# My Atlas Milling Machine, cleanup and upgrades



## cjtoombs (Apr 12, 2014)

I bought this last summer, and have been gradually getting it back into shape.  It looked like hell when I bought it, but it ran, and came with most of it's parts, including the vise and a 7/8 arbor.  It was missing a few minor parts, most of which I was able to pick up cheaply on eBay.  I managed to find a 1" arbor as well. I also recently acquired a replacement for that broken overarm support, so the machine is complete now.  This is an early machine, with the 4 pulley belt setup on the spindle.  The factory two pulley setup to the countershaft was replaced at some point with a 4 sheave change pulley set, for a total of 32 speeds .  I have since torn it down, painted it and have started reassembly.  It had a bur in the taper on the spindle, so I ground it slightly on the T&C grinder to clean that up.  I have added lip type seals to the spindle, I will be posting pictures, and plan to add IGaging DROs and use Yuri's Android ap and an Arduino for the DRO.


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## cjtoombs (Apr 13, 2014)

I added lip type seals to the spindle, both to keep oil in and to keep dirt out.  I had to make two new parts, which I call "seal adapters", and had to remake the M1-78 spacer.  The M1-78 only needs a larger OD on the part that goes into the seal, as the seal was for a 1.375 shaft, and the M1-78 was something like 1.360.  Here is how the arrangement looks:





Due to the limited space, the end of the bearing cage has to nest between the seal body and the seal adapter:



Dimensions of the adapter are as follows:



- - - Updated - - -

And here are some pictures of the installation.  I have the part numbers for the seals written down, and I will add them in here, but he notebook is out in the shop right now, and I am not dressed to go get it.








- - - Updated - - -

And here are some of the assembly and finished product.  The worst part about putting it together is that you have to slide the woodruff key that holds the M6-24 under the inner front seal.  The key should be dressed so that it will rock in the slot, and it should be inserted at the top, so that if it does damage the seal, it would have to be completely full of oil before it will leak.  Putting this together was an adventure.  I have put this together and ran it briefly, and It did not leak.  I doubt the shaft is hardened and I know the new spacer I made is not, but this isn't going to be doing production work, so I will see how this works out.


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## David (Apr 13, 2014)

Looks great CJ!  That's a lot of work but it will be worth it in the end.  Nice seal modification.

David


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## stevecmo (Apr 13, 2014)

Excellent work!  Looking forward to following along on this.

I'm in the process of bringing an Atlas 7B shaper back to life.  It has a similar bearing arrangement.  I'll have to consider your seal addition.  Thanks for posting.

Steve


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## cjtoombs (Apr 13, 2014)

Dave, thanks, I never seem to buy a machine that doesn't need a lot of work 

Steve, I have a 7B also, but it was in fairly good shape, so I decided to use it as is.  The exception to the rule stated to Dave, above.


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## chuckorlando (Apr 13, 2014)

Your doing a very fine job on it. I love them hori mills. I dont know what I need one for but one day I will fill that need :nuts:

Top notch man


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## LJP (Apr 13, 2014)

Nice work! I spent the day today cleaning the old oil and grease off my Atlas Horizontal Mill. It came out pretty good, hoping not to tear it down and paint. I will get some pictures up on a new thread in the near future.
Larry


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## cjtoombs (Apr 13, 2014)

For a small machine, I think these little Atlas mills are speced out pretty well.  They are certainly more machine than the Chinese mini mills, since they include the power feed, but they also have a very useful speed range.  That seems to me the biggest problem with the X1 and X2 size mini mills, they top out at 2500 rpm, and with the cutters they are capable of using, they should be capable of running much faster.  The only small horizontal mill that I have seen for sale new is the G0727.  Just reading the specifications, I can already spot two major problems with it.  First, it only comes with a 5/8" arbor.  Good luck finding tooling for that.  1" seems to be fairly easy, I have found some 7/8", but it isn't as plentiful as the 1".  Also, it's lowest speed is 200 RPM.  I guess if you use very small cutters, that will work, but a 4" HSS cutter in mild steel needs to run at around 100 rpm.  That means you are fairly limited in the cutter sizes you can use for horizontal milling, and the 2000 rpm high speed runs into the same problem as mentioned earlier for the X1 and X2 size mills.  Of course, it's fairly easy for the Atlas to have more features than a $500 mini mill, considering that new they cost an inflation adjusted $5000+.


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## chuckorlando (Apr 14, 2014)

I seen that grizz and never was impressed. My liking of them comes from reading up on the van normans. Looking at pics of stacked cutters to get the shape you want just seems so cool to me. Maybe one day I will buy the head for the bridgeport.


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## VSAncona (Apr 14, 2014)

Wow, that looks great. It makes me want to finish up the work on mine.


