Ebay item 300002193818

It's about par for the course, dealers charge up to the 3k5 mark for S7s= with=20 gearbox and power crossfeed in that apparent condition .

You'd pick up a similarly equipped Boxford for around half the price or l= ess and=20 have the benefit of a couple of extra inches of swing in a very similar=20 footprint. If you have a little bit more space then a new Warco 600 has = similar=20 capabilities for =A31500 ish.

Hth,

--=20 Boo

Seems like there is a newbie with no feedback and 29th June registration as the current high bidder, but apart from that it looks reasonably OK except for the prices, which do look OTT.

The other bidder that caught my eye was 'jcb3cx' who took the price up by over a grand, from a start of £999 to £2200, that looks a little foolish....

Peter

-- Peter A Forbes Prepair Ltd, Luton, UK snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk

Peter

jcb3cx only upped it to £1254 but each time would be beaten by millipatsyann's automatic bid. I suppose millipatsyann could be a real bidder and wants it bad or maybe an account set up by the seller who tries to sell it to the second highest bidder after the auction closes.

Archie

I didn't look at the date and time of the bids, so my interpretation may have been flawed... :-))

Peter

-- Peter A Forbes Prepair Ltd, Luton, UK snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk

Have to agree the price looks very high at £2550.22 for a late'ish good condition S7.

So for the same money what could you buy now?

Looking in the Warco catalog the prices including vat for, a BH600 6" centre hieght 20" between Centres is £1600 a 1224 same size but geared head at £1850 and a GH1322 geared head and slightly bigger at £2550

These are V bed machines with 1"+ spidle bore, and come with qc gearbox for met/imperial threading 3&4 jaw chucks, faceplate etc delivered, and 12 months warranty.

For that money I would at least have a look at the Warco machines.

Mike

Depends entirely what you compare it with, have a look at Myford's prices for "pre-used" and it looks an absolute bargin (for a Myford). Look at a slightly older and a bit more "used" looking machine from a private seller and it looks a tad expensive. I'm afraid that there are plenty of people out there who want a Myford in that apparent condition and who don't have too much of an issue with the budget. I know it's hard to believe but there are also sellers who bid on their own machines to increase the price and catch the unwary, unfortunately you only know after the auction has finished. Look how many are re-listed due to "time wasters". In my case I paid a fraction of that for an older much more tatty, but I suspect equally as accurate machine.

I can't argue the Warco route many find the attractions of a "known" condition less risky than the secondhand market.

Best regards

Keith

It isn't a Myford that you need, you need a decent lathe at a fair price and that's never a Myford!. Of course you might WANT a Myford but that's a very different thing...

I'm probably going to get roasted for saying this as some seem to think the sun shines out them, but Myfords are average lathes at very inflated prices, always have been and apparently always will be. If you want to buy second hand go for a Boxford, the market is flooded with ones that were chucked out of schools now that our kids aren't allowed near a sharp pencil!, they're a better lathe at a much lower price, I paid £400 for a virtually unused AUD with lots of bits including an unopened brand new 3 jaw. If you want to buy new there are loads of them around, others here will surely advise on them from experience.

Greg

For that money you could buy this

though in reality they're unlikely to get that price even though it's streets ahead of anything mentioned so far.

Cheers Tim. Dutton Dry-Dock Traditional & Modern canal craft repairs Vintage diesel engine service

That is one very nice piece of kit. If one is looking for a medium sized lathe, has the money, trailer and forklift or gantry crane then a £1500 offer would be well worth a punt.

Mark Rand RTFM

i think personally that this myford will be worth every penny

especially in this condition, who ever is the winner for thi particular machine will have a bargain and good on him! i wish i ha the lolly to splash out on it! ,,ahh well i can only dream!

-- blueswar

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Tim, you have saved me much blithering, I started to write a post talking about market position, horses for courses etc but you have made the point more eloquently. The truth is that within most home workshops we operate very much at the lower end of the machine tool market and for the money we pay get some excellent kit really.

Some 35 years ago when we were buying machines for a large aerospace facility we always included the tradesmen in the purchase specification discussions. I can assure you we didn't buy many Myfords, Boxfords, Warcos etc or Colchesters for that matter other than for the training school (Colchesters). We did however have a number of CVAs, DSGs and smaller manual Schaublins and Harrisons were popular in the maintenance areas. Believe it or not it was difficult to get them to replace these well used machines with "modern crap" and most years the "replacement budget" went on other things. The discussion always included names like Hardinge, Holbrook etc but even then some of these names were/had faded away and more than once an old machine was re-built rather than replaced with a "cheap new machine" - things don't change much. For some reason (I don't understand but then I didn't use them) their preferred manual mill was Huron with Bridgeports for the training centre. A bit later the introduction of CNC was a real help in getting the machine stock updated and for these early 3/5 axis machines Huron and Mikron were popular. Of course this wasn't a real production shop more of a jobbing shop and so we had few automatics other than Traubs. For grinding and jig boring the money went to Swiss companies. If we are honest the cost of some of the early CNCs would equate to a lottery win today.

The really sad fact is that many of these superb machines went initially to India or later to the scrap man. If they had survived they would still out perform almost any lathe mentioned on this forum. Then again you would not want to fund the purchase of any spare parts or accessories for them in the rare event they were needed. Most bits at the time seemed to cost the same as a small house. I also couldn't house one in my small workshop unless it was the only machine.

