SightlessSeer
Ultra Member
I got the major motions of the lathe working (made a new gib and enough gib screws to get the carriage and half nut setup and working reasonably well), but with the spindle torn down I decided that there wasn't enough of the thread at the back of the spindle for me to trust it to tension the bearings. That leaves me with a couple options. 1) buy a new spindle and plain bearing set and put it back to the original setup 2) make a new spindle and go ahead with my plan to use tapered roller bearings 3) make a new spindle and cast a set of Babbitt bearings.
At that point of I put it on the backburner and spent most of my free time making tooling and accessories my mill and trading up to a bigger lathe and getting that working. In the meantime I was given another ML7 from my uncle's neighbor. That one is complete and more or less unmolested. He had it sitting in a wood shed (roof, but no walls) for about 10 years after he got it from another neighbor. In spite of that, it had surprisingly little rust. The worst was a small patch at the tailstock end of the bed, but a razor blade and precision flat stone make quick work of that. As to actual issues with ML7 no.2, the gibs had been over tightened and then somebody had tried to move the slides and unscrewed the handles. After a little bit of re-adjustment it was ready to use. I've got it setup as my indoor lathe now and that really took the wind out of the sails of this project.
I looked into a new spindle and bearings from Myford, and they're available, but were going to be a couple hundred dollars and I wasn't ready to double the investment into the lathe to have a redundant lathe. The other two options both sound like the would be fun to do, but they'd still take a decent investment of materials and time and I have other things that I want to make first.
If somebody is interested in taking on the project or just having it for parts I'm open to offers, but otherwise, I'll probably do something with it at some point. I've dabbled with the idea of turning it into a horizontal milling cutter grinder by pairing it with a tool post grinder, but so far it's just been sitting in my basement.
These aren't the best pictures of the new machine, but they're what I already have on my phone. I've been slowly acquiring tooling for this lathe as well. I'm up to most of a set of change gears, an ebay special dickson style quick change tool post, steady rest and follow rest, a 4" 3 jaw with only inside jaws, a 5" 3 jaw with only outside jaws, a 4" 4 jaw that I haven't made a backplate for yet, and a cast iron back plate that I haven't started the machining.
As is, I've got a nice, usable Myford setup.
At that point of I put it on the backburner and spent most of my free time making tooling and accessories my mill and trading up to a bigger lathe and getting that working. In the meantime I was given another ML7 from my uncle's neighbor. That one is complete and more or less unmolested. He had it sitting in a wood shed (roof, but no walls) for about 10 years after he got it from another neighbor. In spite of that, it had surprisingly little rust. The worst was a small patch at the tailstock end of the bed, but a razor blade and precision flat stone make quick work of that. As to actual issues with ML7 no.2, the gibs had been over tightened and then somebody had tried to move the slides and unscrewed the handles. After a little bit of re-adjustment it was ready to use. I've got it setup as my indoor lathe now and that really took the wind out of the sails of this project.
I looked into a new spindle and bearings from Myford, and they're available, but were going to be a couple hundred dollars and I wasn't ready to double the investment into the lathe to have a redundant lathe. The other two options both sound like the would be fun to do, but they'd still take a decent investment of materials and time and I have other things that I want to make first.
If somebody is interested in taking on the project or just having it for parts I'm open to offers, but otherwise, I'll probably do something with it at some point. I've dabbled with the idea of turning it into a horizontal milling cutter grinder by pairing it with a tool post grinder, but so far it's just been sitting in my basement.
These aren't the best pictures of the new machine, but they're what I already have on my phone. I've been slowly acquiring tooling for this lathe as well. I'm up to most of a set of change gears, an ebay special dickson style quick change tool post, steady rest and follow rest, a 4" 3 jaw with only inside jaws, a 5" 3 jaw with only outside jaws, a 4" 4 jaw that I haven't made a backplate for yet, and a cast iron back plate that I haven't started the machining.
As is, I've got a nice, usable Myford setup.
