# Atlas 7B Disassembly and Teardown!  Pic Heavy!



## Weldo (Jun 7, 2020)

Heyo!  I've not found a good resource for this subject so I'm gonna try my hand at supplying some info to the community. 

Backstory, I got an Atlas 7B just a few weeks ago and upon close inspection it appears someone had lubed it all up with heavy grease as opposed to the recommended No. 10 or 20 oil.  So in the interest of keeping this thing in top shape I want to disassemble it as much as possible and give it a good cleaning/lubing before I start to use it.  After all machines like this will become more and more rare as time rolls on so I think we in the hobby have a duty to preserve them as best we can.  I don't really think of this machine as "mine", rather I am its current steward.  Someday, God willing, some other person will enjoy it for many years to come.

On to the greasy stuff!

The following pics are the state of the machine as received.

Under the grease cup on the right side (as viewed by the operator) of the pinion shaft someone had pressed in a zerk fitting thus rendering the grease cup useless. 








This may seem to be an upgrade at first but as I found out on my Atlas lathe countershaft, the temptation when using a zerk and grease gun is to apply much more grease than necessary.  Even one pump of the gun is many times more than needed.  A grease cup should be turned about one full turn each time the machine is used.  This meters out a very small amount of grease, just enough to squeeze a little fresh lube into the bearings.  This zerk will be removed and lubing will be handled by the grease cup.







This is the opposite side of the same pinion shaft.  It should have a grease cup similar to the pulley side.  The cup has been replaced with a zerk.  Based on the huge globs of grease inside the machine it is evident that too much grease has been pumped in.






A closer look.  This fitting will be replaced with a grease cup that has 1/8"- 27 NPT threads.  Again, a single turn of the cup each time the machine is used will supply adequate fresh grease.







Next, the manual calls this part the "Neck and outer bearings" for the large crank gear inside the machine column.  This too should be an oil cup and lubed with No. 10 oil.  Here you can see it packed with grease.






This grease must be flushed out.







In this pic we can see grease applied to the ram.  On my machine there was a zerk fitting on the left side ram slide and just an open hole on the right.  The factory spec for this is again light oil, the idea being that the ram will "float" on a film of oil like a car's crankshaft and connecting rod bearings.  The ram will be removed and cleaned and lubed with oil.







Finally here are several shots of the internal parts inside the column.  The column casting houses the main crank mechanism.  Oil is spec'd for all these parts with the exception of the gear teeth.  The gear teeth are recommended to be occasionally coated with a small amount of "graphite gear grease".




























The amount of grease inside the machine is excessive and will be thoroughly cleaned out.  As mentioned before all the parts inside the column are to be lubed with No. 10 motor oil or equivalent.

The grease used through-out this machine may not technically be bad for it but it does have a few negative aspects.  One drawback of grease is the lack of cleanliness in operation.  Any machine in which grease is so heavily used will inevitably leave your hands, clothes and tools also coated in grease.  Grease will collect dust and grit more so than oil.  Because it is so sticky it is not easy to flush out debris from grease coated parts like it is with oil.  Since oil is relatively thin and fluid, any accumulated dust and tiny chips can be flushed out with liberal application of more oil.  The excess it then wiped up and a clean machine is obtained.

So this is the start of my journey into the Atlas 7B!  Stick around, I'll be posting lots more pics and detailed tear down info in the coming days/weeks.  Hopefully this will help future hobbyists!


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## Weldo (Jun 7, 2020)

First up, Ram removal!  Due to the length of the process this will be broken up into a few different posts.

Let's get dirty!

First remove the ram adjusting handle.  You will have to remove the oil cup first to allow the handle to thread off the stud.












Inside the casting are two slotted screws.  Remove them as well.







Now the block can be removed.












The next most obvious thing is the ram guides.  They hold the ram in its channel.   The bolts are 1/2".  That hole you see is where one of the zerk fittings was.  It should be an oil cup.







Atlas seemed to make extensive use of serrated lock washers.







All bolts removed.  The round head screw in the bar just holds a light bulb bracket.  It can stay in place.







