Look what followed me home: ML7 Myford

I really did not want it. But it was sitting unloved at a garage sale and the price was very right. Amazing what you can fit in the back of a small hatchback.

I don't have much shed time these days so the idea was to put it by for future reference. It was complete and running but as we had to half dismantle it to get it in the car, it ended up fully dismantled and spending the week going through the parts washer before it was even fit to be allowed in the shed. I figure if you want to keep your workshop clean, don't let anything dirty cross the threhold. It works.

We might be able to make something useful out of it (my son doing the grunt work, me supervising from a comfortable chair as usual!). And it will be interesting to see how it compares with the mighty Drummond M Type. So far it is apparent the Myford is not as heavily built and uses diecast aluminium for the many parts that the Drummond uses cast iron for, from the countershaft assembly to the apron to leadscrew brackets. Quite surprised at this. I thought they were a "superior machine". Time will tell. Certainly the Myford has a bigger spindle and tailstock diameters and more bracing, albeit thinner castings, around the headstock.

Covered in the usual protective layer of gunge! Smashed oiler is a bit of a worry. There is noticeable up and down play in the spindle but these bearings are scrape-able and shim-able so we can fix that.

The bearings appear OK, some burnishing but no gouging from swarf ingress and no smearing from overheating.

The heart of the matter: The bed was scored from swarf but cleaned up with a careful smooth file to knock the tops off the burrs and a light frosting with a scraper for oil retention before measuring up -- and it's within a thou or two! Well inside Myford's recommended tolerance for a regrind. So it might be worth fiddling about with some more. Everything else can be fixed in the home workshop without weeks of scraping and surface tables etc etc etc.

But all that glitters is not gold. There are a few crimes against engineering lurking under the protective gunge. This bit must on the back of the cross slide must have missed out on the gunge and looks like it was next to an open window in our coastal tropical climate (8 feet of rain a year, 90+ degrees most of it)

Further crimes against engineering, the usual crash marks on the cross slide and god only knows what they were doing on the top surface. The lathe apparently was in an electric motor rebuilding shop for most of its life. What electricians do with hand tools is scary enough. What they did with this lathe a complete mystery.

And a captial offence here: I cannot think why anyone should find it necessary to do this to a faceplate. Maybe cutting discs out of flat sheet for some reason? Gaskets? IDNK. But a ten thou cut over the faceplate will fix that, once headstock bearings are done and cross slide set up square/concave.

The old girl seems to have had a bit of a fall, snapping off the end of the halfnut lever and the end of the feed screw, which was then arc welded back on -- crooked! The fix will be to cut the end off the screw, drill and tap t'other and turn up a new piece with a threaded end on it to screw into the hole and Loctite in place. This will turn the screw arund 180 degrees so the unworn end is in the high use area and the worn bit is at the virtually unused far end.

Another little landmine surfaced: Back gear tooth torn off, no doubt during chuck removal using incorrect spindle locking procedure. Replacement has been ordered and we will make up LH Sparey's special C spanner to avoid repeat performances.

But the good news is that it came with two Burnerd chucks in good condition, with the usual brown patina easily removed. And a fixed steady and moving steady. The fixed steadies sell for $200 on eBay here in Oz. The chucks probably soimething similar, so well worth having.

The leadscrew is good. So its all sitting there waiting for the lad to put it all back together again, with a bit of fettling.

Only thing missing is about five change gears. It came with the ix fine feed gears, and I have three spares kicking around the workshop (I canibalized the 60T to make the GHT dividing head and now couild use it for this set!!))

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A lucky find and a great project, good luck with the rebuild!

Regards,

John.

LOL yes a project to be sure. I sort of more wanted a lathe than another project though. Just a sucker for old machinery I guess.

Not much chance of getting the bed painted tomorrow: 30mm of rain forecast for the day. So basically 100 pre cent humidity. Paint just sits there and laughs at you in that. Puts terrible wrinkles in it.

Where do you live? Cairnes or similar? My ML7 was a lucky find. I got it from the original owner who was going into a retirement village. He was happy with $300A and really just wanted to get rid of it. All original equipment and sales brochures! Sounds as though you are fully capable of restoring it and I hope you will post progress pictures. How do local smash repairers get on in the wet season?

I look forward to seeing its resurrection, Hopper

... You made a lathe out of Brian's "Optimum", so this should be good.

Interesting to note your observations on the Ml7's lightness of construction ... My [project] round-bed Drummond is much more substantial in some important areas than my ML7R.

MichaelG.

Simon, yes Cairns. So Myfords are few and far between around here. I have never seen one for sale locally at all before stumbling on this one.

Michael, yes certainly thicker castings, bigger cross slide and honking great industrial flat belt countershaft with cast Iron pulleys on the Drummond. It is like the Myford is a 3/4 scale Drummond with mods. But methinks the Myford is designed a bit more cleverly, with ribbed bed casting to make up rigidity with design rather than weight. Yes it's a bit like Optimum revisited - except it has taken 60 years of wear on the Myford to reach the same state.

Edited By Hopper on 15/01/2017 10:37:35

I thought they were a "superior machine".

They were an "affordable" machine, with the "affordability" generated by (for the time & product) innovative mass production techniques and materials to produce a "system" whose functionality exceeded the sum of it's parts .

