Changes to the Bed and Saddle Re-conditioning Service Effective 1st September 2010

The full service is very popular and we have no plans to stop it, however we are ceasing the Bed only regrind service.

Over the years we have found that the lower cost option of regrinding the bed alone has unwittingly misled some buyers inspecting pre-owned Myford Lathes offered by used equipment suppliers. To many a smooth, clean lathe bed is a sign that the lathe has been cared for and not subjected to heavy wear.

This, as any engineer will know, is not necessarily the case, a ‘bed only’ regrind can hide a lot of wear indeed. Whilst superficially making things look better it can actually worsen the lathe’s standards of accuracy.

The nominal thickness of the shears (bedways) on a finished new Myford bed is approximately 0.5” (12.70mm). The maximum that may be removed from the top of the bed is 0.025” (.635mm) before complications occur in aligning the apron with the rack and leadscrew.

During a Myford ‘Factory Bed and Saddle Regrind’ metal removal is kept to a minimum, however it may be necessary to reduce the thickness of the shears between 0.005 (0.127mm) and 0.010 (0.254mm) to get back to a sound top surface. In theory it’s possible to regrind a bed between 2 and 5 times. Indeed, as our records show, this has been done for a number of customer owned lathes.

At Myford we have long considered it essential that if a bed regrind is to be carried out then the saddle must be also be ground and the fast edge scraped to give correct alignment. A worn saddle on a newly ground bed offers poor contact and it is not practical to improve this to the required standard simply by scraping.

To complete these grinding operations the various gib strips are re-worked to remove the effects of wear and the front and rear strips stepped to compensate for the reduction in thickness of the bed shears.

As from 1st September we will no longer take orders for regrinding beds only - believing it to be in the best interests of Myford owners and future Myford owners.

Every regrind of Bed and Saddle we undertake is thoroughly checked and inspected at refit. We offer a certificate to that effect and hold a record of all Serial Numbers dates and reports should future owners wish to check the history of their lathes with us.

Myford Technical Support