Myford Super 7 at SRS for only £395

can't wait to see how it turned out ...

This would make a good series for MEW. It is all about restoring old machinery, not just Myfords.

Is it ever possible, I wonder, to restore a lathe in the condition this Myford was in without access to another functioning lathe to do some of the work required?

I suspect most restorers of neglected lathes are already well served by an existing lathe and motivated primarily by not wanting to see something with potential go to waste rather than by a pressing need for the services of the item they're restoring.

I missed your posting yesterday, Bob

It looks like a great project.

MichaelG.

Thanks again for your comments..much appreciated.

Phil asks a couple of pertinent questions and I can say that ..yes.. you do need another functioning lathe to tackle quite a few problems for the restoration and in my case there was a need to make a couple of special tools as well using my old working lathe.

Also ..yes.. I do have a need for the Myford when fully restored, even though my old Atlas works perfectly well for most purposes it does need quite a bit of operational familiarity to get the best out of it...and anyway it ain't a Myford!

Kwill asks about the original bed grinding and I believe he is right in saying that the feet were surfaced first and provided a reference for the bed grinding, and I gave this some thought before I decided to undertake what was a time consuming although satisfying process of scraping the bed since I certainly have not got the equipment to do a professional grind job and I used a method which I will expand on if I ever get round to doing the article.

There is also the concern of levelling the bed when bolting down to a surface, and...there will most likely be some twist that will arise from fitting the heavy pulley and motor sections so there will be a case for compensating for this as well even if the feet are perfectly aligned with the bed.

Thanks again for the comments which I hope I have answered without giving too much away...

rgds..Bob.

I picked up a ML7 in similar condition a couple of years ago - I was on a work job and spotted it bolted to a bench languishing in an old garage; I mentioned it and was told to take it away if I wanted it; I gave them fifty pounds for it as didn’t want to just take it for nothing. Everything was seized but it all came free. It hadn’t been used since the 70’s and even before then only very occasionally and once the rust was removed it had almost no appreciable wear.

Apart from the obvious new belts etc I only had to obtain a new micrometer dial, feedscrew and handles which had been damaged, and a new capacitor for the motor (and rewired it from the “twin and earth” complete with chocolate block connector mid length!)

Sadly I didn’t take any “after” photos and only have one when I obtained it. It is now with someone who is cherishing it again.

Dear All....

Sorry about the delay in getting back to the forum but a few distractions kept me from getting on with it...however hopefully I can now resume where I left off.

As you can imagine the lathe is quite heavy and I think I mentioned previously that I used a wheeled motor cycle lifter fitted with stout planking in order to move the heavy lump around and for lifting the bed so that it lay parallel to the surface plate which enabled me to roll the lump over onto the blued plate to check for flatness.

As a first check I used a precision rule to see where the wear on the shears was worst, laying the rule along the whole length showed that a dip occurred on the front shear around 10 inches from the headstock, the total difference in thickness was about 5 thou, this would cause problems with the saddle movement along the bed.

I would have had the bed re-ground but the cost was rather steep, my idea was to manually scrape the bed taking off only the absolute minimum of metal and if I made a pigs ear of it I could at least have it ground. At this point I have to admit that my skill level in scraping is not fantastic and I make no apologies for those who are determined perfectionists.

The idea behind scraping is that not only does it produce a good flat surface but it also provides hollows where minute quantities of oil can collect; if you have never done any scraping it is a good idea to have a look at u-tube videos and practice first before going for it.

The Utube video by Stephan Gottswinter is quite good and there are a number of articles on scraping in the Forum, which are useful albeit some members think its not worth it, too difficult, and not as good as grinding, and needs quite a lot of time and patience.

I would say that there is some truth in this but it depends on how skilful you are and whether you are looking for perfection; my opinion is that even if there are some discrepancies in the bed accuracy with amateur scraping this will soon be evident when the saddle is moved along the bed, if there is no lateral or vertical displacement when put in any position along the bed with no tight spots, I really think you are on to a winner.

I will also mention the articles in ME by Graham Sadler which provide some interesting methods in this area of Myford restoration.

The width separating the bed shears also needs to checked and the inner surface of the far shear provides a good datum for checking this.

So some pics of the process...

Bed de-rusted.

Checking bed thicknes.

Some more pics to follow in next post.

