Now that you are into metalwork you will have bits of metal eager to rust. Get some clear Waxoyl car underbody wax. Dilute a little with white spirit and paint it on all non moving metal.
It evaportes to leave a thin wax feeling like the glue on post-it labels and is much nicer to handle than oil, and stays in place.
Moving metal can make do with car oil, especially change gears, not grease which traps and holds swarf. No need to get fussy about oil for the moment. Forget WD40 and 3in1.
Check your local churches for 7-day St Patrick’s candles sometimes burning in front of statues of saints and ask the churchwarden if you can have some old ones. They are a plastic tube containing a soft wax unlike the hard wax of normal candles and there is always a little left. This is good for protecting handles and knobs that you will touch. (also good for your wood saws and chisels). If not available use beeswax furniture polish but NEVER allow silicone polish into the workshop.

Cover your lathe with an old cotton sheet (charity shop) not plastic which sweats.

The 4jaw is probably a generic Chinese/Indian one which are now ubiquitous. Perfectly ok for a 4 Jaw as it is only for a 3 jaw that you might want to get fussy if you want it concentric.

Just to confuse you.

Clean with white spirit only. It is the universal cleaner. Never use petrol (obvious) or paraffin which is likely to contain water. Looking at your pictures the lathe should be easy but the chucks could be quite greasy. When cleaning, the chuck should not be removed from its backplate. Powerful degreasers should not be necessary.

Lubricate with hydraulic oil not car engine oil. Modern engine oils are quite strange and very additive rich. Also they are expensive. Old engine oil also contains dirt and water. The recommended oils are (SAE & ISO numbers are quite different)

• ISO 68 slideway oil – This is slightly sticky and used on the slide ways, gears, lead screws and any bare metal.
• ISO 32 oil – Much less viscous than above and used on bearing, bushes and tailstock. Myford fitted oil nipples for this oil, THEY ARE NOT FOR GREASE. You need an oil gun. A good grease gun should work with oil. Myford may be able to supply you with a very expensive Swiss made gun.

Obviously the availability of these oils is less than car oils. Lubricant suppliers generally use 25 Litre containers although some still sell 5 Litre. It is worth shopping around. It the past I have used Morris Lubricants who offer a delivery service. Myford and other model engineering dealers sell such oils in small amounts and, I feel, at great cost. However the small containers are useful. Once lubricated do not wipe any excess oil off the lathe and when not in use cover it for protection from the nasty outside world.

The chucks should be greased with a Lithium based or Molybdenum Disulphide based grease (available at all car bits shops). This can be a bit messy.

A couple of other things

• Do you have an instruction booklet for the lathe? The old Myford company would have issued one with a lathe. I don’t think the present company would have any copies. It could be worth contacting Mr Griffiths at lathes.co.uk.
• Before using your lathe make a good fitting wooden bridge to protect the bed way when changing chucks.

Have fun.

JA

Starjump

As you’ve seen everyone has their own approach to oils.

I use new engine oil from leftover engine top ups. It’s fine for use in an attached garage, but not in an unheated wooden shed due to the detergent additive bonding with moisture.

Used oil is both carcinogenic and acidic.

For slide way oil you can also use chainsaw oil, sticky just like slideway oil and readily available in liter bottles.

Blocks (or part of) beeswax can be warmed till it melts, add a few drops of white spirit and mix till you get a paste that doesn’t set when cold.

Keep wood dust off the lathe some woods are very acidic.

When you finish sorting out the chucks stand away from the chuck when you start the lathe otherwise any excess lube is going in your face

Your post prompts a load of questions.

If you are new to metal machining, you will need some help and advice.

If possible find and join your local M E club.

Where are you, in case anyone on here is willing to help face to face?

Rust is a perpetual problem. There are various “solutions” on the market claiming to remove rust. Some work better than others. Many contain citric or phosphoric acid to attack the rust.

Once clean, coat with oil.

To propagate on steel, rust needs moisture and oxygen, so the oil keeps out both.

(I’ve seen a sandblasted piece of steel start to rust within minutes!)

You need to remove the rust, not just for cosmetics, but because a rusty component will never fit as closely as one that is clean.

Since you are new to a lathe, you will find it instructive to read one or more books.

For many years, the “bible” was L H Sparey “The Amateur’s Lathe”

Other useful ones could be Stan Brays” Basic Lathework”, or Harold Hall’s “Lathework, A Complete Course”

They may not feature the ML10, but the basic principles are the same. A sharp tool, set on centre height, with work running at an appropriate speed, with the tool, being fed into it at a suitable rate. If in doubt, err on the side of caution. To fast may not produce good results, and shorten tool life.

Eventually, you will learn how to centre work accurately in the four jaw chuck (A 3 jaw suffices for round or hexagon material, but will not hold absolutely concentric. Using a Dial test Indicator on a magnetic base will allow you to”clock” work in a four jaw chuck until it runs true to within 0.0005″

The speeds and feeds used in industry are to maximise metal removal rates for powerful, heavy, rigid, industrial machines; not lightweight hobby machines.

My advice is to become familiar withe the ML10 by just cutting metal at first, then progress to simple turning, drilling and tapping jobs, by making simple tools which will give you experience and confidence, and be useful for years to come.

If you decide to use HSS, learn how to grind the tools, but don’t use excessive clearance angles, 5 – 10 degrees will be quite sufficient for most work.

Make your mistakes on relatively cheap material rather than an expensive casting from a kit.

A centre height gauge will be a useful first project, possibly followed by sliding, holders for dies, and then taps, mounted in the Tailstock.

Hope that all the typos have now been corrected

H T H

Howard

where did the used come in?

On 19 October 2026 at 20:23 bernard towers Said:

where did the used come in?

JA’s post, I just explained why.

Don’t rush out and buy gallons of slideway oil yet. Someone in my club bought the big can and then sold off sensible amounts to members, maybe your new club does the same. Somehow I had managed to live 30 years without it as had my workplace when they still had machinists (50 down to 2 in 20 years).
The reason for not using chain oil or grease is that swarf sticks to it which is especially bad on changewheels.
People seem to be obsessed with hydraulic oil these days, never mentioned ten years ago. The clue is in the name – it is a substitute for water for pumping round JCB rams, not lubrication. Yes it gets used in lathe gear heads but that is because they are sealed and either have a circulation pump or flood lubrication sloshing it around but actually automatic gearbox oil would be better (and they make it smell nice oddly).