What lathe to look for

[sako243]

having played with a myford, even breifly, i can assure you it is a massive improvement over the lathe i have...my lathe can be stalled trying to cut plastic below 300rpm...

If you can and have space I'd go for something bigger but if you're interested I'll be offloading my ML7 when I collect the M300 from RobCox in a couple of weeks. Waaay too undersized for the kind of stuff I need it to do these days but it's in fine fettle with a load of tooling and already running a VFD.

 

[BrokenBiker]

If you can and have space I'd go for something bigger but if you're interested I'll be offloading my ML7 when I collect the M300 from RobCox in a couple of weeks. Waaay too undersized for the kind of stuff I need it to do these days but it's in fine fettle with a load of tooling and already running a VFD.

i have ot work out what space i have tomorrow, but wouldnt really be looking to buy until probably the end of june due to toher things going on that are going to massively get in the way, but i will keep you in mind should anything change

 

[Arc Tourist]

A word of warning ,when you do buy one please don't transport it home inside a Transit ,or the like , I just couldn't take the ensuing " HOW DO I GET IT OUT " discussions .

Wasn't very difficult when I bought my Boxford AUD. I simply took off the easily removable accessories, such as the chuck, tailstock and carriage. Then a couple of friends and I rolled the lathe up into my van using a cart on a couple of ramps made up of sandwiched scaffold boards. Pipe rollers were also handy. I arranged a small fork lift to take it out of the van on my end, and to make it easy, I slipped a couple of stout timbers under the lathe bed to lift it with the forks. Here's some photos.

As I'm retired, I find the Boxford about the right size to satisfies my needs. For a rare thing it can't, I know of a couple of machine shops not far away. Fortunately, I was able to acquire the tooling I wanted for the Boxford a few years ago. That's the problem now with most older lathes, finding the related tooling is becoming more and more difficult.

EDIT: Being 5'11" tall, I found the Boxford a little too low for comfort, so I raised the cabinet up eight inches.

 

[Keith 66]

I started with a Myford Super 7, it was a nice little machine but i often found myself wishing it was bigger. Its piddly small spindle bore was a regular pain.
They are a modelmakers lathe & over rated for what they are.
Plenty of good Boxfords & Colchester 1600's & Harrison 140's out there & many will have spent their years gathering dust in schools not being used much.
Plenty of other good machines out there. Try not to buy the one that has been stripped of all its tooling.
Saw one on the Harrison owners group on fb the other day, Next size up from the 140, up for 400 quid, Looked to have been a good clean machine but the seller had stripped it, Chucks, tailstock, lead & feedscrews gone , even the saddle was missing. Good luck finding that lot. A good machine reduced to a mooring sinker.

 

[BrokenBiker]

well ive got a good list to get after now, thanks all.

while i cant see me ever needing to make anything 'big', you never know so i will try and get the largest i can for the space i have. got a few in my watch list and a few bookmarked so hopefully when im ready to buy there will be a few about to look at

 

[RichardM]

If you are not stuck on the 500mm between centres also look at the later Boxford X10 series.

 

[Agroshield]

Please could I draw your attention to the inconsistencies between initial post and later statements

Ideally, I'd like maybe 500mm between centres, bit more over the bed and maybe a larger spindle bore, MT3 tailstock would be nice.

having played with a Myford, even briefly, I can assure you it is a massive improvement over the lathe I have..

How do you achieve 500mm between centres, more (than 180mm) over the bed, a large spindle bore and a MT3 tailstock on a Myford? You would need the most recent large bore Super 7, in the long bed version and still not achieve the swing or desired tailstock spec.

I am not knocking a Myford, but it is strange to write a want list and then consider a machine that ticks so few of the boxes on that list.

 

[Agroshield]

...I still need to source the missing timing gear for my thread indicator

It may help your sourcing to consider the function and therefore necessary specification of the item you seek. Calling it a gear, with all the ideas conventionally associated with a gear, is rather inflating its station in life. If you start with a blank sheet of paper and ask what the item actually does, it will be easier to source or make something suitable for its purpose.

It is no more than a notched counting wheel. It transmits no power. All it is doing is helping to show you when widely-spaced marks on a slowly-rotating dial line up with a fixed mark.

A disk with holes drilled in the perimeter and pins inserted would be workable. A thin (maybe 1/8") brass disk with slots filed or milled in it and the tips eased with a file would do. A 3D printed item would work. Being really rough, even the tooth spacing is not too critical so long as there are the correct number of teeth. The only other important feature is that one of the teeth lines up with a mark on the dial (so it is timed correctly).

Yes, technically, it should be a helical gear, to match the hand and helix angle of the leadscrew with which it meshes, but a thin item can neglect those niceties. If we pick a number for the tooth count, say 16 teeth, it only needs to be good enough unambiguously to resolve one tooth (so 22.5 degrees).