More critical than the flat top surface of the ways is the vertical surface that guides the carriage as cutting forces push it towards the operator. If your lathe is pre-1972, that would be the inner surface of the front way. And can be remedied by doing the wide guide conversion. The simplest way of doing this was outlined in MEW about two years ago. See articles under the byline of Pete Barker. Basically you put a strip of gauge plate on the back of the carriage so it bears on the rear vertical surface of the rear way that is unused and unworn.

But if your lathe is post-1974 and was made with the wide guide as standard, if there is more than 3 thou wear on that surface, Myford recommends regrinding. It could be scraped if you have the skills and a master scraped straight edge to match it to. It's not an easy job to do properly. By comparison, Myford allows five thou wear on the top flat surface of teh ways before regrinding is recommended.

Thanks Hopper...

I have read your posts on scraping which is much appreciated and thanks for mentioning the wide guide conversion which I did contemplate doing, however I just wanted to get on with the job and as it happened the guide verticals were in quite good condition...thanks for your knowledge in this area.

I have been having problems uploading the posts and it has caused the reply from yourself to come in between what I was about to put in the next posting..with a bit of luck this one may come through.

Checking bed guides.

Bob Mc.

Painting...undercoat.

Hopper:

My recollection is that the vertical shears of the Super 7 bed were gang-milled rather than ground. My own, which was professionally re-conditioned but not by Myfords, seems to be milled.

I suppose practice may have varied over the life of the lathe.

PS Good luck to the OP with his task!

Edited By ega on 02/05/2022 11:15:02

Yes it may have varied. And sometimes if the vertical shears were ground with the side of a wheel, of the face of a cup or dish wheel, they can look like they were milled from the semi-circular marks left.

Either way, it is that vertical surface that provides the primary guidance for the tool bit. You can have five thou dip in the top flat surface of the ways and tool will dip by five thou, but will make only a tiny difference to the diameter turned due to the tool dipping that tiny bit below centre. But five thou of variation on the vertical surface of the shear means the tool moves away from the job by the same five thou, resulting in a ten thou difference in diameter of the job right there. That's why Myford allows more wear on the top surface than the vertical before recommending a regrind.

Bob Mc, looks like you have been busy with the scraper already. Machine is look a far cry from your earlier pics of the poor sad thing. Good stuff!

Bob Mc. Myford restoration...Saddle.

Thanks again Hopper & ega your comments much appreciated..

I should have said something to Twf who posted on the 06/04/22, it looks like the ML7 had similar problems to mine, would liked to have seen the final result .

So I looked at the Saddle and it was worn at the tailstock end by 8 thou, this measurement was with respect to the saddle ways, in order to measure this I put two precision ground bars on the surface plate and upturned the saddle so that the saddle ways rested on them, then using a dti measured along the slideway.

8 thou is quite an amount and I milled the surface, by the time I had done the actual amount taken off was a little more than intended, the problem this causes along with the scraping of the bed guides is that the saddle will now be lowered so that the rack & pinion may not be in proper mesh along with a possible problem with the leadscrew engagement.

The answer to the lowered apron on (non power feed cross slide) Myfords is to mill an appropriate amount off the top of the apron.

Or mill a bit off the saddle where the apron sits. But set it all up and check the alignment first at both ends of the leadscrew. I cant remember for sure but I think my Myford had fibre washers between saddle and apron when i got it. Presumably done in the factory for alignment. Also both the rack and the leadscrew brackts have enough slack in the screw holes to move up and down a bit if needed.

Can somebody please help on this bit? I can see how the saddle might have worn but I am not clear why there would be a problem with it if it 'mates' with the new flattened bed (using engineers blue).

Phil H

Hi Phil...

thanks for question.. when the saddle is worn it is the surface that sits on the bedways that is worn; with the bedways flat and the saddle surface worn, the area of contact does not occur over the full area, ie it doesn't 'mate'.

In this particular instance the end of the saddle surface nearest the tailstock end was actually 18 thou out, so it had a gap between saddle & bed at that end..... quite a lot out.

Here are some pics of apron, this shows the surface that needs milling....nb it ain't like this now!

As you can see its in a bit of a state and the Leadscrew clamp handle is quite corroded, so I fashioned a jig to hold it in my Atlas lathe to give it a good cleanup. Pictures in next post.

The L/S clamp handle wanted a good cleanup, a piece of 1/2 inch bar suitably bent and drilled to fit the handle screw was put in the four jaw and set up as centrally as possible, some emery paper and lubricant soon got it looking better than new.

As it was..

As it turned out...

Dear All...

I get the impression that my posts are showing that I am still working on the items posted, I can assure you the lathe is 90% finished and .

Anyways up...the lathe as it stands at present.