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4 Part Video Series About The Current Myford Lathes

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Overbuilt and Overkill:
Hopefully no one here has already provided a posted link to these videos elsewhere in this forum. While I've never owned or used any Myford lathe, there's some here who have them. And at one time not that long ago there lathes were pretty much the universal standard for Model Engineer's, at least in the U.K. they were. The ML 7 and Super 7 are also about the most adaptable lathe I know of with probably hundreds of modifications and improvements designed and built by users including J.A. Radford and G.H. Thomas detailed in the Model Engineer magazines and books over the years.

Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dTQsSs-Nzs

Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyzsJRZPE7I

Part 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qk8lHNAzpYo

Part 4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmccytgX058

Unfortunately and imo the videos are all mostly a fluff piece and could have been much more informative had they shown how the lathes actually get machined, ground and assembled while maintaining the critical 3 dimensional alignments and then each area properly checked. What there in house quality controls and allowable + - deviations really are would sell far more machines than what the very limited details in the videos present. There is a bit about the history and some early details about the start of Myford Lathes I hadn't known before. For anyone with a Myford, the spare parts availability and rebuild option might be of some use. I also thought the few details about the method they use today for embedding the dro scales and reader heads inside the cross slide was of interest and could be of use for doing the same on other brands of lathes as well.   

Chipswitheverything:
Agree that these videos provide little information that a flick through a few brochures would not give.  Curiously, it doesn't say where the current Myfords are being produced.
 I was lucky, when I was a student in Nottingham in the early/mid 1970's , and had an ML7 lathe back then  ( a Super 7B from 1976, still my current lathe...) to be given the privilege of a tour of the Myford works at Beeston, not far from Notts University, accompanied by Cecil Moore, the founder of Myford.  Mr Moore was then quite an elderly man, but was still active in the factory, which was extensive, with castings aging in the yard and every part of the machining process being done on the site, through to packing and despatch.  At that time the industrial grinders were being made there also, and used for aspects of the lathe manufacture.  It was a fascinating glimpse into the company that has given me and so many other model engineers such interest and capacity.   Dave

Overbuilt and Overkill:
Yes I'm quite sure that would have been a very fascinating tour of the original Myford's Dave. I'm a bit envious.  :) Google indicates the current Myford head office as Mytholmroyd, West Yorkshire. I'm unsure if that's also where and what appears to be a pretty small and limited in house part production, part storage, painting, grinding and assembly area might be. Videos can sometimes show false surface finishes, but the condition of the internal tail stock bore shown in the #3 video at the 3:52 mark seems to be quite a bit worse than what I'd expect for what would almost for sure be an internally ground and honed to finish size high precision bore. They have added the option of a full poly V belt drive and VFD which should provide an extremely smooth running machine.

But going by at least what's shown in these videos and what I can find on their web site, it seems their still using the same threaded spindle nose as the only version. Yes it works well enough and has proven so on probably 100's of thousands of various lathe sizes & brands. There's obviously better, and even more so with that VFD where the lathe might be run in reverse, or use the almost instant braking it's capable of. For at least the Connoisseur large bore model and maybe available on the others, they kept the clutch. A smart choice imo and something seriously lacking on many of today's larger industrial lathes. It's naive to think it's possible to obtain good long term durability and high accuracy at a low price. But at almost 11,000 BPS for a lightly equipped large bore Connoisseur, it's the same problem the original Myford factory had before they closed the doors for good and that high price for what is essentially a 7" lathe. Surprisingly it seems there's enough well heeled buyers around who can keep this smaller company of the same brand going. I wish them well and I'd love to have one as a second lathe, but unfortunately there well outside what I can afford.

Chipswitheverything:
Thanks for the reply and comment.   Yes, I find the price of the recent high spec "Myfords" a bit extraordinary.  By contrast, here in the UK, I have seen some s/h ,nice, power cross feed and gear-box examples tending to be sold more cheaply than used to be the case, particularly the "grey" era ones rather than the "green" ones.  If carefully used just by a model engineer from new ( like mine! ), their condition can be excellent and represent a good buy, particularly if they have good make, Burnerd, Pratt,  chucks and so on.  I suspect that the age profile of model engineers has released quite a few good examples in recent times....   Dave

Jo:
A bit of the early history:

Myford lathes were designed and built in an old Lacemaking factory in Nottingham. If you find an old Myford advert you will see it calls the factory building the "Neville Works":



Who was this "Neville" and how did the building end up as an engineering works?

Charles and William Neville were (machine) lacemakers who built themselves a substantial lacemaking factory in Beeston in 1880. Their aim with such a large building was to attract local Lacemakers as tenants as well as to house their own lacemaking activities. A recognisable feature of this building was the large windows and the lantern roof where the bobbins were wound. Power was supplied to the building by means of a boiler and steam engine, with the boiler also providing hot water to heat the building. The Lacemaking trade did well but over the interwar years lacemaking fell on hard times and the building was sublet to tenants of other trades.

Tennents began to include engineering companies which may well have been a result of Ralph Neville's (son of original builder) life-long interest in engineering and model engine making  8) Ralph would have clearly recognised that there was a need for a small inexpensive lathe for metal work and I wonder how much of an influence he had in what was to come  :thinking:. In 1934 Cecil Moore, who had himself worked as a lacemaker in his earlier years, started up the firm that was to eventually to take over the whole factory in the lantern space: Myford Engineering Limited. By the 1950's Myford was the sole occupier of the building and it was commonly known locally as the "Myford's Factory".

So why did someone with the name Moore call his company "Myford"? It was his grandmother's maiden name  ;)

Myford continued trading at the Beeston factory until 2011 when it was liquidated and the owners of RDG brought out the rights, spares and patterns for producing the lathes.


The beautiful Neville Lacemaking factory was recently demolished  >:( and is now another modern housing estate and the only clue to its former glory is the name of one of the roads  :'(

Jo

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