I think it's important to remember that =A3400/600, =A33,000/4,000 or even =A330,000/40.000 is not going to buy the best lathe available, merely the best we can afford and hopefully the one that suits us best. I smile when I see "the XXX is the best lathe" because what's best for you is not necessarily best for me. I've come to the conclusion that the best machine is usually the one that you want, and if it's not you've only yourself to blame.

There you go Tim I've blithered on anyway but I think you make a very good point, Myford, Boxford, Warco etc etc they are all best for somebody. Particularly if you WANT one.

Regards

Keith

I think we have to take a step back and look further here. Myfords came to the fore in the 50's and 60's really after the introduction of the 7 series just after the war. The pumped many into training establishment and schools which is where many of us got to see and use them. At this point in time there were some lesser and many greater machines. The lesser ones were usually very crude like the Winfield, Adapt etc, the better ones, Boxford, Raglan, Harrison and Colchester were better and so far more money.

In the early days Myfords were affordable, sold well and most importantly had a very comprehensive range of attachments. Remember this is the time when people were still short of money and space. A lathe was probably the only machine in the shop except a drill and it had to do everything. Thinking back to when I bought my ML7 back in 1969 it came as standard lathe at 99 pounds, the addition of a motor, 3 and 4 jaw chucks and a tailstock chuck took this to £149. My wage at that time was £25 per week before stoppages.

At that time I knew no one who owned a milling machine in a home shop.

The Myford fitted the gap perfectly and because of this many articles were written about it, many further attachments made and so it got maximum publicity which in turn spun on further sales.

Now we move to later, people were more affluent and our needs changed, what was at one time a luxury was now a necessity and people looked further ahead, easy credit also helped.

At this point Myfords held the name and position in the small lathes, in fact they were virtually the only one with all the cheap 'junk' going to the wall and others like Raglan being bought out by Myford and closed down. Then the imports started arriving from Taiwan and what a load of junk these were. Cheap but rubbish and we had two camps, the purist who wanted everything right and the financially impaired who wanted a bargain. This argument rode on for years but slowly the far east quality changed as Myfords prices rose.

However once won the reputation held and as their prices rose so did the secondhand prices.

Unfortunately though for western industry the money men set eyes on the far east. They realised they could get far better ROI over there than here so billions of pounds / dollars were pumped into Taiwan and China allowing then to buy state of the art machines that we have never seen. Myfords bed are ground on the same machine that ground mine back in

1969 but it's now 40 years older and has 40 years more wear on it.

The bed on that new Chinese lathe you see today has been ground on a one year old Swiss grinder working to microns.

So on one hand you have what's called the cheap imports and you have the expensive Myford's but that's only price, quality might suffer as in one quick coat of paint but you don't make anything with paint.

When you get down to accuracy and build many out there are in front of the Myford.

And you get choice, that much it's hard but you can get very close to what you want because they do listen. What's the biggest gripe with a Myford ? , the spindle nose and has been for years.

9/16" thu, even the smaller imports have a usable size like 3/4", most clearing 1" What was Myfords answer to this? Fit a stupid non standard mounting and open up the bore, 30 years too late and up the price by more than an import machine.

So you have to ask two questions.

What would you have bought 40 years ago

and

What would you buy today

-- Regards,

John Stevenson Nottingham, England.

Visit the new Model Engineering adverts page at:-

John, I can't add much to your excellent analysis other than to say I think the most indicative illustration of whats happening is their reduction in workforce from a large one servicing education/industry to a tiny one servicing ageing enthusiasts like myself who were as you point out "brought up" on Myfords. I can't really see how the investors would have made any other decision. I suppose my question would be "how long can this last" and possibly more relevant is "what will happen when the Chinese have filled the black hole for cheap machines and realise that for 10% more in production costs they could ask and get

50%+ more for their machines. How many British names are their on the new HNC milling machines or the latest grinders. It's also interesting to me to see just how many enthusiasts now joining our ranks are moaning about only finding "imperial" machines.

To be honest I believe that this influx of accurate, affordable machines is the best thing that has happened to the cause of "home shop machinests". Without it we would be a rapidly reducing number of extroverts with strange habits.

Regards

Keith

At Harrogate there was a Boxford next to a Myford, in similar condition. If you are trying to sell a Myford, why put it next to a decent AUD at a lower price?

Steve

the better ones, Boxford, Raglan, Harrison and Colchester were better and so far more money.

What makes the Boxfords etc better than the Myfords? Made to bette tolerances? More capable? It's all very confusing to a newcomer!

Brenda

-- anotheri

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Bigger all round.

Boxfords were more of a small production lathe than Myfords IMO., but their early pricing made them look relatively expensive.

Best value for money are the Raglans, Littlejohn or 5". Peter

-- Peter A Forbes Prepair Ltd, Luton, UK snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk

Now that would be nice. Pity I haven't the money!

Charles

...and Boxford went all out for the education market. They now provide a range of CNC kit that can be found in schools up and down the land as well as abroad. Their V10 software is intuitive and streets ahead any competitors offerings. Whilst they still support the older machines with spares their days of consciously selling to 'our' market are long gone.

As a sign of the times - the latest must have kit for schools are laser cutters - and while Boxford still make the machine tools they sell their laser is a badged import.

John

(Escaped D&T teacher)