I went through the same line of thinking as yourself a few years ago and in the end I decided to use the proper Myford items.

To mount a Super 7 on any stand properly also means that you need to buy a drip tray and raising blocks.

I bided my time and found a really nice used cabinet stand on eBay for £100 which I collected from north London. I then bought a second-hand pair of proper Nottingham Myford raising blocks from an independent Myford parts dealer for £40 plus postage.

Finding a second-hand drip tray defeated me so I bought a new one from Myford (Nottingham) for £100 including carriage.

So the whole job cost me £240+ a bit of petrol which I think was quite reasonable. The Warco one you suggest costs £180 + £40 carriage and then you will still need the drip tray & raising blocks.

I came to the conclusion there is no very cheap way to provide a proper stand etc. for a Super 7.

I made my stand out of 2½" angle iron bolted together I bought raising blocks and drip tray but it must be over 40 years ago so I can't remember the price I also put a couple of shelves under it too

Roy

Colin,

I have not bolted the Myford cabinet down as yet. As you say there is a bit of an overhang at the back, about “half” the motor if you know what I mean, however the rest of the lathe is very heavy and its mass is inside the baseline of the cabinet.

Obviously the thing is top heavy and could fall over if pushed hard enough. I store various chucks, steadies, angle plates etc. in the cabinet which makes it quite stable.

There is a less obvious advantage in bolting it down to a solid floor as it stiffens up the cabinet which helps when the adjusting screws within the raising blocks are used to “level” the lathe in order to get it turn parallel by taking any twist out of the assembly see pages 13 &14 of the handbook. This only works properly if the top surface of the cabinet is stiffer than the lathe bed.

I will eventually bolt my lathe down when I have finalised its position meanwhile, in my small workshop it cannot possibly fall backwards very far as it is very close to the milling machine!

Best regards

Eric

I bought a Warco stand for a WM180 lathe. It's OK, but no more than that. Big cupboards with only one shelf halfway up aren't that much use for storing tooling etc. I would have been better off with a substantial (not chipboard or MDF) old chest of drawers wth a beefed-up top.

Andy

Best lathe stand I ever saw was home made.

Guy built two "towers" one each end out of 4" box section steel, open end facing you, 4 sections wide and 7 ?sections high.

In between these at 4" off the floor and 12" ? were two steel shelves for chucks etc.

The 50 odd pieces of open ended box section was used for storing metal stock.

Hi John F – Think you have got John S's Stand a bit wrong – Think he means the 4×4 are placed horizontal in a fashon that would resemble a bottle store as looked at the front – 2×2 built up in this fashion would mean a lot of extra steel

Mikeb

I made my lathe bench from 2"x 2" x 1/4" angle iron, the bolt down possitions foe the lathe are 4" x 4" x 3/8" channel, the whole lot welded. The angle iron was all cut by hand hacksaw, and stuck together with a borrowed welder.

A drip tray should not be too hard to make. Ian S C

Colin,

I had thought of using an ML8 stand for an ML7, they are the same depth front to back, but the ML8 is longer by at least 6" I think. I ended up with a home-buiilt stand/cupboard made for an ML8, and that is 46" long.

The builder may have used the same dimensions as the "proper" stand.

The ML8 is of course an underdrive lathe, so one end is full of motor mountings. A bit of re-engineering may be needed to ensure the lathe supports/bolt holes are in the correct place. The standard ML8 was 30" between centres, (10" more than the Myford 7 series 20" but there were longer versions ( extra bed lengths were available so it could be made up to 4' plus between centres). I think the cabinet stand was only produced for the standard 30" lathe.

It would be too long for a standard drip tray to fit neatly, it would have to be toward one end, because of the drain plug – but this of course could go down inside the stand if necessary.

Think the standard drip tray is 39" along the flat bit.

The metal lathes tend to have their mounting bolts at the inboard end of the headstock, the wood lathes at the outer ends.

Phil

I can't edit out that bloody smiley, wherever it came from!!!!!!

Edited By Robbo on 06/05/2013 14:22:14

Edited By Robbo on 06/05/2013 14:23:07

Alejandro

I have sent you a PM.

JA