Had an old ML7 without clutch for years with no problems. Purists will frown but you can use the belt change tension lever as quite an effective clutch, the belt slip doesn't seem to wear the belt unduly.

John

Paul, make sure you check out the ML7 carefully before parting with cash. If possible see it running and working. If you are not sure what to look for try and find an "expert" to go with to look at the lathe. Many old Myfords have been nurtured equally many have been abused.

Brushless motors are essentially DC and use fancy electronics to make them go round. Not particularly comparable to an old single phase AC induction motor, which is also brushless, that uses just the mains 50Hz to cause rotation. If upgrading the motor the way to go is VFD and 3-phase motor but you are adding a few hundred quid to the bill but solves speed and clutch in one go (can of course be retro-fitted if the basic lathe is good).

John

Edit: Clarification

Edited By Journeyman on 11/01/2020 10:36:27

Get it if the condition is good and price is right. Prices for ML7s seem to have risen steeply in the last year or so. Or at least the asking prices you see around. Maybe riding along on the coat-tails of the over-priced Super 7s that seem to have achieved cult status. Get in while the going is good.

ML7s go for much less than S7, with a budget approaching £1000 you should be able to find a very good one with plenty of accessories, not just an 'ok' one.

Neil

You can't win! For £2100 you would get a lot more Chinese Lathe than an ML7! Or a Boxford…

A fairly serious problem with Myford and EMCO is both attract premium prices. In my view more due to reputation than actual performance. In their time, both makers sold well-made affordable hobby lathes: not cheap – Super 7's were pretty much at the upper limit of what most people could afford. But there were and are better lathes to be had! At the time better than Myford lathes were too expensive for hobbyists to consider due to starting prices being at least half as much again as a top end Myford. These machines were bought in large numbers by professional and educational workshops needing robust production-capable precision lathes. (Myford had a stab at this market with the desirable 254.)

Since then manufacturing moving to cnc has made large numbers of classy manual machines available second-hand, many of them in excellent condition, and cheaper than Myfords.

The advantage of buying Chinese is new machines can be replaced or refunded under warranty. More risk buying second-hand because condition is everything. My Chinese lathe does all I want of it and it's bigger than a Super 7. However, if I decided to replace it, I would look very seriously at a superior lathe from a high-end maker – Boxford, Denford, Colchester etc. Not because Myford are rubbish, but because I'm confident I could do better for the money.

Don't let me put you off your ML7 though – I think agonising over lathes is a waste of time. Provided the machine is in good order (or you can send it back), buy one and get stuck in!

Dave

Not only bitchy but wrong in almost every respect.

These sort of rants do nothing to inform newer members who may be attempting to work through the minefield of what to buy and are only further confused by these sorts of statements.

Pero

A Myford ML7 can (depending upon condition) be an excellent lathe but can it please be looked at in the cold daylight of its history.

It was designed in the later years of World War 2 and put on the market in 1947 – a long time ago! The comments about steel are not necessarily true, and in the case of a lathe where the major proportion of its construction is cast iron or zinc alloy probably irrelevant as well. Like many other products introduced around that time the choice of materials was probably decided as much by what was available in immediate post war years as by engineering need.

If you read the review of the Myford Super 7 in ME Jan 15 1953 it clearly suggests that the ML7 was designed to provide the best lathe that was affordable and the Super 7 was introduced to try to address some of those compromises. It specifically mentions the clutch as being necessary for 'a lathe running at high speed' suggesting that its inclusion is less important for a ML7 with its slower top speed.

Many Myford lathes are now of pensionable age and unless preserved in good condition may well be past it – I can think of two I have access to now – one has a bed worn to the state that there is 1/8th swing on the saddle when cutting and another with a parallel bore to the nose of the spindle because that was necessary to accommodate a job in the past.

The basic technology of a Myford ML7 is 19th/early 20th century while that of Chinese lathes seems to be more (but not that much more!) recent.

A Myford or similar lathe can be a joy to use – but in the same way that I find my ridiculously expensive Leica film camera more pleasant to use than a far cheaper digital SLR – but the quality of image doesn't differ in the same way. Similarly comparing a Myford with accessories and motor ready to run with a Chinese lathe at a half or a quarter of the cost may not produce better work. I certainly could not have afforded a Myford lathe for the price of the new Sieg machine I bought – and restoring one I could afford to accuracy would probably have been beyond my skills.

Please don't think I am against Myford lathes – but their age and older design, and the times they were designed for must count against them today, except in a few very well cared for or little used examples.

Not certain what happened to me then, being a fifties model myself – and not only that, my late mother used to meet Cecil Moore, Myford founder at parties given by Patty Coleby, landlord (landlady??) of the Nottingham SMEE's workshop in the seventies.

Edited By Nick Clarke 3 on 12/01/2020 11:54:13

Several years ago in Model Engineering Workshop there was an article on making a clutch for a Myford lathe. My friend an I each made a clutch for our lathes. Later I sold my ML 7 and bought a Super 7 with PCF and G/box. My friends clutch is still going. No motor likes to be switched ON. I have never heard of a Myford motor actually failing for that reason, they do get hot but soon cool down and are OK again, a lot of mythology around motors. It's those Dewhirst switches caused problems, OK for changing DOR when the motor is stationary and when used with a proper DOL starter. John

On longevity of mini lathes, mines 22, how old do they have to be before people accept they don't fall to pieces in months?

Neil