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## iron man (Apr 15, 2014)

cjtoombs said:


> For a small machine, I think these little Atlas mills are speced out pretty well.  They are certainly more machine than the Chinese mini mills, since they include the power feed, but they also have a very useful speed range.  That seems to me the biggest problem with the X1 and X2 size mini mills, they top out at 2500 rpm, and with the cutters they are capable of using, they should be capable of running much faster.  The only small horizontal mill that I have seen for sale new is the G0727.  Just reading the specifications, I can already spot two major problems with it.  First, it only comes with a 5/8" arbor.  Good luck finding tooling for that.  1" seems to be fairly easy, I have found some 7/8", but it isn't as plentiful as the 1".  Also, it's lowest speed is 200 RPM.  I guess if you use very small cutters, that will work, but a 4" HSS cutter in mild steel needs to run at around 100 rpm.  That means you are fairly limited in the cutter sizes you can use for horizontal milling, and the 2000 rpm high speed runs into the same problem as mentioned earlier for the X1 and X2 size mills.  Of course, it's fairly easy for the Atlas to have more features than a $500 mini mill, considering that new they cost an inflation adjusted $5000+.



 # Not to hijack the thread but I have the GO 727 and after a few modifications I love it, You are correct about the arbor I made a new one for 7/8 cutters no big deal and as for the speed I have used it with the stock motor and I would agree it is to fast and since I am lazy I made another motor with spindle mount that pemanetly stays there. I had an Atlas there a little weak in the upper bar hence the brace after thought the 727 is much more beefier in that area. Anyway nice rebuild on the Atlas you will enjoy it.

http://www.hobby-machinist.com/showthread.php?t=17130


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## cjtoombs (Apr 15, 2014)

Iron man,
Nice mod to that little machine, sounds like you have fixed the problems designed into it.  I agree that the dovetail style overarm support would be better, that is a nice feature of that mill.  Mine is one of the earlier ones that i didn't have the tie bar that would go between the overarm support and the y axis handle support.  I haven’t cut anything with it yet, so we will see what kind of cut's I can take.  It's unfortunate that you have to modify the Chinese tools to make them useful; one would think that the manufacturer would have figured this out and made these mods, as many of them would add little to no cost to the equipment if done during manufacture.


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## iron man (Apr 15, 2014)

cjtoombs said:


> Iron man,
> Nice mod to that little machine, sounds like you have fixed the problems designed into it.  I agree that the dovetail style overarm support would be better, that is a nice feature of that mill.  Mine is one of the earlier ones that i didn't have the tie bar that would go between the overarm support and the y axis handle support.  I haven’t cut anything with it yet, so we will see what kind of cut's I can take.  It's unfortunate that you have to modify the Chinese tools to make them useful; one would think that the manufacturer would have figured this out and made these mods, as many of them would add little to no cost to the equipment if done during manufacture.



 Thanks I have done a lot of mods to the machine to clean up the mis-engineering. You are correct they seem to stop short of making a good machine at an affordable price just for a couple inches of cast iron. On the Atlas just make sure the gibs are a little snug and that the Acme screw and nuts are in good shape and you will have a lot of fun. Ray

http://www.hobby-machinist.com/showthread.php?t=14035


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## Restorer (Apr 15, 2014)

Great job CJ! ...   The bearing seal idea is awsome.

I a future artical I would like to see more of the Planer I see in the back ground of one of the pics.


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## John Hasler (Apr 15, 2014)

Restorer said:


> Great job CJ! ...   The bearing seal idea is awsome.
> 
> I a future artical I would like to see more of the Planer I see in the back ground of one of the pics.



Retrofitting lip seals is an excellent idea but be sure and give some thought to oil circulation.  You want to be sure oil can get to both the front side of the bearing and to the inside lip of the seal.


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## cjtoombs (Apr 15, 2014)

John,
My plan was to fill it up with oil above the bottom of the inner lip seals.  Unfortunately, it's sort of hard to tell where the oil level is.  Hindsight being what it is, I probably should have drilled a hole somewhere so that I could fill the oil up till it ran out the hole, then pluged the hole.


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## iron man (Apr 15, 2014)

cjtoombs said:


> John,
> My plan was to fill it up with oil above the bottom of the inner lip seals.  Unfortunately, it's sort of hard to tell where the oil level is.  Hindsight being what it is, I probably should have drilled a hole somewhere so that I could fill the oil up till it ran out the hole, then pluged the hole.



 Cant you just pack the bearing like a wheel bearing the seal is a good idea. Ray


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## cjtoombs (Apr 15, 2014)

I suppose you could pack it like a wheel bearing.  I put mine together dry then squirted oil in the oil holes.  It would be way messier to put together, which is a challenge anyway.  I think the vent hole idea is looking better, but I don't know where the heck to put it on that casting.


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## John Hasler (Apr 15, 2014)

iron man said:


> Cant you just pack the bearing like a wheel bearing the seal is a good idea. Ray



I'd be reluctant to pack a bearing that was designed to run in oil.  Also, I think he'd need another seal to do that.


