An amazing machine for its size, you won’t ever regret getting one.
The back end looks pretty bare though, have you got any bits and bobs for it?
The bar under the leadscrew is a dog clutch(my one is a single tooth so threading is a doddle), even the 1946 ML7 didn’t have one of them things, I reckon the war office picked them for the war effort(destroyers mainly I believe) because of details like that and made myford their WW2 production base while Drummond focussed on the production of gearmaking machines.
The v-belt pulley versions are easy peasy if you use that linked v-belting, it’s not cheap but it lasts a long time.
The other important bit is the backgear, hopefully yours is ok.
The backgear is an essential part of the machine.
There’s a yahoo group full of Drummond nutters (drummondlathe) who know the machines backwards, join it and you can download various useful files.
These machines are 70+ years old and yet they can still do good work, that’s how good they made them.
I don’t run mine too fast, up to five hundred rpm? probably less.
Their real strength is stiffness and coping with torque, medium to low speeds IMHO.
You can see mine in my profile and some knobbly 45mm construction bar it munched through.