# My grandfather's Atlas QC-54 (w/ picture)



## cdhknives (Apr 13, 2013)

Well, I'm on day 4 of cleaning up my grandfathers old lathe.  This is my first lathe, though I have a fair amount of experience with shop tools and I have used my Dad's Atlas a half dozen or so times.  I posted this on another forum but there are few machinists there, so I'm going to cut-n-paste it here.  If I'm majorly screwing something up or failing to do something please let me know!




Day 1
Got the lathe into the garage yesterday. Bolted it to the steel tabletop, and then rewired the power. The cords were cracking down to the copper. This required disassembly of the motor and pulley assemblies.

The motor leads were cracking as well. I slipped over a sleeve of heat shrink tubing, but I suspect the motor will not last long. It runs fairly smoothly, but not especially quietly.

Once I got it all back together about 9:30 last night, I turned it on.

What a cacophony of rattles and grinding! I had oiled it up in every oil pot I could find, but it was still WAY too noisy! Then I got a screech/gear grinding noise (very brief, everything kept turning) and I shut it down.

Oops. This is gonna be a PROJECT.

Right now I'm trying to figure out the headstock gearing. The 3 step pulleys sit between a small (left) and large (right) gear. There is a connecting shaft with gears behind the pulleys that is engaged via a lever on the right side of the headstock behind the chuck. This seems to engage and disengage the chuck. The pulley floats on its shaft and keys into the left gear. There is enough float to completely disengage from the left gear by moving the pulleys right on the shaft. If I do that the outer edge of the largest pulley (right side) will rub against the cross shaft connecting gear. No signs of that being the source of my grinding screech, but I'm investigating that area first.

Day 2.

I took the chuck off for safety and got to really looking it over.

I guessed that the 4 speed drive pulley on the main spindle shouldn't slide back and forth 3/16" allowing the smaller (left) main spindle drive gear enough slop to disengage the slots locking it to the pulley. I pushed them loosely together (small gear and pulley turn locked together, main gear turns independent unless locked to the pulley via a pin) since they need a tiny bit of room to float w/o rubbing, tightened the set screw, and the loud scuffing/grinding noise hasn't been heard since.

Call it a victory unless it returns.

I have been pouring the oil to the main bearings (yes they are Timken roller bearings ) and every other oiler, plus greased the back idler shaft until I started getting grease slung, and it is probably 15 dB quieter than yesterday.

It wobbles a bit when the pulleys are locked into drive mode. I haven't levelled it since I need to slide it over more. I want to be sure I don't need to get behind it again first. I think the 1st intermediate pulley (motor 'slave' 2 slot) is the source...it visibly wobbles. In high speed it is much less noticeable. Storage damage maybe?

What's the deal with spindle oil vs. good ol gear lube vs. good ol Mobil 1 10w-30? Right now the coating of fine sawdust is soaking up all the oil I pour into this guy...eventually I guess I need to give it a WD-40 bath to wash the crud out and then oil it properly.

Enough for one night.

Day 3

Where is all this oil I'm pouring into it going? 

The idler pulley shaft is the noisiest part, so I attacked it. The grease in the roller bearings was almost oil like. After a good cleaning and flushing I regreased with Mobil 1 synthetic axle grease and reassembled. Wow. MUCH quieter. Much messier than repacking car wheel bearings too. They will sure sling grease! I think I'll keep it on low speed for the time being.

I broke down, cleaned, and reassembled both slides on the carriage. The angled slide is still stiff but the 90 degree slide is very smooth. I may not mess with it further for a while.

I soaked the leadscrew gearbox again with WD 40 to wash out the sawdust and soften old oil. I'm finally getting black oil runoff. A few more days and it might be clean enough. The gears that engage at the left end of the spindle to drive the leadscrew are worn very thin, but it works. I let the whole thing idle for a good hour on and off today...squirting them down periodically with WD40.

[FONT=Lucida Grande, Trebuchet MS, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]Whoever invented GoJo is my new best friend![/FONT]

[FONT=Lucida Grande, Trebuchet MS, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]Last night I pushed it into its final location, set the leveling leg screws to level it out and started a small block of mesquite wood turning.  Knocking off the corners to get it round really hammers the gears.  Should I take the reduction gear out and direct drive the spindle by locking the pulley to the main gear?  That seems flimsy for turning work...polishing and sanding maybe but cutting???[/FONT]


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## cdhknives (Apr 14, 2013)

Well, it works.  Using the reduction gear leads to an annoying amount of gear noise (especially when taking a rectangular block of wood and rounding it out), but the slowest speed using the direct drive pin seems like a good woodcutting speed.





First attempt at turning...a small bowl for my wife for her jewelry...if my eldest kid doesn't talk her out of it!


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## wa5cab (Apr 14, 2013)

cdh,

That'll be a nice looking machine when you get it cleaned up.  When your post count gets over 20, there is a manual for the 10F (including QCGB) in the Downloads section that you can get a copy of.  There is a set screw that's actually an oil plug in the four step spindle pulley that you may not have seen.  Remove the set screw and give it several squirts of SAE20.  It doesn't especially matter with the lathe in direct drive but in back gear, it might account for some of the noise you mentioned.  Also, the back gears as well as the change gears need grease.  Just don't turn the machine on with the covers open right after you've greased them.  :whistle:

To answer your question about re-posting, if your first post was on another site, there's no rule here against it.  If it was in another forum on this site (not likely as you said few machinists there), moderators can move posts (or some can) so if you want that done in the future post a reply with a note to Moderator requesting the move.

Robert D.


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