Myford ML7, or Colchester Bantam/Boxford model A easiest to use?

Your dilemma isn't too dissimilar to acquiring a female (wife, partner or whatever).
With time you get used to idiosyncracies, benefits, shortcomings and performance characteristics.
Some days you might wish it could do more & better; other days you find yourself very comfortable with your acquisition irrespective of minor annoyances.
Whether to go for performance over style? New Far Eastern models are increasingly popular and seem initially cheap.
Whereas others in the market opt for a used, solid, well cared-for, locally-produced model with a good pedigree.
How much aggravation and cost would be involved in a later switch to a different model is also a consideration.
Yet Another factor is the inevitable cost of necessary accessories as all models seem to require costly enhancements after acquisition.
As others have commented above:-
"I think what you are using it for is the key starting question".
"Flat surfaces are so much easier to work on manually and check for 'truth'"
"As is always said, get one bigger than you currently have work planned for".

......and seldom will two men agree about your final choice.

A friend of mine always says " you can do small work on a big lathe but you can't do big work on a small one".

Brian

Looks to be in fairly clean condition. It weighs in at around 625Kg. If you move it yourself remove all the parts you can from the top end ie tailstock, chuck, compound etc. Use good ratchet straps to hold it to a trailer. If the trailer floor is metal or a bit thin get a sheet of plywood to lay under it. Get some friends to help,. 2 people is unlikely to be enough muscle. A good engine hoist will be of help.

Here is a link to a manual if you don't have one. **LINK**

Keep us up to date with your progress.

regards

Oh dear.

I went to look at the Colchester the seller was a very nice chap but I think reality set in that it's too big for what I need right now and I didn't want the hassle of installing it in my garage for it to (potentially) sit there for a long time with little use, or regular use for little parts.

He had a huge amount of interest in it so was happy to sell it to some-one else and I've bought this from Chester hobby store:

https://shop.chesterhobbystore.com/collections/lathes/products/920-lathe

It seemed like a good price for a new 9 x20 lathe and has a 9sp gearbox which I like a lot. I need to add a tacho (already bought for £10) and work out a variable speed without loosing torque. When I rang I was told it also comes with 4 jaw chuck and steadies definitely a bonus as my first job will require a fixed steady.

It arrives Tuesday, so looking forward to using it next week!

Just to update people how I'm getting on with this:

As per my other thread the 1st lathe that arrived has pitting in the ways. Chester replaced that with a 2nd lathe and the ways all look good. Unforutunately this 2nd lathe is imperial - I use metric . Due to the difficulty of moving the lathe - it took 3 hours of faffing around with a engine hoist I agreed with Chester it is easier for them to send some metric leadscrews and dials and I will retro fit them to the machine.

The 1st lathe had problems the lever would not release the half nuts and this lathe has problems the 1/2 nuts were catching on the leadscrew, this seems to be traced back to a screw missing which holds the lever on, the lever moved out a bit, the ballbearing for the indent has fell out so the lever would wander down when turning. I've resolved that now but needed to strip the apron down.

At a quick glance the 3 jaw chuck appears quite inaccurate but I will measure the run out a bit later.

I measured the alignment of the headstock to the bed by turning a piece of bar and its was out around 0.16mm over 4". The headstock can be repositioned as it is just bolted to the bed so I am in the process of doing that. It will be intesteting to see how close I can get it I'm hoping for 0.01mm over the 4 inches so we'll see. - If anyone has measured/adjusted theirs what did you get?

I'm also thinking I should check the up/down alignment of the headstock, I could do this by bolting a vice to the cross slide and machining the bar from the underneath then measuring taper as normal. I feel like I should at least check this as taking anything for granted with these Chinese machines I think is a mistake.

So far I've machined the backplate for the 4 jaw chuck, unfortunately have mads the collar ~0.2mm too small, I went back and checked my measurements what had happened was I measured the internal bore of the chuck with a digital caliper but having pushed the internal jaws in they met the (not visible to naked eye) taper at the end so gave a smaller reading than true.

I've obviously also been machining the bar for the taper measurements on the headstock and this works nice, the machine can be run at high speed without loosing power though could do with a finer cross feed so will look what I can do with the gears (gearbox is already at position 1)

As a general comment I have also bought a large/240kg milling machine from SPG tools and I appreciate it is bigger and twice the price of the lathe but the appearance, operation, build quality and attention to detail on the milling machine is far far superior to the lathe.

Anyway I'm happy to be turning metal but do wonder if i would have been batter off with a Myford.

I did not think the 920 had powered cross feed.

Looking at the manual Position 9 gives the finest feed not 1 for whatever gear train you have set up.