A friend of mine, going back to junior high, got disgusted with the responses for his craigslist ad, and asked me if I wanted his lathe, free. He's moving and has no more room for it. Same friend who gave my son Sean a milling machine a while back (he offered it to me but I already had an identical one, so it went to my son).
Picked it up today. It's a Myford ML-7. Serial number dates to 1971. It has a screw cutting gear box. Came with various cutting bits, reamers, adjustable reamers, layout and measuring equipment, several books including some 'model engineer' (what Brits call serious amateur machinists) books, plus other accessories. For some reason there doesn't appear to be any collets with it.
It's in good shape, and the bedways are not worn. It needs some cleanup. Some of the accessory parts were stored, not used, and have freckling and light oxidation. The lathe itself operates fine.
Came on a huge table that was not in the best of condition. It went to the dump. Will probably make a new table for my bench mill, and put the lathe on the bench mill's table, which is perfect for the lathe but over twice as wide as it needs to be for the mill. Need to make or buy a splash pan.
Been pouring over the machining books. Would like to dive in, but have to mount it on a bench first. It weighs around 220 lbs.
Specs for the ML-7. 3.5"x20". There is a bed gap that will allow larger diameter, but shorter length, work to be turned. Perhaps up to 5", but I have not found a spec on that yet. The screw cutting gearbox is English threads, but there are metric kits available. I don't know how much. ML-7 parts aren't cheap. These lathes were made with very few changes from 194 to 1979. There is a long bed model, but this ain't it.
It ain't winning the lottery, but I still came out a winner. I'm very grateful to my friend for this.
Detailed photos of a restored ML-7 are here:
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General ML-7 info here:
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if they are as computer literate as my guy.
