# The Obvious Noob Question- 101.07301 Year? (i Know I Know...)



## ChattyMatty (May 6, 2015)

Did my due diligence, poked around saw the note on the one verified serial being from 1947, but didn't find where that particular number was listed so I could at least guess myself :/

Looking at 15524, stamped in the bed not on a second tag as I saw on lathes.co.uk listed as 46-50. Metal Craftsman badge on the gear cover (not the top cover) is the 40's/50's style not the early style, machine gray.

Thanks for the great site, been a whirlwind resto so far...


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## wa5cab (May 6, 2015)

I looked at the database again and there are actually two 101.07301 serial numbers with probably believable years, both based on what year the current owner's father had told him that he bought the lathe new.

007847 1942
022072 1947

The first catalog year for the model was 1939.  So S/N 000001 was probably made in late 1938.  As Father didn't say or Son didn't report a month, assume 01 July and run a few calculations and you get around the end of 1944 for yours.  Assuming constant production rate, of course.  Considering all of the unknowns, 1944 or 1945.


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## ChattyMatty (May 6, 2015)

Cool beans, thanks for the help. Will pad some posts and get some pics up lol. Would be interesting to see if they received an exemption to stay in production during the war when so much of the machinery which would pump these out wound have been prime bait for producing far more essential materials than hobbyist lathes. I think I'm with ya on early post-war. If car production can be used as any indicator, it might be that the 1942 sale was a '41 build selling old stock, and them come '45 the production explosion as GI's returned home trained up by the military and with pent up paychecks to spend.


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## wa5cab (May 6, 2015)

My assumption/understanding is that production at least of the 10" could well have peaked during the War.  Both Atlas and Sears sold lathes under Office of War Production permits.  Atlas is known for example to have shipped some (no idea of how many) 10" to Britain under Lend Lease. So although Atlas probably sold few to no lathes to hobbyists that doesn't mean that they sold few lathes.  Someone (probably in the Serial Number thread) reported that their lathe had originally been bought by Father and one or two Uncles to start up a small shop to make parts for the War effort.  Or something like that.


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## ChattyMatty (May 6, 2015)

Yeah, big stuff for sure. I suppose the little guys could have been smuggled into the French underground  


[in your best Jon Lovitz voice] "Yeah, that's the ticket, it's Le' HommeCraft... yeah..."


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## wa5cab (May 6, 2015)

I forgot to add that stamping the serial number on the nameplate rather than on the bed appears to have begun around 1957 with the 12" so-called Commercial.  That is approximately the same time that 101.07301 production stopped, and was replaced by 101.21400.


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## Round in circles (May 7, 2015)

ChattyMatty said:


> Did my due diligence, poked around saw the note on the one verified serial being from 1947, but didn't find where that particular number was listed so I could at least guess myself :/
> 
> Looking at 15524, stamped in the bed not on a second tag as I saw on lathes.co.uk listed as 46-50. Metal Craftsman badge on the gear cover (not the top cover) is the 40's/50's style not the early style, machine gray.
> 
> Thanks for the great site, been a whirlwind resto so far...



Can you put up a picture or two of your lathe please Matt?


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## ChattyMatty (May 7, 2015)

Hmm. Serial would put this one in the 46-50 range he cites as it's close to your '47. Sorry, don't mean to be the new guy starting flame wars, but I only have three sites in my favorites tab so far so it's all fresh in my memory lol 

http://www.lathes.co.uk/craftsman6inchmk1/

Lucky enough to be buying this from my boss, who got just far enough into it to decide he wanted to replace the bushings... so he bought a 12x24 Enco to make them :/ He's been collecting parts and pieces for a while, some nice new 4-jaws and live centers in _addition_ to the old ones so of course now I've got to have that milling stand... s my "learn how to use my lathe" project can be building a steam engine to power it (the electric hides under the table). Yeah, I;m a nerd.

Mostly she'll see duty making bicycle parts, but I can't resist making something crazy just to watch allt he rods and pistons spin even if just for show.