The hold down bar is lifted up and we find a stack of very thin shims.  The manual says this is a stack of shims consisting of four 0.002" leaves and two 0.001" leaves, so 0.010" total.  Thus adjustment can be made in 0.001" increments to account for wear of the ram or its ways.  If play in the ram appears worse than the spec'd 0.001-0.002", a shim can be removed to allow the hold down bar to clamp the ram more tightly.







Next the bolts for the right side are loosened.







And we can see the shim stack for the right side.


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## Weldo (Jun 7, 2020)

Now the felts and wipers must be removed.  There are two slotted screws in each one.












Felts and wipers removed.  In this pic we can also clearly see the adjusting gib for the ram.







The right side wiper revealed a broken screw.  The lower screw is broken off in the hole, the sharp break snagging some felt.  I may attempt to remove it but it's probably not critical.







At this point the ram can be lifted from its ways.  There was significant suction holding it down due to the grease.  In the pic it is propped up on a cedar shim.







Another view of the underside of the ram from the front.  There's still some linkages holding it to the machine.







It appears that the ram adjusting rod must be freed somehow in order to remove the ram completely.  The ram adjusting rod runs parallel with the ram inside the ram.  It's a small Acme thread like the one on a lathe cross slide.  We can see it in the above picture running through the block in the center of the ram.  This rod is the means by which the ram position is adjusted.

Before the rod can be removed be sure to turn the square key at the rear of the ram such that the cast iron block into which the adjusting rod is threaded is somewhere in the middle of its travel.  If the block it all the way towards the front of the ram, there will not be enough room to allow the rod to be separated from the ram.  This will be important later.

We'll start by removing the lock nuts at the rear of the ram.












Behind the two nuts is a brass washer.







The next part took me a while to figure out.  There is affixed to the threaded rod a bevel gear.  This gear is pinned to the threaded rod with a solid pin and must be removed in order to separate the ram from the linkage underneath.  The trick is to use a small punch and tap out the pin through the oil hole at the rear of the ram.  Let the ram overhang the column to the rear and turn the threaded rod until the pin is lined up vertically with the oil hole on top of the ram.







The pin taps out fairly easily.  Be careful it doesn't hit the floor and go missing!


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## Weldo (Jun 7, 2020)

This is where it is important that the cast iron block was moved to about the middle of its travel on the adjusting rod.  It the block is located all the way to the front of the ram there will not be enough clearance for the rod to be tapped forward within the ram.  The block will hit the front end of the adjusting slot in the ram.

Now that the bevel gear is unpinned from the threaded ram adjusting rod we can tap the rod toward the front of the machine.  The pic is just for illustrative purposes, in actuality I used a wood block between the hammer and rod.  Protect those threads!








Here the rod is pushed all the way through the ram.







After passing through the ram enough the rod drops out of the way.  Light can be seen from the other side of the hole.







At this point you can reach underneath the ram and slide the bevel gear off the threaded rod.







This is the bevel gear and its pin.







Now the ram can finally be removed.  You lift straight up and you may have to move it to the rear a bit to disengage the threaded rod from it's bore.  What's left is the linkage with a threaded rod and the cast iron block still attached.







Hopefully it's clear from this pic why the cast iron block has to be placed toward the middle/rear of its travel.  You must tap the rod a few inches toward the front of the machine to get the rod to clear its bore in the ram.  The slot in the top of the ram will limit how far the block can move.







Another view.


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## Weldo (Jun 7, 2020)

Now to remove the block and rod.

There's a set screw that holds the large pivot pin firmly in place.  1/8" allen.







Remove it all the way.  Just backing off slightly is not enough since there is a flat spot milled into the pin for the set screw.  If you only back it out a 1/2 turn or so the screw will catch the shoulder of the flat spot.







The pin was tight on my machine so I used a brass drift to tap it out.







I then had to prop up the linkage to allow room for the pin to pass by the ways.  A small wood block was used.







Try not to let the pin fall to the floor, roll under a table, disappear for a few minutes and get covered in saw dust and spider webs.







The ram position adjusting rod and block can now be removed.







The following pics show the bevel gear that mates with the one on the adjusting rod.

Here it is on the underside of the ram.







The collar on the top side must be removed via a set screw.







Then the gear can be passed through and out from the bottom.







That's all I got done so far.  Stay tuned!


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## Rob (Jun 7, 2020)

I remember reading that the ram is best removed with the link from the bottom.  Here is a thread on another forum about that.






