Buying first lathe

I think the OP made it clear the seller was a trader and that he was unable to go look at it.

I'd agree that a South Bend clone such as Boxford is a very good option at often less money and well worth looking at.

I'm not slagging the Myford they are nice machines but they have gained almost a cult following and the prices are getting a bit daft.

The Boxford is better IMO because it has prism ways, taper roller headstock bearings, larger diameter spindle bore, usually a more powerful motor and is generally of more robust construction all round.

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< BUMP >

Edited By Jacob Brown on 28/06/2020 19:32:47

Jacob, I have absolutely no connection with the seller but if I were you I’d have a good look at the Boxford currently on the Home Workshop site for £750.

Jacob, from what I can see in your pictures that lathe isn't a ML4 or any other sort of true Myford lathe but it looks VERY much like a Drummond "M" Type - the knock off bar along the front is a bit of a give away as I believe they were never fitted to Myford designed lathes but very much a Drummond feature. Where you may be getting confused is that during World War 2 Myford made Drummond M Type lathes under licence at first but later the rights to the design were assigned to Myford by Drummond. So you can have :

1.a Drummond M type completely manufactured by Drummond

2. a Drummond M type assembled by Myford from parts that were transferred to Myford fromDrummond

3. a Drummond/Myford M type assembled from parts made by Myford to Drummond designs

or finally

4. A Myford manufactured lathe built to the Drummond M type design but incorporating modifications introduced by Myford.

About the only way to check that is to find the serial number on the bed (tail-stock end) and check that with the files on the Drummond lathes io group.

Yes the end of the spindle is damaged, the thread should be at least twice as long as that.

So long as the important parts of the lathe are in good order then you should have a very competent machine when you get it set up, they have a very good reputation.

That's a really nice looking machine, how the **** did anybody manage to break off the spindle nose threads. Clumsy muppet.

I started my small investigation and according to guys from Drummond Io group previous owned bored spindle to 1/2" and most likely in process broke off part of it.

That makes a lot more sense of your last post on the Drummond Group. The Drummond spindle was at best drilled 3/8 and the Myford ML4 19/32 so with your reported about 1/2 bore it looks like yours was indeed bored out thus damaging the end of the thread.

You can now check your serial (far right of bed) against the list on the Lathes.co.uk site to find the year.

The J on the serial number idicates a Drummond built by Myford though initially they used Drummond serials perhaps because of split location production or using a stock of ready built parts.