Stew’s Spot

A little bit of a departure from the usual electronics stuff. My Dad and I bought an old Myford Super 7 Lathe (Serial number SK68133) at an auction, we paid R1000 for it, quite a bargain actually.

We got the partially disasembled bed, a box full of the slides and parts, a nice sturdy stand/cabinet, a 3 Jaw self centering chuck and a 4 Jaw adjustable chuck. There was also an assortment of cutting bits and odds and ends. As you can see below the lathe was in bit of a bad shape, I believe it’s been sitting covered, but outside for over 10 years. Not sure about it’s history before that.

A little history about Myford and the Super 7 Lathe. You can read more at the Official Myford Website but basically… Myford Limited is based in Beeston, Nottinghamshire in the United Kingdom and notable for its production of metalworking lathes. The Super 7 was first introduced in 1953 and was an improvement on the companies existing ML7 model. In 1958, the Clutch was redesigned and this is the type we bought. The design hasn’t really changed since and the Super 7 was sold until 2006 when the ”Super 7 Sigma +”, “Super 7 +” and the “Super 7 Connoisseur” where introduced.

At first glances it looks terrible but after cleaning off the dirt, grime and rust, there was hope. Most of the parts still had a layer of old grease and that seems to have stopped most of the rusting. The machine has suffered some abuse (see the photos below) but on the whole there doesn’t seem to be too much ware and tear on the bearing, bushings etc. Even once the rust was cleaned off it turned out to be mostly of the surface variety. Above is what the Head Stock looked like before cleaning, there was some chunks of old concrete, lots of spider webs and a bit of rust on the Pulley Assembly. At least the gears where covered in oily grime and not rusted. The photos bellow are from the 17/53T Backgear Cluster(First) and the 28T/30T Tumbler gears(Second). I’m going to need to order replacements for these. Since the Super 7′s design almost remained unchanged for 50 years, there are replacement parts available for almost everything.

I think the damage to the Backgear Cluster was either from trying to cut to quickly or from trying to engage the gear without stopping the machine first. The Tumbler gears are part of the Thread cutting gearbox and this is almost certainly the result of someone trying to cut too much too quickly.

In the gallery below are some more shots of the Lathe and the bits and pieces that came with it.

Coming in Part II, I’ll cover the rebuilding of the Cabinet and the clean up of the Lathe.