						New Old Shaper - Atlas 7b
					

New Old Shaper - Atlas 7b



					madmodder.net


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## Weldo (Jun 7, 2020)

Oh!  More info!  Thanks man!

To be clear this thread is certainly not meant to be a definitive work on the proper disassembly of this machine.  This thread is just how I managed to muddle through the process.  There are probably better ways to do everything I attempt!


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## frugalguido (Jun 8, 2020)

Great job on the photo disassembly. I am still not sure about the oil gitt in the "Neck and outer bearings" assembly, it has two taper bearings, I packed them with grease at the time of reassembly.  I did install  a new gitt oiler, but have still not put oil in there. I am not sure how oil would get to the bearings in the first place, it is a pretty good distance between the bearings and oiler is in the center space between them. To me it didn't make sense, they grease the back bearings, but not the main bearing and it's turning a lot slower speed. When you think about it, it is a lot like front wheel bearing in a car, two tapered bearing with a place between them. Also grease is a lot better these days than in the past, so don't turn the grease caps as much as was recommend by Atlas.  I did talk to a friend that was an application engineer for Chevon, he recommend a grease that would do the job. But, I over oil the thing, especially the sliding block and the ram. I also modified the oiling groves on the ram ways, gib, sliding block for better oiling placement.


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## ErichKeane (Jun 8, 2020)

Oh wow, thats great!

I'm actually surprised about the ZERK on the pinion 'other' side (side with the door) isn't original.  Mine 7B is basically factory-original with the exception of that (and the missing oil cup on the other side).  I've now ordered _2_ of the oil cups from your last thread, I guess I'll be replacing both


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## ErichKeane (Jun 8, 2020)

frugalguido said:


> But, I over oil the thing, especially the sliding block and the ram. I also modified the oiling groves on the ram ways, gib, sliding block for better oiling placement.



Same here   My shaper looks like a crime-scene with Vactra2 instead of blood.  I basically hose down anything/everything with oil whenever I use it.


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## frugalguido (Jun 8, 2020)

The oiling on this shaper has to be done constantly, its a oil lost system. That is why a South Bend is better in this sense, they have an oil sump and a pump in the later models. My Atlas was in bad shape when I got it from lack of oiling, I think it was used in a school, thus the optional motor protector, in case a student jammed it.


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## ThinWoodsman (Jun 8, 2020)

This is motivating me to finally get around to working on the (Ammco) shaper. 

It ain't broke, but I have some mods I want to make that require removing the knee. Hopefully I can do that with just the apron removed and the ram slid all the way back. I plan to drill and tap holes in the apron and the knee for DRO mounts and a semi-permanent indicator mount (apron only).


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## Weldo (Jun 8, 2020)

Thanks guys!  I got some more done today.  The crank arm has been removed as well as most of the feed gears and their housing.  The pinion shaft is giving me trouble though.  I think I have to remove the big crank gear before the pinion shaft will come out.

Here's how I got the crank arm out.

First I removed the plate on the crank arm.  Four slotted screws













The plate also has pins that located it on the crank arm.  It took a little prying and wiggling to get it free.












Next the block is removed from the slot in the crank arm and the large pin on the crank gear.












According to the manual there should be a spacer behind the block, as pictured below.  I seem to be missing that spacer.







Here you can see a trough machined into the top of the block.  I believe the idea is that you squirt oil through the hole in the flat plate that was removed a moment ago and the oil pools into this trough in the block, metering out a little oil at a time during operation.







For the following steps the machine must be accessed from underneath.


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## Weldo (Jun 8, 2020)

Now we get a peek at the filthy under carriage!

Here's what it looks like before any more parts are removed.







There are three set screws to remove in order for the shaft to slide out.  Two are in collars that set the shaft side to side in the machine and one is in the crank arm.

Collar.







Crank arm.  The manual says there should be a lock washer and jam nut on this set screw.  There's even a boss on the casting for it.







Collar.







I removed all three completely, just to be safe.  1/8" Allen.







Now the shaft is tapped through the column.  It drove pretty easily for me.







Almost there!







Aaaaaaannnnnddd Yahtzee!







All the collars and shaft removed.  Set screws reinstalled to avoid losing.







And here's the arm.  I don't think I need to disassemble the last link, I'll just clean it up.







Or maybe I will pull it apart.  I've come this far!







All that's left inside the column is the large crank gear and the pinion shaft.  Like I mentioned earlier the pinion shaft is putting up a bit of a fight.  It's got a tapered roller bearing on each end that seems to be tightly pressed onto the shaft and races that are more lightly pressed into the column.  There's also some collars and the pinion gear affixed to the shaft with solid pins.  I got some of the parts freed up but it looks like if I remove the crank gear first the pinion shaft will come out with its bearings and collars still on the shaft.  I'll try to get pics when I get to that part.


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## Rob (Jun 9, 2020)

Here are a couple of pages with shaper info



			Shaper Book Page
		




			NEMES: The New England Model Engineering Society


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## ThinWoodsman (Jun 9, 2020)

Weldo said:


> Try not to let the pin fall to the floor, roll under a table, disappear for a few minutes and get covered in saw dust and spider webs.



We call that "dust blueing".

Pretty interesting seeing what differs from the Ammco. Going to see about getting the knee off today, which means dismantling the ratchet mechanism.

UPDATE: Well, that was easy. Ratchet mechanism is a T-nut, with a screw-and-washer as a stop. Slid right out, intact. Ran the table all the way out (to the left) to expose the leadscrew nut for the knee; with the knee as low as it could go, Removed the two SC screws holding the knee to the nut. Had to remove the wipers and the knee lock (the tommy bars comes right out with a drift), then loosened the gib and the knee lifted right off. The knee is now sitting on a board on the mill table, begging me not to do any lasting damage.


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## Weldo (Jun 9, 2020)

Rob said:


> Here are a couple of pages with shaper info
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Incredible resource!  Thank you for sharing!


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## Weldo (Jun 9, 2020)

Today I finally got everything out of the column!  It'll take me a few days to post up all the pics though.

Next we'll tackle the feeding mechanism!  In order to get the large crank gear out some of this stuff must be removed first.

Start by removing this connecting arm.  It's a hex bolt on the forward side...












And a square head on the rearward side.  Incidentally, this is where you change the feed from right to left, by loosening the square bolt and moving the T nut in the slot from "L" to "R" and retightening the bolt.







Arm removed!







Next up, the housings.  They are just cast pot metal (zamak) so treat them gently.

Loosen and remove the large knurled lock nut.  Hold the square nut simultaneously to keep the shaft from turning.







Nut removed.







There are two flat head screws holding the feed gear housing cover.  Below is the rear screw...







And the front screw.







Please ignore the fact that the knurled nut is still installed in the previous two shots.  Initially when taking the pictures I didn't realize that the nut must be removed BEFORE the two screws.  I thought the cover might lift off vertically.  It doesn't


Now the cover comes off.  NOTE! there are alignment pins below each screw, watch out for them!  They may stick in either side of the housing or fall out completely.







The T nut now can be freed from its slot.







Out it comes!






More on the way!


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## Weldo (Jun 9, 2020)

To get the T nut gear off you must remove the nut on the back side of the housing.  You can use a large flat screwdriver on the face to aid in removing the nut on the back side.

Here's a picture of the back side nut.  Notice the T slot on the right side of the picture.







If I recall this nut was 11/16"







It's backed up by a lock washer and flat washer.







Now the T nut gear slides right out.












Replace the hardware to keep track of it.







Now for the other gear.  It has a set screwed collar to hold it in place.






This collar is actually threaded.  The manual says there should be a piece of lead shot at the base of the set screw to protect the threads.  I did not find such a thing but will keep that in mind for reassembly.







Collar removed.







Now the gear simply slides off.






Presto!







Almost done with this part!


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## Weldo (Jun 9, 2020)

Note the tiny woodruff key.  Don't loose it!  There's a few such keys in the shaper.







Next I removed the bearing retainer ring.  It's got six flat head screws.







After the screws are gone it falls off.







Next is a spacer ring that was behind the gear.







It is also keyed.












Side cutters make for easy key removal!







The rear part of the housing now slips off.  Mine was quite tight and required lots of wiggling back and forth and some very light prying around the circumference.







These housing castings are very thin and fragile.  Be careful with them!