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## ChattyMatty (May 7, 2015)

Read my mind... started to post some up last night in fact, then thought, "Naw, I'll wait till it's out of mock up phase." The 3/4 MDF here is just for laying it out, he'll eventually live on an 8' Formica work table I picked up that I guess you'd almost describe as a laboratory table... the base is made from 2x2 steel tube and the top is 2" thick particle board. Need to invest in some quality leveling feet (crikey those aren't cheap, but as I've discovered, nothing is with these) but otherwise should do the trick. Not 100% on what to do with the motor yet. Like I say, the boss was decking this out, so it's one of those new adjustable speed sewing machine motors I stripped all the extraneous crap from and if I can find a vintage Craftsman motor cheap and long enough to slide it into (so far they all seem to be squat and fat not long and skinny) I'll mount it on top, otherwise I'll hide it underneath. Just not loving the modern look next to the vintage goodness. Either way, I'll hit up the local electronics surplus store for an old box/ham radio accessory of some type that can house the circuit board and speed control. A buddy of my dad's is and engraver/plaque maker so I'll just have him zip out a face plate that looks the part. If I do end up mounting the motor up top, I'm also toying with the idea of mounting the whole thing on a pre-formed kitchen counter top. That'll give me a little backsplash and sidespash to help keep shavings from wandering down the rest of the table, and if need be makes the whole set-up portable in a usable form. Just unplug it, (grab a buddy) pick it up, go where you need to go, level it, and rock and roll. Dunno why one would need to do that, but why not?  Mass is mass, and 1/2 MDF glued to the bottom of the LDF the top is made from might even be stable enough in it's own right down the road if I needed a smaller layout than the 8' table. Or maybe now that I think about it I'll just cut down the table and make it a dedicated lathe stand. Ug, I really need to think this out _after_ morning coffee.

Speaking of mass. As I'm toying around with this thing, I'm looking at it and thinking the likely hood of me ever doing anything in which I would need to feed stock through a collet is about zero (I'm mostly going to be turning down modern 1 1/8" headsets to fit old BMX bikes, make adapters to bring road bike headsets up to BMX etc) has anyone ever experimented with making a solid main shaft? Not really convinced that I need to replace my bushings as we haven't gone far enough to do any run out tests yet, still in paint mode, but If I do the thought occurred to me to run an oversized (thinner ID) bushing, which would mean turning the shaft, which would be bad as it's so thin, which made me start thinking that for what I am using it for maybe a solid shaft will make a more stable lathe no matter what. I just keep looking at this little guy and all the weight that hangs off the end of that hollow tube, spinning madly... and my inner Tim Allen wants to say "Uh gh gh? Solid chromoly." Or maybe just press fit a solid rod into it I suppose, prolly easier, but I'd worry about it distorting as it warmed up from the dissimilar metals.


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## mattthemuppet2 (May 7, 2015)

I doubt that a more solid spindle would help that much - flex is in the bed, the carriage and the headstock too. I'd just learn to live within its limits than risk messing it up for no real benefit.


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## ChattyMatty (May 8, 2015)

Roger that. sounds like a ton of work anyway  Good news is the old Craftsman motor I remember from grandpa's garage did in fact get saved when when we had the estate sale before selling their house a decade or so ago, so I'll be digging that out of dad's shed sometime soon. It's definitely of a similar vintage, it was old when dad was young.


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## wa5cab (May 8, 2015)

Actually, the Atlas lathes were intended to take some of their bed stiffness from the stand or bench that they were mounted on.  The original stand tops were made of 2" thick maple, and the cast iron legs were intended to be anchored solidly to the floor or decking.  You can make a light weight unit out of it if you wish.  But it will not work as well as it was originally capable of doing.  If you want it to work as well as it can, read and follow the original mounting instructions.  The people who designed and built the thing knew what they were doing.

If you plug the bore of the spindle, you will lose the ability to mount things like dead centers, milling cutter holders and (except for the Jacobs 56) drill chucks on the spindle.  Plus you will only increase the stiffness of the spindle maybe 20%.  Most of the stiffness comes from the outer 1/3.  Bad idea.


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## ChattyMatty (May 8, 2015)

Gotchya. Solid spindle bad. Tons of work, shooting self in foot. Pardon the mess, but here's the table it'll end up on. On closer inspection, it's 3/4 particle board doubled up for about the outer 6" where the 2x2 steel substructure attaches. 




2" solid maple huh? Well then that's starting to sound like the preformed counter top idea might be better. The top, a 1/2" MDF underlayment and the table, all glued and screwed together would get me an area 25" x 48" x 2 1/4" thick to bolt through.


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## wa5cab (May 9, 2015)

What is MDF?


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## ChattyMatty (May 9, 2015)

Medium Density Fiberboard. Particleboard, but made from finer grains and more glue under higher pressures than the low density board you're prolly familiar with as kitchen countertop substraight under Formica. Extremely dimensionally stable, very tough stuff when finished. If you look in the backround of a couple of the shots you'll see the work bench top in the garage is MDF my old man sprayed with Varethane 40 years ago and only the last 5 or to years are they showing their age... and they have seen years of hard use.

Nice little bonus today. Over at dad's working on bikes (that's where all the best tools live) and mentioned to my uncle this little project, he disappears for a little while and shows up with a nice chunk of maple butcher block 12 x 1.25 x 72 he had laying around ( I wasn't able to talk him out the 8" countertop lol) so looks like the plan is to chop it in half and make it into one single 24 x 36 top and section the superstructure of my existing 8' take to make a dedicated stand.


