Myford S7 coolant tray

Hi All,

I recently purchased a Myford S7 lathe of 1953 vintage. It came on a heavy (homemade) stand that is more that adequate and I have now acquired a myford coolant tray.

I have a nice pair of Myford blocks to mount the lathe on and levelling shouldn't be a problem, but I am unsure how to get the coolant tray to 'run' correctly to the right, rear of the tray.

I am welding some plates on the bottom of the stand's legs to put adjustable feet in, rather than bolting to the workshop floor

Can anyone offer me some advice please?

Many thanks

Dave

Hello Dave

Your set up sounds much the same as mine, although I have a made-to-measure stainless steel tray made up locally to catch the chips and errant fluids (lubricating oil in my case since I don't use coolant).

Assuming the Myford tray is flat bottomed and can't be engineered (beaten into submission) to provide the required fall, I can think of two possible options:

Adjust the level of the stand so that the coolant flows in the right direction. Easy enough using leveling feet (hopefully of the vibration absorbing variety). However you would then need to shim each end of the two Myford mounting blocks to bring the the tops back to level before mounting the lathe.

Option two would be to buy a smaller SS tray from the local cookware shop and place this under the lathe bed to catch the bulk of the coolant and have a wipedown of the main tray at regular intervals.

I favour the second myself, but as I say my only issue is with lubricating oil so I omit the secondary tray and only go with the main tray wipedown.

I will be interested to hear what other solutions pop up how you get on.

Pero

That's exactly what I do but my inner tray is plastic, it catches nearly all of the swarf and oil and is so easy to slide out and clean, however I don't use coolant either so it depends on how much of it is used as to whether it would be a practical way of doing it.

John

Edited By Sandgrounder on 17/07/2016 06:14:22

Thanks guys,

I think a bit of judicious shimming is in order - if it turns out to be a pain, I can always use the adjustable feet

Dave T