That does it for the feeding mechanism.  The large cylinder with the bolts around the flange is part of the bearing housing for the crank gear shaft.  It will come off later during the crank gear removal.  It's about the last piece to come off.


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## Weldo (Jun 9, 2020)

Now we can finally get to work on the crank gear.

First remove the six large flat head screws.  On my machine it looked like they were heavily staked in place but I noticed that some of the stake marks were not lined up exactly like they should be.  That tells me someone has disassembled these screws before.  I had to use an impact screwdriver to remove them.  Some took about a half dozen good whacks!








The plates then come off.







Both plates removed.







Notice the socket head bolts.  Four are visible here and one half hidden at six o'clock.  There's another one behind the rectangular block.

They all get removed.







These were not very tight on my shaper.







To get the one behind the rectangular block, turn this square head shaft from the feed mechanism.







That will move the rectangular block and reveal the socket head bolt.












Remove the other four bolts.


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## ErichKeane (Jun 9, 2020)

Great progress!

I've had parts of that apart, but not that deep obviously.  One thing I WAS amazed at is how (took it apart today!) Simple the ratchet mechanism is! They go for tons of money I'm told, and break often. They seem reasonably easy to make for something so simple!


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## Weldo (Jun 9, 2020)

At this point I thought the gear could be tapped out.  The gear has a large shallow counter bore that fits snugly to a mating face very much like a lathe chuck fits on a face plate.  There's also an alignment pin in the gear that indexes to that mating face plate.

I think it is possible to remove the gear at this point, but after I tapped on it a few times through the switch hole I decided to remove some more stuff just to see if there were any more hang ups.

I set to work to remove the rectangular block on the crank gear.  You could do this step before you remove the six socket head bolts from the previous post.  That would save you the trouble of repositioning the block to reveal the other bolt.

There is a set screw on the block holding a nut like on a lathe cross slide.  The set screw is backed up with a jam nut/lock washer.







Once loosened you can wiggle the block out.  It took some light prying.







Removed.







The pinion on the center shaft is what I was worried about keeping the gear from tapping loose.  I saw the assembly in the manual and didn't want to mess up the teeth on that pinion by forcing the gear off while the teeth were meshed.







Loosen the nut on the end of the shaft, seen here caked in old grease.







5/8" was a sloppy fit, but 9/16" was too small.  The nut was not very tight so 5/8" did the trick.  Hold the other end of the shaft with a wrench to keep it from turning while you loosen the nut.







The nut was not very tight.







Lock washer.












Almost there!


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## Weldo (Jun 9, 2020)

At this point I tried tapping the gear off again.  I thought the lead screw and pinion would come off with the gear but it actually didn't.

I had to remove the switch plate cover first.  Two flat head screws.  These pics are from earlier in the process.












I then tried tapping the gear through the switch hole with a brass drift.







Keep rotating the gear to tap evenly along the whole circumference.







Eventually it comes free!







Here can be seen the counter bore face plate interface.







It's out!







This is the backside, note the locating pin.







Turns out the pinion and lead screw stay attached to the shaft part.  So You can actually remove the gear BEFORE delving into the nut on the end of the shaft and the pinion gear.  It probably doesn't really matter either way.







I couldn't easily pull off the pinion gear so I tried tapping the shaft out from the inside.












It moved easily and allowed me to remove the pinion gear.












Another tiny woodruff key.







And a spacer.







There was on the back side of the spacer a tiny ring of brass.  This is not shown on the manual.







All parts removed form the shaft.


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## Weldo (Jun 9, 2020)

The shaft now easily pulls out.

















Now to tap the outer shaft from the outside towards the inside of the column.  This was a little bit tight but the soft faced dead blow moved it no problem.







The shaft popped out with its bearing.







Loads of grease!  I intend to restore this machine to the proper recommended lube, which is light oil.  If I hadn't taken this apart to clean out the grease the oil might have never found its way to the bearings.












Here's a view of the screw mechanism.







The bearing on the outside popped out when the shaft was released.







Now the bearing housing can be removed.  It was lightly tapped around the circumference after the bolts were taken out.







It comes out of a shallow bore.







More grease.







Looks fresh at least!