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## wa5cab (May 10, 2015)

Well, as it turns out, the early Atlas catalogs say that the top board supplied with the 6" floor stands was only 1-5/8" thick.  So 1-1/4" isn't too far off.  Unfortunately, none of the 6" stand ads give the length and width.  The board was mounted to cast iron legs that were wider apart at the floor than the width of the board.  If you use vertical legs, and a wider top, weld in diagonal braces.

Most if not all photographs of the 101.07301 show the motor sticking out to the left of the headstock.  I never understood that.  Most 618 photos show the motor straight behind the headstock.  If it will fit under the countershaft on the 101.07301, I would recommend that configuration.  For one thing, it is shorter.

Another consideration is how you are going to level the stand.  You should do that first before then precision leveling the bed.  Although it is not in point of fact necessary that the bed be dead level, without seriously expensive equipment (in the $100K range and up), there is no low cost way to be sure that the bed is dead straight other than by making sure that it is dead level.


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## ChattyMatty (May 10, 2015)

Yeah had noticed the offset motor placement... assumed it was just the difference in height between the beefier taller gennie Atlas countershaft bracket and the smaller cheaper Craftsman casting. Had planned on just using standard leveling feet, though that is a good idea perhaps to run a reinforcing beam on the 2x2 steel around the back and two sides down at the bottom to keep them squared up. Maybe add a 3/8 plate of steel op top under the maple and another 4" down and add a drawer.


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## wa5cab (May 10, 2015)

While it is true that the 101.07301 apparently always shipped with the "A" rev countershaft bracket whereas the 618 went to the "B" early on, There are photos of the 618 in catalogs with what must be either the "A" rev bracket or maybe even the original one with the motor mounted behind the headstock.  So I don't know what the deal was.


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## yendor (May 10, 2015)

There is an Atlas Catalog of WOOD Cabinet Stands for the lathes.

It give a width dimension of 14" I have what I "THINK" is an original top on a 10F x 36 and the width measures 9". The Lath Feet are approx. 3/4" from both front and back edges.

if it was me I think I'd use the maple top as is without trying to double up on the width.


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## wa5cab (May 10, 2015)

From the writeups on the floor stands in the various catalogs, there was some sort of extension that attached to the top and/or left leg that supported the countershaft bracket and the motor.  There wasn't one on either the wood or steel cabinets as they were as wide (deep) at the top as at the bottom (or lightly more).


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## Round in circles (May 12, 2015)

Thanks for the pictures  Matt .
Robert thanks for the history lesson .

 Both are much appreciated .


Dave


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## ChattyMatty (May 18, 2015)

Baby steps. Finished the paint, trimmed the MDF to the size my maple top will be (though there's a couple original stands listed on ePay right now... too bad they're so far east as to make the shipping cost prohibitive for me). Ready to start mocking up the motor location. Having trouble figuring out the accessory (?) gear mount finger. It had been installed, but of course when I took my before pics if didn't get a good pic of the back of the gear arrangement to see exactly how it was on there. I think I am missing a bushing- like the normal T-bushing on the rest of the gears but without the foot to bring the diameter fo the bolt out to the diameter of the gear bushing. Of course without the foot, the gear locks up as soon as you tighten it down. No guarantees it was assembled right to begin with, as the whole thing was all one glued together mess, and nothing turned at all. My suspicion is someone thought they were doing themselves a favor cleaning it with turpentine as when I finally broke down and took my little crack torch to them (not the real name, but that's what I call it- you know the ones, the little butane mini-rockets the crackheads love) to melt the oil out I got nice pleasant pine freshness.








Not the best pics (and no head on shot) as I was losing the light


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## ChattyMatty (May 25, 2015)

Broke down and ordered the original legs. Cost almost as much to ship as to buy, but whatever, I'm a nerd like that. 

Kinda interesting sidenote. in the pile o' parts is a Jacobs model 4364 chuck on a Craftsman 1MT/threaded adapter. The chuck is the type you would expect to see on an old hand drill in which the threaded axle presses on the plate which in turn draws the jaws out to clamp on the bit- in fact the only reference to this chick I was able to find with the Google was from a guy who was restoring a hand drill with one, and he could find nor references to this chuck other than it's patent date (1944) and it's replacement patent (1949). The 'C' in Craftsman on the shaft is the earlier 1930's style chiseled Fred Flintstone script, so while certainly no proof, I'm leaning towards calling this little guy a 1944. In the 1948 Craftsman catalog the chuck is listed as a "Jacobs Hand Tite".


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