them with pins and adjusting two mounts that can be swivelled to allow for the differing diameters.