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## iron man (Apr 15, 2014)

John Hasler said:


> I'd be reluctant to pack a bearing that was designed to run in oil.  Also, I think he'd need another seal to do that.



 The bearing is no different than a wheel bearing and does not spin as fast or have near the load it also appears to have two seals otherwise how would it hold oil. Ray


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## cjtoombs (Apr 15, 2014)

The early spindle housing I had used grease lubrication with grease fittings. The later ones used oil lubrication. I changed the spindle housing since the original one had a bunch of milling done on the top of it. I think tapered roller bearings don't care for the most part, most bearing manufacturers specify a different speed range for grease or oil lubrication. It was just easier to put oil in than grease in this spindle


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## iron man (Apr 15, 2014)

I have a friend that has a couple of these he has an aftermarket vertical head on one of them but I have seen some with other type's is there other vertical heads that can be made to work? Ray


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## cjtoombs (Apr 15, 2014)

There's someone on Ebay making and selling new vertical heads.  There was one company back in the day that made them, and I think there were a lot of shop made ones floating around, as well.  It's a wonder that Atlas didn't offer a vertical head for the mill when they were producing it.  Maybe the sales wern't what they had expected.  The mills seem to be rarer than the shapers, and much, much rarer than the lathes.


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## Martin W (Apr 15, 2014)

Great job on the mill. It will be well worth all the work you have put into it. How do you like the mig welder I see in the one picture? Also that's a cool looking rocking chair,like to see a pic of that!
Cheers Martin


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## TinkerToy (Apr 15, 2014)

You are doing a great job.  What kind/color paint are you using?
JD


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## Rob (Feb 6, 2017)

I know this is a old post but do you still have the PN's to the seals that you used.

Thanks


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## wa5cab (Feb 6, 2017)

There are no seals on the Mill's spindle bearings.  There are two dust covers or shields around each bearing.  The right inner one has a notch cut in it so that you can pull the spindle out with the Woodruff key in place.  The lube system on all of the Atlas machines is what's known as a total loss system.  You shouldn't use grease on any of the Atlas spindle bearings.  The only way to renew it is by pulling the spindles, which is a fair amount of work.  And once you've put grease in them, the grease will usually block proper oil flow.


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## A618fan2 (Feb 6, 2017)

Nice work and a very innovative idea.  

John


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## VSAncona (Feb 6, 2017)

Looking at the photos of the mill in your first post, I'm curious to know if the grease zerks on the outside of the casting are original or something added by a previous owner. I've never seen another Atlas mill that had them.


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## cjtoombs (Feb 6, 2017)

Rob said:


> I know this is a old post but do you still have the PN's to the seals that you used.
> 
> Thanks


I'll try to find them.


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## cjtoombs (Feb 6, 2017)

wa5cab said:


> There are no seals on the Mill's spindle bearings.  There are two dust covers or shields around each bearing.  The right inner one has a notch cut in it so that you can pull the spindle out with the Woodruff key in place.  The lube system on all of the Atlas machines is what's known as a total loss system.  You shouldn't use grease on any of the Atlas spindle bearings.  The only way to renew it is by pulling the spindles, which is a fair amount of work.  And once you've put grease in them, the grease will usually block proper oil flow.



There are in this one.  Now.  Look at the beginning of the post for details.


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## Rob (Feb 6, 2017)

Thanks. My outer dust cover was damaged and your outer seals looked like they were direct replacements.  If so I would just replace my outer seals.


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## wa5cab (Feb 7, 2017)

cjtoombs said:


> There are in this one.  Now.  Look at the beginning of the post for details.


Yeah, I saw that after I realized how old this thread was.  Not something that I would consider necessary but each to his own.


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## cjtoombs (Feb 9, 2017)

I am no longer able to find the part numbers.  They were in that model file, but I can't find it either.  I used this website to look them up, you should be able to find them based on some measurements of the spindle shaft and my drawings. 

http://www2.chicago-rawhide.com/popup_parts_lookup_457010.htm


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## Rob (Feb 10, 2017)

I did try and zoom in on the picture of the front seal and it looks like it has a PN 47918 on the outside of the seal.  If so I think that these are the front seal.  I will pick one up and check it out.

Thanks

https://www.amazon.com/Victor-Reinz-47918-Engine-Camshaft/dp/B007DKPW4E
http://www.oreillyauto.com/site/c/d...ck=Search_02344_1382127_-1&pt=02344&ppt=C0026


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## Silverbullet (Feb 11, 2017)

I too have one in the shop but haven't even caked it out. Only a quick look , if I need to take it down ill go over it completely but the paint looks good hopefully when I oil her up and run her I don't find to much wrong . But being laid up its hard to do. Just wait till therapy and the pain doctor can help or get operated on. I'm tired of the pain and no enjoyment in my shop. Good luck with your rebuild looks good as new.


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