Myford ML2 Headstock re-fitting

[NigeParticipant @nige81730]

i recently inherited a nice Myford ML2. To get it home I stripped of the 'heavy' bits including the headstock. I have been looking at techniques for testing parallelism of cut etc. (Isn't YouTube great) My cunning plan is to fit the headstock and tighten the three fixings, mount a piece of round stock in the three jaw chuck then run a DTI mounted on the cross slide up and down the round stock checking to see how far 'out' things are.

First question is: for a first approximation how long a piece of bar should I have sticking out of the chuck? Then how many thou per inch of bar should I aim for at this stage. I know that at some point down the line I will be doing test cuts so starting figures are what I think I need.

I realise the headstock alignment has to be checked in the vertical and horizontal planes.

Should I get the bed mounted in its final position first? I haven't decided how or on what it will finally be mounted yet. Lots of decisions and I'm not quite sure of the best order to do things. I would appreciate any advice please.

[NigeParticipant @nige81730]

Advice needed please.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

You need to take a skim over the bar before using the DTI to make sure it is perfectly concentric with the spindle.

Neil

[NigeParticipant @nige81730]

Thanks for your reply Neil

At this moment headstock is not on the lathe. i am assuming I need the headstock in reasonable alignment with the travel of the saddle before I try and turn anything OR, should I get headstock mounted as best I can then skim the bar and then finally align the headstock using the freshly skimmed bar? I can see some sense in doing it that way: Have I got that right please ?

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