Scott's Atlas / Craftsman 101.07403 12x36" Lathe, modifications and projects. Stone Mountain, GA Unique Visitors:

This was a Craig's list deal I was lucky to stumble upon. Could have gone for over twice the price offered.

I wanted a lathe for R/C planes (modifying engines) and making parts for old bikes, mowers and cars. I find I have used it way more than I expected.

Now, I just need a decent millimg machine cheap and I'll be able to make about anything.

I get a lot of questions about "What is my lathe worth?" Really there are too many factors to give a good answer: condidtion, if it has all the gears, what accessories it comes with, options like QCTP, and included tooling. Where it is located is also a factor, some areas of the country have few used lathes while others have many.

This is my third lathe. I started with two smaller ones that were just too flimsy for my use. I use a lathe to make parts that are no longer available and modify things like turning chainsaw engines into R/C plane engines. I also make parts for riding lawnmowers, cars and motorcycles.

Came complete with stand, a complete set of gears, a milling attachment, a Phase II QC tool post with 5 holders, steady rest, dozens of tool bits including a 5-piece set of indexable carbide cutters, 2 drill chucks, 5" self-centering 3-jaw chuck, 6" 4-jaw independent chuck, 4 centers, collet chuck, ball-turning attachment, parts list, and Atlas Lathe Operations Manual.

Have spent weeks rummaging through the box of tooling. Some stuff I'll never figure out what it was for. Everything works. There was some slap in the spindle pulley, new bearings fixed that. The counter shaft has a bit of wobble. Made a new shaft.

I have cleaned it up a bit. All the Gibbs and bearings needed adjustment. I turned a new counter shaft as I did not have any 0.75" stock. That got rid of some of the wobble. The motor was shot with a bent shaft and decaying cloth-covered wires. I replaced it with a 3-phase motor and used a Variable Frequency Drive (see menu at top.) Now it is real smooth and quiet.

The counter shaft main pulley was way out of balance and wobbled. I had to bore it, re-sleeve and do all kinds of machining to get it near straight. See the Zamak Pulley Fix under Projects.

When I got it, it shook, rattled and made all kinds of noises. Now it is near silent and smooth. The VFD has made it nice to use. Bronze bushings and cleaning the gibbs/ways made the slides smoother. A new cross slide nut got rid of a lot of play. The cross and compound slides were real tight. I removed a layer of varnish from the surfaces an they work much easier. New bronze thrust washers on the feed screws allow the Gibbs to be tight and still move freely.

I have a pdf copy of the parts list for the lathe here.

The Atlas Lathe Operations Manual and Thread Tables book has errors in the metric thread tables. Here is a PDF of an updated thread supplement of the manual. It is for an Atlas 10" but is the same as the 12"..

You can contact me for more info at: