I have been very generously been given a c1946 Myford ML7 lathe, the two dodgy characters responsible, are below presenting it to me - Thanks Gentlemen!
It seems to be a very early Myford as Myford list the first ML7's being made
from August 1946 and starting at serial # K1001 and reaching K3921 by the end of
1948.
The number on this one is K1524 - so looks to be the 523rd one made - it is in
remarkable condition for a 71 year old machine. It was £34 new
I shall be using it to maintain and restore a few old motorcycles.
After a bit of clean up which caused the demise of Tara's washing up brush, I have started to dismantle and check it. To take the chuck off simply lock the big gear as below and it easily undid.
It came with a proper original stand and that was stripped of ancient paint and painted silver.
I wanted to see how worn (if at all) and so measured to see if any play in the shaft and absolutely nothing - which is very encouraging.
Stripped down the 3 jaw chuck and no wear and even original surface seems good.
Reassembled and checked run out and with a few different round things - it is moving about 9 thous, which is too much. Need to explore how best to resolve.
The lathe came with a fantastic array of accessories and these also need cleaning and checking, first was a 4 jaw chuck.
Restoration coming along
The lathe came with the gearbox below and all gears etc seem in fine condition
- but I need to find some documentation about it to work out how/if to connect it to the ML7.
Thanks to a very generous GeorgeW - I now have a set of articles about this gearbox that were originally published in The Model Mechanic in 1950 by its designer/maker - the well known Mr. L.H. Sparey.
A Myford tray and risers have been added as below.
The original owner of the ML7 was a Mr. Donald Cordess of Epsom and as he owned it for many decades - maybe from new - I shall think of it as Donalds lathe.
Much tinkering has reduced the run out (wobble!) on the 3 jaw chuck down to about 1 thous.
As at the headstock the run out is zero - the wobble must be the chuck. 1 thous is not very much so maybe being overly fussy, but would like it to be zero!
With the ML7 Myford lathe came its period literature -
