I am about to purcahse an atlas lathe in relatively good condition. Iwork at a machine shop and one of the older gentleman that works therementioned htat he had a lathe just sitting around and he wanted to getrid of it. So i went to look at it the other day.... heres the story.He got it from someone in the city that barely used it about 15 yearsago, he never set it up and never used it. He oiled it, and covered itand let it sit in a friends garage where they did body work on cars.2 years ago he had to move it, so it ended up in his yard (yes in hisyard) under a tarp with the chip pan over it to keep out the rain.This concerned me at first but i thought what the hell, its worthlooking at...I got there, and we tramped through the grass to where it was sitting,pulled off the blue tarp ( in decent shape) and pulled off the canvasover it, the chip pan and etc. To my surprise it was in relativelygood shape for sitting outside. IT was an atlas 10" with thequickchange gearbox and tapered roller bearings. dont know the serialnumber cause i forgot to look. Having been oiled and put in a shop,the dust had adhered to the oil, and hardened to the consistancy of alatex paint or a cosmoline type coating. I took my fingernail andscraped it away and underneath the ways were shiny and smothe!!!There was some surface rust on the chuck, the original toolpost,tailstock and the chuck in the tailstock. had a piece of scotch-brite with me and it took care of it with no problem. The crossslidewas free and easy to turn, no noticeable backlash, the saddle was freebuti didnt want to move it too much.... crabbed the chuck and shook itas hard as i could to see if there was any play, there was none,spindle spun free, all gears looked good, well greased and intact, thespindle was shiny with no rust.He then took me to the garage (filled with crap as many machinstsgarages are, with no room for the poor lathe) and he had boxes ofstuff for it, including an extra 3 jaw, 4 jaw 2 faceplates,...

You better hurry and buy that thing or someone else will.... Theattachments and accessories are worth more than the proce you arepaying. John

I agree, you got a bargain.I'd have been all over that, and I don't need another lathe.Shane Wolfe wrote:

10" Atlas lathe purchase trash/treasure?

Jun 04, 2007 21 Replies

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Don't sweat the gears, just keep 'em oiled. Only thing I'd think twice about is whether it has a Timken roller bearings vs babbit and whether or not it has a QC gearbox.

Probably the BIGGEST question in my mind on a used lathe is the accuracy of the 3 jaw chuck. If you get the thing going and find that you can't chuck things reliably centered, be prepared to spend the money and get a set-true chuck. I bought my 10" Atlas lathe for $125 used in 1972 and, finally, 20+ years later, spent about $400 on a 6" set-true chuck with back plate. Well worth it.

Pete Stanaitis

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Shane Wolfe wrote:

10" Atlas lathe purchase trash/treasure?

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