And that's the crank gear removed!  The last piece is the pinion shaft.  It's the smaller gear that turns the crank gear.  I actually tried to remove it BEFORE the crank gear but I found some interference that indicated it would be much easier to remove the pinion shaft if the crank gear was out of the way.


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## BGHansen (Jun 10, 2020)

Weldo said:


> The shaft now easily pulls out.
> 
> View attachment 327074
> 
> ...


Great job documenting the process!  We all love seeing how these machines actually work.  Another plus side to many photos is when you put it back together you can review them in case the Atlas manual and the actual shaper differ some.

Bruce


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## Weldo (Jun 10, 2020)

Yea, I’ll probably take a few days to clean everything up so referring back to the pictures will be a great help.


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## Weldo (Jun 10, 2020)

The last part to come out is the pinion shaft.

Here it can be seen with its 4 step pulley.  Remove the single set screw in the pulley groove.







The pulley comes off fairly easily.







Pinion shaft.  Another tiny woodruff key.  The threads on the end are for the grease cup.







There's a threaded nut to remove on both ends of the shaft.  It's tough to see through the years of dried grease.







But there's two holes like the nut on an electric angle grinder.







There's also a set screw on each of the threaded nuts.  That is one on each end of the shaft.  Below is the pulley end.







And the other end.


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## Weldo (Jun 10, 2020)

Here you can see the two holes for a spanner wrench.







And the same two holes on the pulley side of the shaft.







I modified an angle grinder wrench to fit.  The center to center was just slightly too large on the wrench so I just ground the pins a little to fit.







It was not super tight.







The other one came off in similar fashion.


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## Weldo (Jun 10, 2020)

Now we turn our attention to the inside parts of the shaft.  You'll notice that the crank gear is still installed in the following pictures.  That is because the pictures were taken before I realized that the crank gear must be removed BEFORE the pinion shaft.  If you attempt to tap the pinion shaft out with the crank gear still installed, the collars on the pinion shaft will hit the crank gear preventing removal of the shaft.

On the pinion shaft are a couple of collars and a gear.  There is a collar on the left but it's kind of buried.  Solid pins hold the right collar and gear onto the shaft.  Below, the punch is pointing to the pin in the collar.







And the pin in the gear.  It's hard to see.







They punch out with little effort.







The gear can be slid on the shaft to reveal a woodruff key.  It's not visible in the picture but there is a tiny solid pin that is drilled axially in the gear that mates with a hole in the buried collar on the left side of the picture.  That pin is around 1/8" diameter and 1/2" long.







From here I had removed the crank gear and the shaft can be tapped out from either side.  The bearing will push out the race since the bearings are pressed to the shaft more tightly than the races are pressed.  Below is the race from the pulley side nearly removed.  I tapped the opposite side with a brass drift.







A little more tapping frees it up.







Now since the crank gear is gone, the whole shaft can be removed through the race bore.  First we see the pulley side bearing.







Next is the collar that was buried in the previous shots.







Followed by the gear.







And finally the other collar and bearing.







The astute among us may realize that there really is no need to remove the pins from the collar and gear in a earlier steps since the whole shaft comes out through the bore anyway.  You would be correct.  However at the time I was trying to figure out how to get the shaft out with the interference of the crank gear.  I thought that if I freed up all the collars/gears/bearings on the shaft that I could slide the shaft out from inside those parts.  Turns out the bearings are pretty tightly pressed on though so this idea didn't work.

Once I removed the crank gear, the pinion shaft becomes much easier and the collars/gear could have been left in place.  You would simply tap on the shaft to press out the opposite race, then the shaft could be passed through with all its collars and gears in place.

The last part is the opposite side race.  I tapped it out with a brass drift.



















Nice!







That's it!  We've removed all the internal parts to an Atlas 7B shaper!  Now for lots of cleaning...


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## Weldo (Jun 10, 2020)

Here's just a few pics of the empty column.

































And the pile of parts awaiting the parts washer.












It looks a little daunting but I don't think you could assemble this machine incorrectly.  All the parts seem to fit only one way.  The tough part may be the order of operations.

I'm not sure if I'll get into the table and all that.  If I do I'll post up a similar walk through.  I plan on going through the ratchet mechanism as well but may after the inside is all back together.


