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My little lathe story: Once upon a time...
Greetings!
I am a new member, but have read and enjoyed this excellent forum for some time.
First a little about myself: I am 39 years old, and live in Norway. I’m educated as a car mechanic and have been interested in all things mechanical since little (loved to dismantle things to see how they worked, but they certainly didn’t work when put back together).
I have wanted a lathe for years, but never got myself to buying one, mainly because of a tight budget. But last year I found out that an old lathe was put away in the attic at my workplace. I inspected it at it looked perfect for me, I the asked the boss if I could buy it, he said I could have it, for free!
So that’s how I managed to acquire a Myford ML7 in excellent condition. It was formerly used in the auto workshop, but it doesn’t seem to have much wear or taken too much abuse. The serial number indicates that it’s from 1977, a fairly young ML7 (they were built from 1946-79. Here is a picture of my lathe after I cleaned it up:
I have a new workbench that I will move it to shortly, a friend of mine made me a nice drip tray out of stainless steel that it will sit in. I will bolt it up and level it, of course.
The Pratt Burnerd 3-jaw chuck was seriously stuck to the spindle, I don’t think it was ever removed since new, so no wonder! I could have locked the spindle with the back gear, but was afraid to break a tooth off one of the gears. So this is how I managed to “persuade” it to come off:
There is some nicks to the rear of the bead, the cross slide lead screw was slightly bent, seemingly from a knock to the hand wheel (fixed), and one of the drip oilers was cracked because the belt guard was mounted too close to it. I have bought a replacement oiler and a nice used 6” 4-jaw chuck with integral threads from the UK. There was only one set of change gears (4 or 5) with the lathe, so I have to get some more to complete the set.
I am planning to cross the channel, to the foggy island (UK), in October. I would like to visit the Midlands Model Engineering Exhibition - Warwick - 12th - 16th October 2007 and stack up on my tooling there. It’s not so easy to get small scale metalworking stuff here, and it’s expensive. Are there often used items (tools) for sale at such shows, or just new stuff?
See you!
I am a new member, but have read and enjoyed this excellent forum for some time.
First a little about myself: I am 39 years old, and live in Norway. I’m educated as a car mechanic and have been interested in all things mechanical since little (loved to dismantle things to see how they worked, but they certainly didn’t work when put back together).
I have wanted a lathe for years, but never got myself to buying one, mainly because of a tight budget. But last year I found out that an old lathe was put away in the attic at my workplace. I inspected it at it looked perfect for me, I the asked the boss if I could buy it, he said I could have it, for free!
So that’s how I managed to acquire a Myford ML7 in excellent condition. It was formerly used in the auto workshop, but it doesn’t seem to have much wear or taken too much abuse. The serial number indicates that it’s from 1977, a fairly young ML7 (they were built from 1946-79. Here is a picture of my lathe after I cleaned it up:
I have a new workbench that I will move it to shortly, a friend of mine made me a nice drip tray out of stainless steel that it will sit in. I will bolt it up and level it, of course.
The Pratt Burnerd 3-jaw chuck was seriously stuck to the spindle, I don’t think it was ever removed since new, so no wonder! I could have locked the spindle with the back gear, but was afraid to break a tooth off one of the gears. So this is how I managed to “persuade” it to come off:
There is some nicks to the rear of the bead, the cross slide lead screw was slightly bent, seemingly from a knock to the hand wheel (fixed), and one of the drip oilers was cracked because the belt guard was mounted too close to it. I have bought a replacement oiler and a nice used 6” 4-jaw chuck with integral threads from the UK. There was only one set of change gears (4 or 5) with the lathe, so I have to get some more to complete the set.
I am planning to cross the channel, to the foggy island (UK), in October. I would like to visit the Midlands Model Engineering Exhibition - Warwick - 12th - 16th October 2007 and stack up on my tooling there. It’s not so easy to get small scale metalworking stuff here, and it’s expensive. Are there often used items (tools) for sale at such shows, or just new stuff?
See you!
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