 

[northwest]

I started with a Myford Super 7, it was a nice little machine but i often found myself wishing it was bigger. Its piddly small spindle bore was a regular pain.
They are a modelmakers lathe & over rated for what they are.

I am not a Myford hater, they have their place but there place is nowhere near me! I have a very good friend who has a Myford and wanted to replace it with something else but the lathe he decided he wanted was/is totally unobtainable, I cannot remember what it was but I do know they only made about a hundred of them! While he was waiting for this dream machine to appear he threw about five or six grand at his Myford, Big Bore head, Three phase motor, Four position DRO and anything else he could get his hands on. Now he hardly uses it as he bought a CNC lathe and does most everything on that. He will never get his money out of the Myford and it just sits as a testament, in my mind anyhow, to folly.

There is a great deal to be said for just getting on with it and buying something that works.

 

[Keith 66]

Very true, I bought that Myford back in 1980 & it came my way through a friends Dad who was a college lecturer, cost me £200 iirc with a lot of tooling.
Funnily enough the same friend is looking to get shot of his Dads Myford late super 7, gearbox fully tooled & then some, I have told him not to be a bloody fool & hang onto it. "But i havent got anywhere to put it"
Another mutual friend told me a few days ago he would take it off him but has nowhere to put it. It was stupid cheap. He wont sell it to me as he knows i would sell it & make a killing.
Both of them probably think they can keep coming round my place to use my 140!

 

[Ton-up]

@BrokenBiker, you have PM.

 

[BrokenBiker]

@BrokenBiker, you have PM.

Will read and reply asap

 

[slimjim]

I would buy a gear head lathe,

Something like a Harrison 140/300 or a Colchester Bantam/student,

Bought on condition rather than specific model

Gap bed if possible

With Chucks/ tooling/ rests as that’s extra expense

 

[Jelly_Sheffield]

Gap bed if possible

I agree with everything you said apart from this.

The trade off in faff/future loss of accuracy/both is such that it's almost never worth removing the gap bed, compared finding a work around.

Plus when you get to turning parts bigger than you can easily fit on the faceplate of a 12" lathe (as most people are suggesting that sort of size is ideal), it suddenly becomes apparent that even very well built "light"* lathes aren't that rigid after all.

*Compare a Harrison L6 to the roughly equivalent capacity DSG 13-1, to see why I'm saying "light" lathes...

 

[Guineafowl]

With my Boxford AUD/VSL, I keep running into the size limits of 9” swing and tiny spindle bore (3/4”, I think).

I won’t sell it, because it’s very capable on the smaller stuff, with VFD control, coolant, metric/imperial threading, but I do need to get a bigger lathe, with the attendant costs of tooling it up.

With hindsight, I should have just got a bigger lathe in the first place.

 

[addjunkie]

With my Boxford AUD/VSL, I keep running into the size limits of 9” swing and tiny spindle bore (3/4”, I think).

I won’t sell it, because it’s very capable on the smaller stuff, with VFD control, coolant, metric/imperial threading, but I do need to get a bigger lathe, with the attendant costs of tooling it up.

With hindsight, I should have just got a bigger lathe in the first place.

Simple fact…you can machine small things in a big lathe. But you will never machine big things in a very small lathe.

 

[MattF]

Simple fact…you can machine small things in a big lathe. But you will never machine big things in a very small lathe.

True, but getting up close'ish to a large spinning chuck to see what you're doing, when you're doing fine work, is no fun.

We all have moments where a larger lathe would be handy, but one has to draw the line somewhere.

 

[addjunkie]

True, but getting up close'ish to a large spinning chuck to see what you're doing, when you're doing fine work, is no fun.

We all have moments where a larger lathe would be handy, but one has to draw the line somewhere.

Fair points both. But for most space and money are the limiting factors.

 

[Morris]

I would buy a gear head lathe,

Something like a Harrison 140/300 or a Colchester Bantam/student,

Bought on condition rather than specific model

Gap bed if possible

With Chucks/ tooling/ rests as that’s extra expense

As a Bantam owner I can only agree with this.

 

[Jelly_Sheffield]

Simple fact…you can machine small things in a big lathe. But you will never machine big things in a very small lathe.

In principle yes...

The limiting factor is surface speed achievable on small parts.

You have to start shopping around a fair bit to get a 17" lathe that has over 2000rpm top speed (the minimum I would want for sub 10mm parts)... Go up to a 21" and you're lucky to get 1000rpm.

Eventually if your main lathe is big enough you will want a little one to complement it, even if you don't need one.

This said feel like if you're a hobbyist with the space and money for a 28"×144" Binns and Berry or the like, you can probably squeeze a Myford, Schaublin, or Hardinge in somewhere.