No point being "superior" if your target audience can't afford to buy the product - something Myford appeared to forget in later years and priced themselves into history. I bought a copy of LH Sparey's gratingly titled "A Man and his lathe" last week, which deals primarily with using the ML7 & was printed during the machine's heyday. There is a comment in one section along the lines of " the machine is so inexpensive you can afford to buy the accessories to expand it's functionality" - how many hobby lathes can you say that about today ?

Nigel B

Hi Hopper, even our weather forecast said thunder storms for Cairns for today. From what I see the lathe is in fairly go nick if it came from an electrical workshop with everybody using it. I suppose a lot of the work would be skimming comutators. Looks like the saddle got caught with the chuck jaws at some stage.

Ian S C

How many of the far eastern lathe manufacturers offer anywhere near the comprehensive range of accessories of the ML7 and S7? Isn't that why they still retain their popularity today, and hence the premium prices if in reasonable order? The most obvious being vertical slides, catch-plates and a taper turning attachment etc; let alone the more "advanced/specialised" stuff like the multi-stop and cross-slide mounted turret.

I must agree they have priced themselves out of the market. Just compare the price of today's new offerings from Caldene Business Park and those from the far east. A tough call indeed.

Edited By Brian Oldford on 15/01/2017 11:00:33

True that. I think when it came out in 1946, the ML7 cost 36 Pounds and the Drummond/Myford M-Type cost 42 Pounds or some such. The average annual wage then was 380 quid. So the Myford cost just over a month's pay. Today, a month's pay on the average wage would be about 2,300 Pounds (annual ave. wage of 28,000). I think you could get quite a good hobby lathe these days for 2,300 quid? Certainly makes the Chinese mini lathes seem like a bargain!

I have been re-reading Sparey's book since picking up the Myford. Yes, fancy that, being able to afford to buy accessories! His previous books, and those of his contemporaries, were all about how to make all those accessories that were otherwise unaffordable. He makes a comment in "A Man..." about using a small taper reamer and comments that the reader should not be too upset about the expense because he will have further use for it on other projects -- a far cry from today's Fleabay world!

Traitor!

Looks like a nice find though, you've saved it from an uncertain fate

It will give me the greatest of pleasure to use the Mighty Drummond to make parts for the Myford and rescue it from its fate. No plans to replace the Drummond though. How could I? I just realized the other day I have been using the Drummond for 50 years this year, since I was 10 years old in the old man's shed making fireplace pokers for Christmas presents for grandparents.. Mind you, there was a 30-something year hiatus in the middle while I went off and did other things, and turned recklessly on other lathes..

I'm not sure what they did with it. Maybe like our Mr Stevenson and turning down welded up motor shafts etc as the wear and swarf indicates plenty of use on steel. I can't quite imagine how they busted off the half nut lever knob and the cross slide feed screw. Maybe backed the work truck into the lathe? And I must post pics later of the ball peen hammer marks on the top of the bed. I kid you not. Thankfully at the tailstock end, on the part the tailstock does not contact.

.

Ahh ... The 'convenient built-in anvil' area.

MichaelG.

ball peen hammer marks on the top of the bed. I kid you not. Thankfully at the tailstock end, on the part the tailstock does not contact.

I bought a very sad Super 7some years ago, mainly to get the screwcutting gearbox cheap. That had similar marks in the same area & I concluded that it was from knocking Morse taper drills into reducing sockets.

Certainly makes the Chinese mini lathes seem like a bargain!

Yes and no - Chinese machine tools are, at face value, very attractive. The Myford product did have the advantage of being supplied useable and to reasonable standards of accuracy, fit and finish straight from the factory. I have always thought of Chinese machines as being a kit of part finished parts, loosely assembled for ease of transport. I wonder how many of these inexpensive Chinese machines will be around in 50 + years time & be as capable as the ML7 / S 7 of being refurbished to provide years of further use ?

Nigel B

Nigel B

Yes, more of an anvil methinks. There are definite "baby's bums" from the flat end of the hammer in one spot, then a few inches away the distinctive round dents of a hard spherical object such as ball peen.

Will Chinese lathes last 50years? Well past my use by date so not a big issue for me.

Couple more pics. The cross slide feed screw showing where it apparently has been snapped off and welded back on, almost straight, kind of, if you squint a bit.

And the Myford cross slide sat atop the Mighty Drummond's slide. About an inch narrower and not as thick. The T slots on the Drummond are for 3/8 bolts, some serious clamping power. Myford I think are 5/16.

.

... I presume you will just saw it off and dowel a replacement end onto it [if the feedscrew is worth salvaging].

Whilst you are about it, Arc's thrust bearing looks a sensible upgrade: **LINK**

http://www.arceurotrade.co.uk/projects/MYF001/myford-cstb-mod.html

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 16/01/2017 09:34:47

Bit worn on the handle end where it gets most use. So I figure I will saw it off, turn it around and as you say dowel a new end piece onto it, putting the worn section at the far end. OK for turning but maybe not so much for using the vertical slide on the rear T slots.

Or I could just put this one on the "anvil" end of the bed and hammer it straight.

I've an idea I have the original article somewhere in one of the old books re putting the roller thrust bearings etc on the cross slide screw so can probably pick up the bearings at the local bearing shop.

Edited By Hopper on 16/01/2017 10:03:38

Oops, just clicked on your excellent link and there is all is, drawing and all. Thanks for that!