Super 7 Mods

[Piero FranchiParticipant @pierofranchi37209]

[Piero FranchiParticipant @pierofranchi37209]

Hi guys

I got quite a shock when I looked at phone photos of when I first bought my super 7, I checked out the date!!!! April 2015!!!!!!!!!

o well, cant be to hard on my self for taking this long to do the re build on my super 7

I have not done a paint job, its a full strip, clean paint rebuld etc.

but in my defence, I have restored the bodywork of a VW beetle, and a MG maggnette, pluss held a job, etc etc

O and bought two Tom Senior mills, one needing a strip down clean and build (no painting)

Ok back to the long over due Super 7,

Its not far from compleation, and I am starting to look at the effecs of possible upgrades.

Are there any must do mods that I will kick my self for not doing now,???

I would rather do any up grades at this stage rather than latter once its up and running

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

I think the last couple issues of MEW had some Myford mods in there that could be worth a look. But most stuff, say for instance GH Thomas re-settable dials for cross slide, top slide and leadscrew handwheel can be done at any time.

[JAParticipant @ja]

I think, from experience, that cross slide and top slide locks are a must. I have used G H Thomas's top slide lock on two lathes. My present Myford lathe had a cross slide lock in the form of a grub screw which I have change to a G H Thomas type lock.

Most of G H Thomas's items are nice to have but not necessities.

JA

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

I've never needed either a crosslide or topsldie lock. The carriage lock on the other hand is very useful, worth fitting a lever to operate it. As it's a S7 I assume that it already has resettable dials? If not they are a must for manual machining (or add DROs).

You could fit Dyson vac tubes over the leadscrew to keep the swarf off – see another thread here.

Fit link belts instead of V belts for smoother drive. Replace single phase with 3-phase motor + VFD.

Fit roller thrust bearings on crosslide and leadscrew.

You could always go the whole hog and convert to CNC!

Fit a detent to engage the bull wheel for headstock dividing.

[RobboParticipant @robbo]

If you have not had a bed and saddle regrind on your early lathe, you may like to consider J A Radford's modifications to the saddle which were in ME no 3418, 4 Jun 1971.

This mod moves the pressure on the saddle guides from the inside of the front shear to the outside of the rear shear giving a much bigger surface area.

Other things, such as a dowel in the topslide gib strip, locks for the saddle and cross-slide, can be done at any time with little disturbance to the set up.

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