machin gearbox by hemingway kits

[dampy]

Hi, My first post on here, I would like a gearbox for my super 7, the cheapest alternative rather than a second hand myford box seems to be the machin kit from hemingway kits, has anyone built or had any experience with this type of box?

 

[rake60]

Welcome to HMEM dampy

Rick

 

[wareagle]

Dampy, welcome to HMEM! We are glad you joined! Make yourself at home.

 

[Loose nut]

Hemingway may give you "testimonials" from people who have bought them, but not likely there address's, but you can ask. Customers are the only ones who know for sure.

 

[John S]

Bill,
Not built one but I have the drawings somewhere.
One thing that put me off was you need a set of jigs that cost as much as the gearbox castings and when finished they are of no other use.
You would have thought they would hire these out ?

The Machin design was based on an earlier design by Abigail ? and was serialised in Model Engineers.
This was a built up design but with less features than the Machin one.
Edit was serialised in 1980, volume 146 issue 3633, 3635,3638

I did make a start many years ago to make a built up one based on the Machin and a few designs of my own to build in metric but got so far and gave up as time was needed on other more pressing things.

I later bought a S/H box and fitted that to my ML7 but in hindsight it was the worse thing I did [ well one of them ]
I know changing gears is a pain but unless everything you want is in that box than changing the Myford screw cutting box over is a bigger and more expensive pain.

Changing from normal to metric means a swap of not only a couple of gears but the whole lot and brackets, same when you go back.

Specials like threads that match DP gears to run as worms are even harder, you need all your 'manual' gears, a screw cutting box with drive train and a metric drive train if you need full use.

Just done a search and there was a series of 15 articles by David Machin on the built up of the Hemingway kit.
Started in the latter half of 1991, volume 167 at issue 3911 and ran every odd number until the later half of 1992, volume 169 issue 3939

 

[dampy]

firstly Thanks for the replies and the warm welcomes, think I will take my trusted friend John's advice and stay with the change wheels for now or untill I get a myford gearbox.

I have some interesting project builds on at the moment and I'll post some pictures as I progress with them.

bill