OP
VolksWomble
Well-known member
partly as a break, partly waiting for parts and partly because I’m incapable of finishing something before starting several new things, I decided to have a bit of a move around under the mezzanine so I could get my lathe setup - even if its only temporary till I get the area walled in
I’ve been wanting to get this sorted for some while, and having seen @SilverJimmy’s new lathe on his thread spurred me on. Like Sterling, I also praise the use of the pallet jack, and nearly everything I had to move was on a pallet or on wheels!
Here’s the lathe still in its pallet wrap from when I packed up my old home machine shop in November 2022 - doesn’t seem like nearly 3 years ago… but I keep having quick jobs to do where having it setup would be useful!
It also looks rather tiny in the barn… in my old shop (2/3 of a U.K. single garage) it seemed big…
That’s a picture from 2012 when I was setting up the previous shop, and before I squeezed the larger mill in the corner too…
Anyway, under all the pallet wrap is a Myford 254plus lathe which was developed as an improvement over the venerable 7 series lathes during the late 1980s. Because of the quality of the lathe and the U.K. based manufacture it ended up being horrendously expensive to buy new, and didn’t sell all that well, eventually leading to Myford’s collapse. They still change hands for very serious money - although true to form, those one came from the scrapyard for about 10% of what a dealer would be asking…
The pallet wrap seems to have done it’s job, and there was no rust anywhere despite 3 years sitting in various different sheds around southern England. After getting it into place I attacked all the bright metal with some very fine scotchbrite and wd40 just to clean up the residue from the oil that I had covered it in before wrapping…
I still need to level it properly, but in the interests of starting more projects (!) I have decided to try and fit the digital readout kit I bought for it 5 years ago… it never got fitted before as you need access to the back of the bed, which means moving and re-levelling it, so now seems like the perfect time to start that too…
I’ve been wanting to get this sorted for some while, and having seen @SilverJimmy’s new lathe on his thread spurred me on. Like Sterling, I also praise the use of the pallet jack, and nearly everything I had to move was on a pallet or on wheels!
Here’s the lathe still in its pallet wrap from when I packed up my old home machine shop in November 2022 - doesn’t seem like nearly 3 years ago… but I keep having quick jobs to do where having it setup would be useful!
It also looks rather tiny in the barn… in my old shop (2/3 of a U.K. single garage) it seemed big…
That’s a picture from 2012 when I was setting up the previous shop, and before I squeezed the larger mill in the corner too…
Anyway, under all the pallet wrap is a Myford 254plus lathe which was developed as an improvement over the venerable 7 series lathes during the late 1980s. Because of the quality of the lathe and the U.K. based manufacture it ended up being horrendously expensive to buy new, and didn’t sell all that well, eventually leading to Myford’s collapse. They still change hands for very serious money - although true to form, those one came from the scrapyard for about 10% of what a dealer would be asking…
The pallet wrap seems to have done it’s job, and there was no rust anywhere despite 3 years sitting in various different sheds around southern England. After getting it into place I attacked all the bright metal with some very fine scotchbrite and wd40 just to clean up the residue from the oil that I had covered it in before wrapping…
I still need to level it properly, but in the interests of starting more projects (!) I have decided to try and fit the digital readout kit I bought for it 5 years ago… it never got fitted before as you need access to the back of the bed, which means moving and re-levelling it, so now seems like the perfect time to start that too…
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