Murad bormilathe on ebay

I have no connection with this seller. Item no 111744398755

That's a lot of engineering for £1,600

MichaelG.

That's a funny old boy but a nice looking example.

i am fitting one in my new workshop (when the builders get a move on)it came from a retired engineer and seems a great bit of kit,i contacted the family of the maker about trying to source parts and the nephew seems to have machines and spares, but now seems to have disappeared, i want to use it for boring cylinders from vintage motorcycles plus making big bore panther engines, the only thing i can see with the one on ebay is that the seller is being highly ambitious with his price , i would have thought about a third of his asking price is sensible ,mine was virtually a gift so i can afford to fit it in next to my old colchester, i tried advertising for spares with no luck and have now picked up a murad cadet at a sensible price which means a lot of the parts will fit both machines, they are great british engineering machines. will

This is the machine that inspired J A Radford's elevating spindle and tailstock mod for his Myford.

Interestinglyt the one on Ebay seems to have a much higher standard of finish than the non-tarted up ones on Lathes.co.uk. Perhaps it was the demonstrator from MEX 1960 - which fits in with its purchase date!

Neil

An Intruiging machine. There's even a slot in the spindle nose to make it a posi drive

Rare to see pics of ETW in action. Shows how (a) he was a big lad and (b) the Bormilathe wasn't - only 10" between centres is an odd choice for a maximum a 7" centre height.

I imagine anyone wanting to turn things up to 17" diameter would probably need to turn long things as well, unless they saw its market as complementing a second lathe of perhaps 4-5" centre height.

Neil

Hello Gentlemen this Mark Richard Murad CEO of Murad International LTD Is this Bormilathe for sale because I shall buy It?. my email adress is [email protected] call me in the USA (216) 421-5733 I can also provide what ever my Uncle Wadia taught me while he raised me to be the next generation to design Murad cars and Lathes.

tsk tsk tsk

I think that post may be genuine, there's only one other post from Mark Murad:

**LINK**

Mark I suggest you look here:

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/111744398755?ru=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fsch%2Fi.html%3F_from%3DR40%26_sacat%3D0%26_nkw%3D111744398755%26_rdc%3D1

Neil

Well its sold now anyway, listing ended this morning around 0750, for the asking price.

It's been through the listings more than once. Rumour has it that they aren't really rigid enough for serious work so are something of curiosity but can be finished rather well.

The ship type things with a lathe and a miller in one unit are a somewhat different kettle of fish. They have appeared on ebay from time to time but weight wise are rather hefty. Those did do real work.

John

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Hi - long time no speak. Been busy with a load of other stuff. Still am, in fact.

But since I've had a Bormilathe for several years now, I can tell you a bit more about how it behaves - and with a few caveats, it's not as bad as you might think. Yes, I have it for reasons alluded to above - you can put flywheels on it, which I can't on the Kerry. Well not very big ones, anyway.

As far as rigidity goes, it's not bad - as long as you take a few precautions, primarily remembering to lock the vertical slide holding the headstock in place after you've moved it. If I put a dial guage (mounted on the milling table) on the inside of the spindle, I have to put one heck of a lot of force into the headstock before there's even a hint of movement on the dial - and this is a 0.0001" guage. Likewise, there's no perceptible run-out in the spindle either when you rotate it. The last job I used it for was as a horizontal mill, to cut a vee in a chunk of mild steel to use as a new base for a fixed steady for the Kerry. It didn't bat an eyelid. But there again, I've also reworked the cross-slide somewhat, which has also helped. So I'd say that yes, you can do serious work with it - as long as you have your eyes open.

And that's the thing really - not miraculous out of the box, but with some work it can be improved. It has some annoying features - like no means of controlling the motor. You plug it in, it runs. The backgear control leaves a little to be desired as well - not exactly positive in its operation. Drive to the leadscrew is 'fun' to set up, and non-reversible. Without a lot of work, it's not really going to be anybody's main lathe for long - that is, unless they've never met another lathe...

The temptation to spruce it up and put it on eBay is quite strong, if it fetches anything like £1,600. That is so much more than I paid for it!

Back up again

I found this post interesting as the toolroom where I served my time in the early sixties had one of these and was used for small odd jobs. It always appeared to work fine. In the main works there were two Murad capstan lathes with speed change foot pedals and they were fine machines. If you look the Bormilllathe up on Tony Griffiths website towards the end there are some new photos of what appears to be the actual machine that is on Ebay, stating it is now in the states with the nephew of Mr Murad, either its not now for sale or he decided he wasn't going to buy it.

Barry

That seems to be happening on some others from time to time of late. It can sometimes happen because people don't pay or for some reason find collecting too much of a pain - or maybe not as expected. I always wonder.

John

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