A Micrometer Carriage Stop for the Atlas Lathe, with drawings

[Tom Griffin]

My dad got an Atlas lathe a few years back which made Christmas shopping for him very easy, I just made tools and accessories to fit the lathe. One of those accessories was a micrometer carriage stop which he uses quite often. It clamps to the ways with a couple of socket head cap screws and is adjustable with a graduated thimble to .001". One turn of the thimble moves the stop .050" via a 20 pitch thread.

The body of the stop is made of mild steel and is a fairly simple design and a good exercise for the beginning machinist. It has a couple of odd sized radii cut on the front that require a rotary table (or a file if you don't have one), a couple notches for the clamp, a 7/16-20UNF thread, a reamed hole and a raised surface for the reference mark which will require some creative machining. The reference mark itself was cut with a hand sharpened slotting tool in the locked spindle of a mill using the ram as a sort of hand shaper.

The spindle is a good lathe exercise with 7/16-20UNF threads and a key slot.

The thimble is a simple lathe part made out of stainless with a medium knurl, but it has lots of reference marks like the one on the body, and either stamped or engraved digits to make it more of a challenge. :biggrin:

I thought it might be a useful accessory for those of you with a lathe so I threw together some detail drawings of the parts along with an assembly drawing showing how they all fit together. If you build one, the drawings are not exactly like the one pictured. I switched the thimble end for end so the graduations were easier to read and moved the 1/8 dowel pin to the bottom of the body. Also be sure to check the thickness of the ways on your lathe. I milled and scraped the ways on my dads, so they may be slightly thinner. The design could likely be adapted to other lathes as well with the addition of an appropriate v groove in the body.

The drawings:

Atlas Micrometer Carriage Stop

Tom

 

[irishwoodsman]

nice job:biggrin:

 

[Tom Griffin]

Thanks guys.

Mayhem: Hopefully none of the cards you taped to your bicycle was a Mickey Mantle.

Tom

 

[Tom Griffin]

Lol, I was wondering how you would respond. Mickey Mantle was a famous baseball player from the 50's and 60's who played for the New York Yankees. Some of his rookie cards fetch thousands of dollars. I no doubt went through a few of them in my childhood do just a thing.

There is no digressing when it comes to muscle cars. I drive a 1972 Chevelle SS. I think you guys imported some of the 1969 Canadian Beumonts that were similar. Not sure if the Chevelle was exported or not.

Tom

 

[talkingmonkey]

Very nice. I will definitely be making one for my Atlas. Your numbers appear engraved. If so by what method?

Jeff.

 

[Tom Griffin]

Thanks Jeff. It's good to hear that someone will make one.

The numbers are actually hand stamped. I had access to a Gorton pantograph when I made the stop, but we didn't have the attachment for engraving on a curved surface. I don't remember how I stamped them but there was likely some sort of alignment setup involved.

Tom

 

[Tom Griffin]

Thanks Bill,

I need to return the stop to my dad anyway, so I'll snap a pic of it on the lathe when I do.

Tom

 

[8ntsane]

Nice Job Tom

What are you trying to do, give me another Project?
Being I really like the look of the one you made, I just may have to shamelessly copy it for my old Sidney Lathe, even though its allready got one

Sweet looking piece (':thumbzup:')

 

[Charley Davidson]

Could I just use this in a mount that I would have to make or is this a no no?

 

[8ntsane]

Charley

I see no reason why not!
Just remember that when you use a real Mic like that, they arnt as robust as regular carriage stop. You would need to come up to the stop nice and easy, and not run into it hard. Other wise, should be fine.