Estimated value of restored lathes

[harmond94Participant @harmond94]

Hi, this might be a bit of a random question, but i wanted to get the valuble opinions of hobby machinists such as yourselves.

what kind of price tag would you attatch to a well restored example (bed and all ways ground, new spindle & bearings, new leadscrews/nuts & dials, motor & belts, repainted and mounted on a good sturdy cab) ML7? Super 7? and any other models ?

any info/opinions would be greatly appreciated 🙂

P.S. – i am a passionate machinist who has restored a a few lathes since my teenage and am thinking of trying to make an honest (if quite small) living out of somthing i love.

many thanks,

H

 

[Tony Pratt 1Participant @tonypratt1]

I always recommend looking on eBay [advanced search, filter to sold] and lathes UK to see what people are actually paying atm for Myfords.

Tony

[Mike FreemanParticipant @mikefreeman95253]

People seem to price them based on what others are listing them for rather than what they are actually selling for.

 

[Martin KyteParticipant @martinkyte99762]

Myford are selling refurbished Super 7’s for £4,166 so I guess that is the benchmark price. Bearing in mind they also offer part-exchange so unless you are prepared to do likewise it queers your pitch somewhat.

Nice to see someone up for resurrecting old machines rather than parting out for spares though.

regards Martin

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Probably a high proportion of Myfords less than 40 yrs old had very little use. The biggest problem is more often damp workshops or getting forgotten after the owner got sick.
So there are plenty of Myfords that the clean and paint brigade have ‘restored’.
None of the lesser known makes, even Drummond, are worth regrinding unless you have the machine in house (most were planed when made not ground anyway).
That leaves only Colchester and Harrison that have a name and would be desirable enough to warrant a regrind if they are one of the sorry ex industrial ones one sees on ebay. Then only if the rest is ok and somehow the bearings survived the neglect that stuffed the bed. And I’m only talking about the newer 600 group square head ones.

Finding buyers without the exposure profile of a business is another problem. For anything that won’t fit in the back of an estate car one of the most advantageous things you can do is sort out the delivery up front not leave it as a hidden extra cost and problem.

[Frank GorseParticipant @frankgorse]

If you have the equipment and skills to regrind beds you may be better off doing that for owners on their own machines. That way you do the job for an agreed price and get paid at the end. Otherwise you could invest a lot of time and money and not be able to get it back,or not for a long time.

 

[Speedy Builder5Participant @speedybuilder5]

you could perhaps restore a “popular” (used advisably) lathe, and offer it in part exchange for a similar model in need of restoration.

It would mean that a current owner could have a re-furbished machine quickly instead of you having to rush a re-furbishment for a customer.

Bob

[CirclipParticipant @circlip]

Don’t give up the day job.

Regards  Ian.

[mgnbukParticipant @mgnbuk]

Rather than trying to aim for a selling price, come at this from the other direction to work out if the numbers add up.

You say you have restored a number of lathes, so you should have a rough idea of the number of hours work involved to strip, clean, re-machine, refit, repaint & rewire a small lathe – multiply that by the hourly rate you would be happy to work for to get a labour cost. Certain parts could be viewed as “replaced as the default position” such as standard size bearings, belts and the electrical control equipment – relatively easy to cost. Paint & painting materials always suprise me WRT cost these days. Then you are into the unknowns – are any MTB specific parts likely to be required ? If so are they available & at what cost – Myford parts are no longer as cheap as they were when Myford were in Beeston & availability seems a lot worse. Is the chuck salvageable or would a replacement be required ? Is the motor still servicable or is a replacement required ? Will you offer any form of warranty ? Any overhead costs to cover ? Add it all up to get an idea of where you stand.

Then go on Ebay and look up “items that sold” for the machines you have in mind. Lowest prices most likely the “well used” types you might reasonably look to buy to do up. Highest prices for the nice examples to give you an idea of what the market values a machine like your refurbished one at. If the difference between low & high prices is less than your projected costs to make the job worthwhile, don’t bother !

If you have suitable machinery (large enough surface grinder to do Myfords particularly) then I would second the idea of offering a bed & saddle regrinding service. More likely require a small planer to do “soft top” inverted vee beds like Boxfords, with a grinding attachment to hardened inverted vee beds. Most commercial grinding shops seem to either not want to do small machines or the pricing at industrial levels is out of reach of hobbyists pockets, so the ability to offer a cost effective limited service to the hobbyist would appear to give you an open market. Most hobbyists could do the stripping, cleaning, repainting etc. and effectively rate their time at no cost, but would struggle to do the “difficult” bit of re-machining the bed & saddle. So make money on the bit that prospective customers struggle to do without investing your time in doing what they can undercut you on. Both Boxford and Myford used to offer such a service, but both are long gone now.

I worked for a company that rebuilt & retrofitted CNC machines for over 25 years & it was increasingly difficult to be competitive. Eventually we only worked on big stuff – vertical borers particularly, with the odd floor borer, heavy duty lathe or special purpose machine – where the cost of new machines was still a lot higher than a rebuild + we could rebuild one in a shorter time than the lead time on a new build. As the cost of smaller machines fell it was usually cheaper to buy a new machine than rebuild or retrofit and older one.

There is a reason there doesn’t appear to be much activity in this sector ! When reasonable quality, fully equipped hobby sized lathes can be bought from suppliers of Chinese equipment for £2k or so upwards, that is were the main competition will come from.

NIgel B.

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