Myford lathes

[northwest]

but I bet the vast majority are bought and sold nearer £300

Don't take up gambling as a source of income.
If you are selling any, even at £350 I will take ten.

 

[Munkul]

I'll take another 10, send em to Lambco for bed tickling, paint em up and resell for £3k each

 

[Keith 66]

I bought mine in 1984, iirc it cost £250 but it was a long time ago!

 

[pressbrake1]

I probably get a myford regrind enquiry a month, half of those would think £50 is too dear

 

[pressbrake1]

My first lathe was a Super 7, it was in pretty good nick once i got a new chuck for it it!. Did some good work with it & learnt a lot.
Main thing i learnt was it was too small for most things i wanted to do.
As for rebuilding them, If you could buy one for £300 maybe but they always seem to be £800 - 1000 upwards.
Factor in cost of a regrind & theres no money in it, Do the bed & you have to do the saddle, Then you got to do the tailstock & shim it to height cos its going to be low. Lot of work on what is a relatively basic machine.
I had a Boley reground a few years ago & got it half done, life got in the way & the rebuild stalled, i just started on it again last week, That is an infinitely higher quality machine only slightly larger than the myford but i cant see me making any money on it!

A myford is very easy to grind and re align

 

[Munkul]

I probably get a myford regrind enquiry a month, half of those would think £50 is too dear

Thing is, if you price yourself to those customers you'll hate yourself. There will be some genuine customers out there.

Would you offer the saddle rebuild service as well? Turcite and scraping in? and Tailstock scraping?

IMHO that's what it needs to be... a relatively fixed fair price for all the bits that lathe owners aren't skilled or tooled up enough to do...

Re aligning a headstock and shimming a tailstock seems daunting at first but it's really easy peasy, once the bed is straight and flat, you don't even need a special alignment bar or anything other than DTI, mics and a test piece to turn.

Then for the customers that want a turn-key solution, you can charge the earth.... just a little bit more work but double the money.

 

[God mode restorations]

Problem I see is some people believe that 1950s prices still stand today. I as a rule book myself out for £175 aday job depending. Then you get the same ol crap !! HOW MUCH !! I can sit at home an earn faff all I definitely am not going to work all day for the fun of it. And it's probably the same throughout most industries

 

[northwest]

I probably get a myford regrind enquiry a month, half of those would think £50 is too dear

As with @Munkul s post above. Do not ever sink to the level of "just a little on top". You will never get back into profitability.
Also, from experience, I have discovered that those who will not pay will also bust your chops if you ever do anything for them. They are short with the cash and short in their understanding.
As the late, great Mr Stevenson said: "Pipe Smoking Cardigan wearing Accountants of the Wurst kind".

Edit:

as a rule book myself out for £175 aday job depending

I am in London tomorrow, £175 won't even get me there. And I will be wearing a suit so I will leave it to your imagination as to how much that will cost someone.

 

[Munkul]

Problem I see is some people believe that 1950s prices still stand today. I as a rule book myself out for £175 aday job depending. Then you get the same ol crap !! HOW MUCH !! I can sit at home an earn faff all I definitely am not going to work all day for the fun of it. And it's probably the same throughout most industries

They're the last sort of customer I would ever want. Any time I get a sniff of that sort of customer, I give them the "grade A*" pricing and suggest a cheaper and possibly more sensible way for them, as not to bruise their egos.
Regular customers get "grade A"
The only people who get the "grade B" pricing are family and the jobs I REALLY like.

They are short with the cash and short in their understanding.

Nicely put.
I'm sure we've discussed this before... "Choose your customers, or they will choose you"

 

[pressbrake1]

I’ve always found the minges who want it cheap then want a load more extras before they will pay
Obviously I wouldn’t do it for £50 but you can just tell the type and price it stupid low just to see their reaction which I’d normally free is too dear

 

[minimutly]

A myford is very easy to grind and re align

One a week easy?

 

[pressbrake1]

One a week easy?

Two

 

[Munkul]

IMO you want a roughly fixed price for these options:
- Bare bed supplied, grind only
- Bare bed,saddle and tailstock supplied, grind and saddle/tailstock work
- Full works inc dismantling and re-assembling and alignment, test report sheet showing test numbers, extra cost for anything else needed like leadscrew/nuts
- prices for other lathes like Boxfords and smaller Colchester/Harrisons etc

- Get one Myford through and take a million good photos against a good background from start to finish, paint it and make it look nice
- Market the living crap out of it as services offered, on social media and every machinist forum you can.
- Have some patience it will take a year or so before you get anything approaching regular business.

Sorry if any of this is teaching to suck eggs, but I'm sure we all want this venture to work out for you, and it really should.

 

[gaz1]

with what work pressbrake has done i do believe hes got good rep already

even some photos of his other work should point to good workmanship

the question is

should pressbrake make a lathe or another type of machine

 

[mtt.tr]

I’ve always found the minges who want it cheap then want a load more extras before they will pay
Obviously I wouldn’t do it for £50 but you can just tell the type and price it stupid low just to see their reaction which I’d normally free is too dear

I'm tight but not that bad

 

[minimutly]

Two

Then don't build them, just machine the bits, stick the turcite or whatever on and return. Fixed price. Not a bad background/filler work. The beauty of myfords is they're all the same size, and flat. What would that be worth? £300 to £500? Any more and you won't get any to do...

 

[mtt.tr]

I'm sure I was quoted £800 for bed grinding 10 years ago

 

[pressbrake1]

I just want to do the grinding and avoid fitting up

 

[Mr Fro]

My first lathe was a Super 7, it was in pretty good nick once i got a new chuck for it it!. Did some good work with it & learnt a lot.
Main thing i learnt was it was too small for most things i wanted to do.
As for rebuilding them, If you could buy one for £300 maybe but they always seem to be £800 - 1000 upwards.
Factor in cost of a regrind & theres no money in it, Do the bed & you have to do the saddle, Then you got to do the tailstock & shim it to height cos its going to be low. Lot of work on what is a relatively basic machine.
I had a Boley reground a few years ago & got it half done, life got in the way & the rebuild stalled, i just started on it again last week, That is an infinitely higher quality machine only slightly larger than the myford but i cant see me making any money on it!

What Boley have you got?

I've got a 4L and coming from a Myford they're out of this world. The thing was that even though I sold the Myford quite cheaply, it gave me enough dosh to buy the Boley, hire a van, pay for my fuel and time and even gave me a nice lunch.

I really don't get the Myford hysteria. The guy I bought the Boley from had ot advertised for ages before I pitched up and it really is a peach.

 

[mr_splatter]

I seem to remember the people to go to for a Myford regrind before the RDG takeover was Slideway Services when I used to frequent the model engineer forum. I see they are still around. Be interesting to see what they currently charge for this service. I believe they did all the build up of the saddle and rebuild as well. I obviously don't know for sure but I would think the full service would be a much bigger market than just the grinding. I know that I would only consider it if it were the full service but maybe others have the skills to do the rest.