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Group Buy- Lathes
nasty-bob - 5/8/08 at 12:17 PM

Just wanted to see if there was any interest in a group buy for 240V single phase lathes.

The one I have in mind is similar to this.

I haven't got too many details yet as I want to gauge the level of interest first.

I'm thinking of getting them direct from china and estimate (based on some quotes already recieved) that they will cost about £1200 delivered.

If enough people are interested I will make more enquiries and get more info/confirmed prices.

Cheers,

Rob

r1_pete - 5/8/08 at 12:27 PM

Not a bad spec, but whats the quality like? for much less than £1200 there are really good used myfords and boxfords to be had. My ML7 set me back £300, and a bit of fetching and carrying....

02GF74 - 5/8/08 at 12:31 PM

possibly but don't have the space for that baby.;

tegwin - 5/8/08 at 12:36 PM

What tooling etc would be included in the price?

And has been said, a boxford/myford old english lathe could be ahd for much less!

worX - 5/8/08 at 12:45 PM

I'm afraid I would have to agree with the above.
For the price (£300 - £600), I'd much prefer a second hand Myford/Boxford etc that would prob end up coming with a bunch of tooling...

Steve

BenB - 5/8/08 at 01:58 PM

Lathe yes!
£1200 no!

kipper - 5/8/08 at 02:19 PM

or buy mine
Myford ML7 In mint condition.
4 jaw chuck long slide etc.
Can send pics when I get home,
Regards Kipper.

Edit do a search for myford lathe for sale to see pics of my lathe for sale.
Thanks Denis.

[Edited on 5/8/08 by kipper]

clanger - 5/8/08 at 05:25 PM

Nnnnnnoooooooo!!! Avoid chinese lathes/machine tools.
As advised above second hand British lathe will be far more accurate, more robust and outlast your £1200 chinese on ten time over.
Or alternatively, buy a £1200 chinese lathe and use the money you saved on the group buy to buy a 2nd hand British machine to fix/repair the chinese one

Shamrock GS - 5/8/08 at 06:34 PM

My dad bought one that looks spookily like these. It went well for several months (making various bits for my car) and then started going wrong. Turned out that some parts were made of cheese and melted. Took 4 months to get replacements. Dad sold it on Fleabay and bought an old Myford from a guy down the road. Its at least 20 years old and still going strong.

Gary

quinnj3 - 5/8/08 at 08:17 PM

for example:

this?

nasty-bob - 5/8/08 at 09:18 PM

so that'll be a no then?

Jason Fletcher - 8/8/08 at 07:18 PM

Hi Bob

thanks for the thinking of us with the group buy.

I have a Myford here at home and not being able to do without a lathe I bought a Warco for work. The Warco is a 500 quid lathe and not a 1200 quid one but I think the quality is the same across their range. The warco is ok for the money but nowhere near as good as my 1974 vintage super 7. You can still phone myford up and buy every spare for their stuff.
I would buy a Myford ML7 or preferably a Super 7 over a chinese lump anyday.

jason

liam.mccaffrey - 10/8/08 at 02:07 AM

correct me if i'm wrong but i don't think the plain bearings for the ML7 headstock are available, however they are the only parts as far as i know

David Jenkins - 10/8/08 at 07:02 AM

quote:
Originally posted by liam.mccaffrey
correct me if i'm wrong but i don't think the plain bearings for the ML7 headstock are available, however they are the only parts as far as i know


Replacement plain bearings can be made in the lathe of course... something I've done in the past with my ancient Zyto lathe. Not the easiest bit of machining as you have to work to set tolerances, and you'll probably be working in phosphor-bronze (a material I find particularly difficult - you think everything's going smoothly, then the tool will gouge unexpectedly), but certainly not impossible.

There are good and bad chinese makes, but we don't have the insight to know which is which - "they all look alike" to quote a well-known phrase. There's a company that imports the better sort, then sells them on at 2 prices: straight off the pallet for you to set up, or (more expensively) totally stripped, checked and rebuilt. Even Myford themselves do this with their cheapest vertical mill - their chief sales rep told me that they can't make the parts for the price the chinese were asking, so they buy them in, strip & rebuild, throw back the bad bits and shout a lot if necessary, put on a European-made motor and sell it to the public - still at a reasonable price.

wheelfelloff - 10/8/08 at 11:09 AM

quote:
Originally posted by liam.mccaffrey
correct me if i'm wrong but i don't think the plain bearings for the ML7 headstock are available, however they are the only parts as far as i know


Replacement bearings in the original "Babbitt metal" are as you say no longer available. I believe that they (Myford) offered a conversion kit with Phosphor Bronze bearings and a hardened spindle. The cost was so high though that I'm not sure if it is still available.

I'll not get involved with the "Old British New Chinese" discussion other than to say that there are some very reasonable quality Chinese machines now available but, you do have to know enough to pick them from the average "cheap" offerings. As always some companies are better than others and a good start is to look at this site for some informed comment:

http://groups.google.co.uk/group/uk.rec.models.engineering/search?group=uk.rec.models.engineering&q=Warco

Try a search on Warco or Chester and it will reveal a lot of experience with Chinese machines both good and bad. When one looks at the real cost of a new Chinese lathe these days they really are extremely good value for money. Personally, if you can find a good one and unfortunately they are not all good, a secondhand Boxford AUD or BUD can provide a first class "British" machine at something a good deal less than £1000.

Regards

Keith

owelly - 12/8/08 at 10:50 AM

The foreman at work has just bought two rather expensive pieces of equipment. A big bandsaw and a MIG welder. Both were British built with Built in Britain stickers.
However, they both looked very much like the Chinese rubbish available at a fraction of the cost of what we paid. Upon inspection, both machines are just stickered-up Chinese rubbish!! To make these machines "British", they are bought in knock-down form from China, and merely assembled in Britain.
Just something to worry about when buying machines.
Personally, I have a massive (British) lathe that is as old as the invention of roundness and it cost me scrap price. It came with loads of boxes of tooling, chucks, tips and DTI, micrometers, verniers and stuff I'm still digging out of the boxes!!