Jim as another Drummond M type owner I suggest that you join in the Drummond group on https://groups.io/g/drummondlathe/ on there you’ll find a load of folk who all own Drummond lathes of various types – a lot of them have M types. also in the files section you’ll find a lot of informations and drawings for the various parts of the lathe, especially the headstock bearings and how to adjust them – or even make new ones if the present ones are past it. There should also be details of the upgrade to the headstock spindle thrust bearing which will make adjustment much easier and not need doing very often.

The M type is mounted on a single “trumpet” foot so the chances of the bed being twisted out of alignment during mounting are very slim, the foot is pretty rigid and the bed cantilevers from it.

Have fun setting it up, they are very capable machines.

The cross slide On my M Type lathe is adjusted by grub screws on the right hand side edge of the slide. there were no locking nuts on my lathe so I replaced them with longer grub screws and lock nuts. when adjusting  my cross slide I remove the two screws which hold the front handwheel plate and and unscrew the handwheel assembly firstly. This means you can slide the cross slide by hand and get a feel that it is just tight enough to just slide evenly across and with no play or tight spots. I remove the slide before adjusting to give it a clean and lubricate before adjusting. When replacing the handwheel wind the  feed screw in fully before tightening the two screws which hold the front plate on the the cross slide as there is clearance in the holes and it helps to keep all in alignment.

David

Ho hum. If you bought an old Cortina and needed help even to find the fuel cap would your first purchase be an ejector seat? Do some basic turning (with a 1/4 inch HSS tool not the largest carbide insert tool you can cram into the tool holder) and then see what additional equipment is actually worthwhile.

David’s advice at every stage, and improvements and modifications will be a tremendous help, once you are familiar,

As a newcomer to the lathe, learn to walk before trying to run a marathon.

The various refinements are very nice to have, and useful, but keep things simple to start with.

Having passed your driving test, you didn’t try to drive a large articulated lorry with an unsynchronised gearbox and two speed axle!

Get used to the lathe, as it is.

As you gain experience, you can start to add extra refinements which, with added experience, will benefit you.

You have lots of pleasure ahead of you!

Howard

Having measured the spindle runout mark the bullwheel at the high spot for reference.

If you put a round bar in the chuck sure it will be 1.7mm out but if you then turn it down to make something each diameter will be true to each other. If you take it out of the chuck and refit it can be off by up to 1.7 in a different direction. So mark the job against chuck jaw no 1 so it can be put back in the same place. Even with a perfect new chuck repeats can be off anyway because you use different tightening pressures.
Collets are better and should be higher on your Christmas list than a QCTP.
Back to the chuck. If the chuck body is off by 1.7mm then it is the mounting. Loosen the bolts to the backplate and see what play there is. When this is corrected then measure runnout on a series of round bars in 1/4 in steps to assess teh wear in the scroll and jaws.

In a 75 year old British machine the dimensions and threads will be Imperial (BSW and BSF, possibly with BA for gib strips)

The spindle run out may improve as you adjust the bearings.

Since the chuck is also old, a three jaw will not hold anything concentric, unless you are fabulously lucky (A good 3 jaw might hold work concentric to about 0.003″. An old worn one might be 0.030″ or more!)

As said, even with such eccentricities, once work has been turned down, the reduced diameter will be concentric.  If you need to have two or more diameters concentric, turn then all at one time, without disturbing anything.

If you want to start with absolute concentricity, you will need a 4 jaw independent chuck a DTI and magnetic base.

Fitting a 4 jaw, if you don’t have one, might involve some machining to produce a backplate which is compatible with the spindle nose.

This might entail some internal screwcutting, as well and turning the OD to make the register, then facing it. So will get [practice on rotating handwheels at a slow steady rate to get a fine feed.

All good practice to become familiar with the lathe.

Howard