That's a funny old boy but a nice looking example.

This is the machine that inspired J A Radford's elevating spindle and tailstock mod for his Myford.

Interestinglyt the one on Ebay seems to have a much higher standard of finish than the non-tarted up ones on Lathes.co.uk. Perhaps it was the demonstrator from MEX 1960 – which fits in with its purchase date!

Neil

Rare to see pics of ETW in action. Shows how (a) he was a big lad and (b) the Bormilathe wasn't – only 10" between centres is an odd choice for a maximum a 7" centre height.

I imagine anyone wanting to turn things up to 17" diameter would probably need to turn long things as well, unless they saw its market as complementing a second lathe of perhaps 4-5" centre height.

Neil

tsk tsk tsk

Well its sold now anyway, listing ended this morning around 0750, for the asking price.

Hi – long time no speak. Been busy with a load of other stuff. Still am, in fact.

But since I've had a Bormilathe for several years now, I can tell you a bit more about how it behaves – and with a few caveats, it's not as bad as you might think. Yes, I have it for reasons alluded to above – you can put flywheels on it, which I can't on the Kerry. Well not very big ones, anyway.

As far as rigidity goes, it's not bad – as long as you take a few precautions, primarily remembering to lock the vertical slide holding the headstock in place after you've moved it. If I put a dial guage (mounted on the milling table) on the inside of the spindle, I have to put one heck of a lot of force into the headstock before there's even a hint of movement on the dial – and this is a 0.0001" guage. Likewise, there's no perceptible run-out in the spindle either when you rotate it. The last job I used it for was as a horizontal mill, to cut a vee in a chunk of mild steel to use as a new base for a fixed steady for the Kerry. It didn't bat an eyelid. But there again, I've also reworked the cross-slide somewhat, which has also helped. So I'd say that yes, you can do serious work with it – as long as you have your eyes open.

And that's the thing really – not miraculous out of the box, but with some work it can be improved. It has some annoying features – like no means of controlling the motor. You plug it in, it runs. The backgear control leaves a little to be desired as well – not exactly positive in its operation. Drive to the leadscrew is 'fun' to set up, and non-reversible. Without a lot of work, it's not really going to be anybody's main lathe for long – that is, unless they've never met another lathe…

The temptation to spruce it up and put it on eBay is quite strong, if it fetches anything like £1,600. That is so much more than I paid for it!

I found this post interesting as the toolroom where I served my time in the early sixties had one of these and was used for small odd jobs. It always appeared to work fine. In the main works there were two Murad capstan lathes with speed change foot pedals and they were fine machines. If you look the Bormilllathe up on Tony Griffiths website towards the end there are some new photos of what appears to be the actual machine that is on Ebay, stating it is now in the states with the nephew of Mr Murad, either its not now for sale or he decided he wasn't going to buy it.

Barry

Okay, it’s about nine years since I posted above, and I have finally decided to part with my Bormilathe, because it’s had no use for ages. I find it rather hard to believe that it’s actually worth the £1,600 pounds that Mr Murad may or may not have paid for the one mentioned above, but I would like to know what others think its realistic value may be before advertising it anywhere (apart from sort-of on this thread, obvs!)

Unlike some, as well as the cross-slide, this example has the milling table and an arbor (not original, but works fine with it), and also a single-speed ‘Bronson’ motor. And I believe a complete set of change gears. What it doesn’t have is either a three or four jaw chuck, but it does have a set of Murad collets – this is how it came, and I only ever used it as a horizontal mill. Its cosmetic condition? Meh – it’s been stood around for quite a while but it would clean up fine, I think.

But I have no clue as to what it’s worth. Anyone got any idea at all? There appear to be none on sale anywhere, so there’s nothing I can find to compare it with, nor anything remotely like it. Thanks in advance for suggestions…

Thanks for replying, Dave.

Yes, it definitely is a bit of a ‘niche’ machine. It strikes me that for model engineers, at least, it might have the attraction of being able to swing a 13″ flywheel – I don’t know. There’s at least one Youtube video about modifying aspects of Bormilathes to make them more flexible, so it might make a project for somebody. Yes I could do with the space back, but it’s not an imminent problem, so I’ll pitch it a bit higher and see what happens, I think. Initially I’ll do some photos and stick it in the classifieds here.

Steve

They can’t have been too bad. Here is Edgar T Westbury himself using a Bormilathe. No idea of the story behind the pic. Randomly found it when looking up about his Phoenix model engine.

Couldn’t see it in the classifieds but there is an advert for sale on eBay from when Murad were at Queenborough.