Rebuilding(?) a worn out lathe.

[earlgo]

After all the time spent on rebuilding, repairing, replacing parts on a worn out Atlas lathe, I have come to the conclusion that Harold and others are absolutely right. If you start out with a worn out lathe, you still have one after all the lipstick is lovingly applied.
So far, here are the operations:
clean out the accumulation of chips and hard grease
clean out the lube holes in the headstock bearing mounts
replace the cross feed nut
replace compound screw and nut
replace the half nuts
scrape the bottom of the carriage to some approximation of fitting
reset the carriage shims
scrape/stone the bed ways
replace the carriage wipers
purchase new 20 tooth gears for the gear train
replace all the bolting that holds the lathe together and to the stand
replace the headstock spindle and bearings
regrind the 3 jaw chuck jaws to concentricity
replace the lantern tool holder with a better tool post
Fortunately there was not any rust on this anywhere.

After all this I still have a worn out lathe that will never perform as new, and since it is a 12" ATLAS, never perform as a good rigid lathe should. Although I have had a lot of 'fun' doing this and learned a lot of processes that I would never have done before, I didn't spend that time doing projects.
Oh, and there is the tailstock not pointing at the spindle axis yet to deal with. Crap in, crap out.
Where is the reset button?

--earlgo

[John Evans]

A hard earned lesson I would say.

[SteveHGraham]

Cheer up. Now it's a wood lathe.

[NP317]

Cheer up. Now it's a wood lathe.

Brutal!
~RN

[SteveHGraham]

I thought that was encouragement, but maybe I need to go back and try again.

[ctwo]

I suspect my Jet will be less than perfect too. But I expect I will either learn to make it work for me or I will simply learn a lesson.

[Harold_V]

I read the post with considerable interest. It's refreshing to read comments of those who have "been there, done that", and understand the reality of machine tools.

It's hard for the novice to understand the mindset I posses----but the lesson is quickly learned when a "restored" machine is put to work. It's either restored, or it isn't. If it's restored, it will become a trusted and useful machine, much like the little Gorton 8-D mill was that I personally witnessed being "restored". It was NOT painted, so it still looked like crap, but, oh! What a wonderful machine it became.

The machine was fully dismantled, scraped on EVERY functional surface by a skilled and talented individual (no, it wasn't me, as I don't fit that description), with new screws and nuts installed. The machine was so accurate that an eight cavity ball mold was built, trusting only the screws. The cavities aligned perfectly, yielding nice 9/32" lead balls, used for loading goose loads for my 20 gauge shotgun. Thanks, Sperry Utah, for your contribution to my home project. It was (and is, still) very much appreciated.

The big problem with many "restorations" is the attention paid to cosmetics, while the things that really matter are ignored.

It's simple. One must start with a machine worthy of the extensive investment of time and money, then the effort expended must be well directed, paying attention to the things that make a machine tool what it's supposed to be---a precision instrument.

No amount of effort and money will convert a sow's ear to a silk purse. It you put lipstick on a pig, that's what you get. A pig with lipstick. It does not become a beautiful fashion model.

Harold

[John Hasler]

Harold writes:
> No amount of effort and money will convert a sow's ear to a silk purse.

No, but you might be able to make it into a useful little pouch for storing small change. Sometimes that's what is needed.

[earlgo]

If I weren't well past my allotted 3 score and 10, I would part this ATLAS out and buy a better lathe, but why bother when either the ATLAS or a replacement will go for $0.10/# after I am sent to the OF storage unit.

To SteveHGraham, it does work for a wood lathe, but not as well as a real wood lathe. Again, close but not even cigar ashes.

It does work better than it did, however, so some progress was made.

--earlgo

[SteveM]

I looked at parting out my 1952 Atlas 12x36 and was shocked at how much I could get. Probably double what I could get for the lathe intact.

Heck, the legs can go for $300-$400, and they aren't Betty Grable's legs.

I have a problem with parting out a working machine, so I will be selling it whole as soon as I can find a replacement.

If yours is so worn as to be a problem machine, parting it may not be a bad idea.

Steve

[SteveM]

I replied to a craigslist ad for someone selling a bunch of lathes. One was a Heavy 10 cabinet model.

The ridge on the bed could be measured with a good Starrett ruler. The apron on one machine was broken, parts were missing.

If I needed a cheap beater for roughing, one of those machine might have been worth it, but they were asking prices that would have been normal for a functioning lathe.

I figured with all the work I could put into that H-10, it still would be "the lathe that couldn't shoot straight".

Steve

[pete]

Maybe too many on YouTube and hobby type forums sling that restored, rebuilt, or reconditioned term around. I understand what's meant. But a read through the Connelly book about machine tool reconditioning and spending the time to hunt down the Dr. Georg Schlesingers online PDF about proper machine tool testing will certainly swing anyone's opinions towards what Harold had to say. It's a huge amount of work, time, and expense to do it right depending on how bad the machine is and whether you understand enough to scrape a machine in while keeping everything in the correct alignment in 3 dimensions or you have to pay for that work. Even worse though is all the threads and videos out there advocating "lapping"' a machine in. For a bottom of the barrel as cheap as possible Chinese mini lathe it makes the machine smoother so the practitioners think there doing something correct. But there's zero control over where and how much metal is being removed. You can and likely will make the machine looser and even cause it to start facing convex when it should be either very slightly concave or very close to flat. That lapping idea for machine tools stops at my shop door. Even with what you did Earlgo you still made some definate improvements so the machine is a lot nicer to use and better and probably more accurate in every way. Certainly not a waste of time in my opinion. Yes the slides and bed might not be perfect, but even with that you can't hope to compensate for a machine's inaccuracy's unless you know where and what needs to be compensated for. Who knows, you may one day decide to have the bed and slides at least reground. My guess is that's as far as Atlas went anyways. Both my little South Bend shaper and the Atlas horizontal show grinding with nary a sign of even oil retention flaking anywhere. And if you don't have the parts reground you learned far more than you would have not doing it. So with everything you did I'd say yours is still a lot closer to being restored than not.

Proper 100% back to new machine specifications is a slippery slope though. The more you know and learn the less satisfied you are with good enough. My equipment sure seemed a lot better when I knew less. I had a brand new Seig C6 that I'm willing to bet was far more inaccurate and poorly aligned than your "worn out" Atlas is right now. That lathe was a lot more expensive lesson than yours was. I ended up "rebuilding" it with a lot better machine that came with a proper and honest test certificate since I can't fix light weight castings that were made from something that resembled cast iron with nicely disguised bondoed blow holes.