The Stuart no2 pump was the very first thing I machined on my brand new Myford back in the 1970s. I chose it because it looked easy, then struggled with the impeller.

The casting was held in the 4 jaw with the flat back facing the tailstock. It was faced off then the blind hole in the centre was drilled and tapped. The remaining machining was done with it mounted on its shaft which was held in the 3 jaw chuck. So far so good.

My problem was that I couldn't set the top slide over to the very shallow angle needed to machine the front of the impeller. The ML7 won't go beyond 45 degrees. There are various fixes for this which have been covered since then on this forum but having to make extra tooling can be quite off putting to a beginner. I solved it by mounting the vertical slide on the cross slide. The tool was held in a vice bolted to the vertical slide with the tool pointing towards the headstock on the centre line of the lathe but moving vertically up and down. The vertical slide could then be tilted a few degrees from the vertical to achieve the shallow taper. No extra tooling needed.

If yours is a Super 7 or some other make with a different top slide design, you may not have the same problem.

Andrew

Another is to clamp a bar across the bed at the correct angle, arrange a follower on the cross slide to rub against it, then feed the cross slide whilst keeping the follower against the bar with the saddle hand-wheel