Myford S7 Cutting Barrel Shaped Cylinders

Thanks Martin, - that's interesting. I'll find out what they can offer, though as mine has gearbox and power cross feed, both of which are working well, I expect the part-exchange price of a reconditioned lathe of similar spec to be very high, probably well over £4k, as the non-part-exchange price is £6418 incl. VAT!

It sounds as if you got a real bargain back in 2016.

Also I have to admit that, although it's frustrating at times, I'm quite enjoying doing work to improve my own lathe.

Mike

Yes it's very satisfying turning out good work on a machine you have restored yourself. But the restoration can become a fulltime hobby in itself!

Well you will win both ways. If you don't take the offer you can always tell yourself how much you have saved.

Especially when you get to tricky bits.

regards Martin

Just a correction to my previous post: the price by Myford for a bed and saddle regrind is £660 +VAT = £792. They are quoting turnaround times of between a fortnight and 2-3 months due to having skeleton staff and relying upon the engineering firm they use.

Mike

Wow!

They have couple of beds on ebay at the moment - take a look at the third picture here

It doesn't look very good to me.

Unfortunately they're all for an ML7, and I have a Super 7 with power cross-feed. I have just saved a search, so at least I should be notified if a good one comes up.

Just for interest, did you notice who the seller is??

Mike

Yes I did. What I found disappointing was the poor grinding as shown in the third picture - no way would Myford Nottingham have let that out.

Martin.

There are other companies that do regrinds. A search of this site should throw up previous discussions and names. Slideway Services maybe?

Edited By Hopper on 09/06/2020 23:07:51

There is a S& bed for sale on the Homeworkshop site for £100, I don't know if that would be suitable for you.

I managed to find a bed for sale on eBay with negligible wear, that is suitable for my lathe:

**LINK**

I chose this route as I didn't want my lathe to be out of action for too long during a regrind; potentially many weeks or even months according to Myford.

I am hoping to find a saddle with less wear than my own to fit to the 'new' bed, prior to me changing the beds over. However, if I were to fit my worn saddle to the 'new' bed, what are the implications? I assume that, due to the scoring on the under-surface it may have little contact with the bed, resulting in uneven wear. Would you recommend that I use engineer's blue to find the high spots in contact with the bed and carefully scrape these down until there is a good surface to surface contact?

I realise that I will need to adjust the shims that control the vertical movement of the saddle on the bed.

Any advice gratefully accepted.

Mike

Provided your saddle isn't too worn, it's perfectly possible to skim the worn face.

To keep it simple you should try to maintain the current 'step' measurement between the sliding (worn) face and that face which the apron is bolted to. This is to ensure minimal misalignment with the rack and leadscrew.

If your 'step' measurement is currently 0.5" from face to face and you skim off 0.008", then you also remove the same amount from the saddle mounting face too. The same goes for the rear of the saddle, where its gib strip locates.

Once machined, a lick with the scraper would assure a better fit.

Martin.

Great advice Martin - makes complete sense. Am I right to assume that these surfaces need to be ground rather than milled?

No, they're OK milled as long as the cutter's sharp and you get a clean finish you'll be fine. Infact you're better off milling the sliding part anyway as it's easier to scrape because the surface isn't as skiddy under the scraper.

Martin.