Alternative to Myford Super 7 stand/cabinet?

I have recently bought a tired Super 7 that I intend to restore.

An immediate requirement is to put it on a stand. But even 2nd hand Myford stands or cabinets seem expensive relative to the initial cost of my machine!

I know I could bench mount it with a tray. But I wonder if anyone has tried using an alternative stand/cabinet such as a Warco item....

http://tinyurl.com/cz8cv2c

This looks pretty cost effective when I see cabinet prices on fleaBay. I know this may not be the precise answer but I am pretty sure there must be other perfectly good 'Chinese' cabinets out there...

Any ideas?

I went through the same line of thinking as yourself a few years ago and in the end I decided to use the proper Myford items.

To mount a Super 7 on any stand properly also means that you need to buy a drip tray and raising blocks.

I bided my time and found a really nice used cabinet stand on eBay for £100 which I collected from north London. I then bought a second-hand pair of proper Nottingham Myford raising blocks from an independent Myford parts dealer for £40 plus postage.

Finding a second-hand drip tray defeated me so I bought a new one from Myford (Nottingham) for £100 including carriage.

So the whole job cost me £240+ a bit of petrol which I think was quite reasonable. The Warco one you suggest costs £180 + £40 carriage and then you will still need the drip tray & raising blocks.

I came to the conclusion there is no very cheap way to provide a proper stand etc. for a Super 7.

Well my S7 came with a stand but, when I look at the price , it is a bit eye watering! If you do go along the Myford route I would recommend their splashback which is a very robust and well finished affair. Not cheap, I conceed, but it does rather finish the thing off, provides somewhere to put "stuff" so it's close at hand and avoids swarf getting down the back of the machine and coolant being sprayed over the walls!

Here is a pic.

I made my stand out of 2½" angle iron bolted together I bought raising blocks and drip tray but it must be over 40 years ago so I can't remember the price I also put a couple of shelves under it too

Roy

Whereabouts are you located? If in Lancs. may be able to help.

Phil

Phil, I am in Edinburgh. Not that far from the kingdom of the red rose.....

Please do message me if you have any suggestions.

cheers, Colin

Lambton, thanks for sharing your similar torture. We have done the arithmetic, and I was just hoping I cold come to a better conclusion.

But please let me ask, the lathe is obviously heavy to the rear. Did you bolt your Myford stand down? Or is the risk of toppling it overstated?

cheers, Colin

Colin,

I have not bolted the Myford cabinet down as yet. As you say there is a bit of an overhang at the back, about “half” the motor if you know what I mean, however the rest of the lathe is very heavy and its mass is inside the baseline of the cabinet.

Obviously the thing is top heavy and could fall over if pushed hard enough. I store various chucks, steadies, angle plates etc. in the cabinet which makes it quite stable.

There is a less obvious advantage in bolting it down to a solid floor as it stiffens up the cabinet which helps when the adjusting screws within the raising blocks are used to “level” the lathe in order to get it turn parallel by taking any twist out of the assembly see pages 13 &14 of the handbook. This only works properly if the top surface of the cabinet is stiffer than the lathe bed.

I will eventually bolt my lathe down when I have finalised its position meanwhile, in my small workshop it cannot possibly fall backwards very far as it is very close to the milling machine!

Best regards

Eric

A Boxford Under Drive cabinet makes an excellent ( and cheap!!) base for a Myford.

It has a buit in drip tray , two lockable cupboards, and a space that was originally intended for a suds tank.The only addition I made was to fit plastic plugs into the Boxford mounting holes.

My Super 7 has been bolted down for 9 years with no need for any adjustment .

I bought a Warco stand for a WM180 lathe. It's OK, but no more than that. Big cupboards with only one shelf halfway up aren't that much use for storing tooling etc. I would have been better off with a substantial (not chipboard or MDF) old chest of drawers wth a beefed-up top.

Andy

I have also used a Boxford underdrive cabinet to mount an ML7, and sold it on to another Myford user for his ML7.   I now have Super 7B on an Industrial stand (the old roll-top version).

I think the cabinet cost me £50 -(and I sold it for £75, but it was recently re-sold on ebay for £120) but it was very grubby and needed a repaint. The only thing it needed, apart from plugging the holes, was some 6" riser blocks, as Boxfords have these built in. I used 2 chunks of "I" beam that I scrounged from the local steel stockholders (but "the office" didn't know about it!)

Phil

Edited By Robbo on 02/05/2013 20:52:47

Best lathe stand I ever saw was home made.

Guy built two "towers" one each end out of 4" box section steel, open end facing you, 4 sections wide and 7 ?sections high.

In between these at 4" off the floor and 12" ? were two steel shelves for chucks etc.

The 50 odd pieces of open ended box section was used for storing metal stock.

4" box section is a bit over the top, 2x2 (50x50) is more than adquate to give stable base for a tray and lathe. Regarding the tray, its not that difficult to copy Myfords idea.I made mine out of 3mm sheet steel bought from local firm, I cut the corners with a hacksaw Myford style, I took it back and they bent it for me. I then Mig welded it up, all for £30, which included two pieces for two shelves. I have made two other for friends since, using the machines at the "Tec" college evening class, where I could use their welding gear.Maybe you could do the same, you can buy a lot of gear for the workshop for £250. Ted

Hi John F - Think you have got John S's Stand a bit wrong - Think he means the 4x4 are placed horizontal in a fashon that would resemble a bottle store as looked at the front - 2x2 built up in this fashion would mean a lot of extra steel

Mikeb

As John F says, you could make your own stand using 2 x 2 in., either using screws to clamp pieces together. Or if you can, weld the pieces together. A friend of mine just welded a stand for my new lathe.

Thor

I made my lathe bench from 2"x 2" x 1/4" angle iron, the bolt down possitions foe the lathe are 4" x 4" x 3/8" channel, the whole lot welded. The angle iron was all cut by hand hacksaw, and stuck together with a borrowed welder.

A drip tray should not be too hard to make. Ian S C

Hmm. Mine is made out of 3x2 - timber that is! but then I only have a feeble mini-lathe

Neil

Many thanks to everyone for their input, which I really appreciate.

A solution has emerged in the midst of this. A forum member has offered me an industrial cabinet (holy grail etc) at a reasonable price....

cheers, Colin

Glad you got sorted. I like the industrial stand. My S7 is on an ML8 (the wood lathe) Myford stand. These often make peanuts on a well known auction site (one made £46 the other day) and their construction is heavy duty and looks very similar to the metal lathe cabinet just a little longer. I can't compare the two but I wouldn't mind betting they are almost identical.

Matt, funnily enough I had been wondering how a drip tray would look on an ML8 stand....

Two new listings appeared on that well-known auction site yesterday. An ML7 stand with tray and risers starting at £199. And an ML8 stand starting at 99p.

cheers, Colin