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## rwm (Jun 10, 2020)

I had no idea they were that complex. I'm betting when you get it back together you will have some extra parts!
Robert


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## Weldo (Jun 11, 2020)

Haha I actually already found one extra!  I started the parts washing phase today.  All the fasteners that have lock washers have the internal serrated type.  There was one instance where I had four screws, each is supposed to have a lock washer.  Two of the screws had their lock washers, one screw had two serrated lock washers on it and another one had a split type lock washer.  So I took the split one off and transferred one of the doubled up serrated ones.

The only thing bugging me is the lack of the spacer indicated on the parts diagram back in post #13.  I'm not sure if I should attempt to make one and if so how thick should it be?  I'm planning on getting it back together and seeing what the clearances are like on that part.  Also I'm starting to wonder if the sliding block was remade at some point.  When I cleaned it up in the parts washer I found that the sides of the block that ride in the slot in the crank gear had been brazed up and ground flat.  I don't know if this is factory but it might indicate repair or replacement of the block at some point.


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## ErichKeane (Jun 11, 2020)

For that spacer, I'd measure the amount that the block itself is 'lower' than the plate (or the surrounding parts), and subtract a couple thou.  You can see in your picture that the block is a few thou 'low'  and that the shaft itself is 'high'.  I think you want to make it just shy of even with the bottom of the plate.

I'm guessing your repair is just that, a shop-time repair.  Fortunately, braising is going to be about as soft as the stock brass, I'm guessing it wore out and someone just filled it in and re-ground it flat.  It appears to me that the block isn't particularly complicated of a part, so it seems like it would be easy enough to remake if you needed to.

Side note:

This thread has already been useful to me!  I was shapering today, and my shaper got stuck.  It turns out, the step pulley on the machine-side was slipping!  I pulled it apart (which required pulling off the gears behind the stroke adjustment adjustment) on the way to pulling off the entire outer casting (so the 'ring' behind the gear, then the back half of that casting) and got to the little ring!  It wasn't obvious that it was threaded on, but I saw your post before checking it out, so I knew to thread it off!

Turns out, someone had re-assembled my step-pulley without the key at one point.  It seemed to be a 1/8"x1/2" woodruff key. Unfortunately, the closest I had was 5/32"x1/2" flat bottom!  This required surface grinding it thinner, and taking some material off the top to get the height correct (thank you machinery handbook!).

However, after a little more than an hour (and a dirty me + dirty phone from checking out your pictures!), I was back to work!  I ended up making some T-Nuts for my mill, which has an annoyingly slightly-under-9/16" T-slots, but not smaller enough (nor new enough, its a 1960s millrite!) to be metric.  Most of my T nuts have been bench-grindered to size, so it'll be nice to have decent ones.  AND I got to play with all kinds of cuts (including 7" on the shaper!).

Final side-note, I got the speeds/feeds diagram from the manual printed at VistaPrint.  It was $20 or so, but it seemed like a great addition to the shop, so that I could mount it behind the machine.


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## Rob (Jun 11, 2020)

If you give Clausing a call they should send you a copy of the drawing for the spacer.  If the part is no longer available and they still have the drawing they will send it.


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## Lo-Fi (Jun 12, 2020)

I suspect this thread is going to be a valuable resource for 7b owners for years to come! 

Thanks for all the pics, it's great to see the inner workings of the machine. Particularly as I'm (very slowly) working on an open-source shaper design myself.


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## Weldo (Jun 13, 2020)

Thanks!  I hope this documentation can help some people!  If anyone wants a particular detail shot, please let me know.  I currently in the middle of parts washing so it's still all apart.

I wanted to share a few pics of the block.  I mentioned before that is has had brass applied to it.  Here you can see the brazing applied and ground flat.







Looks like a thin layer of brass.







I still wonder if this is a factory thing or this block has been repaired or replaced.  Also, maybe if the block was made anew it was made a little bit thicker so as to not need the spacer I'm missing.







If anyone else ever takes apart an Atlas 7B I'd be curious what your sliding block looks like and maybe get some dimensions from it.


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## Weldo (Jun 13, 2020)

Rob said:


> If you give Clausing a call they should send you a copy of the drawing for the spacer.  If the part is no longer available and they still have the drawing they will send it.



Thanks for the advice!  I just sent them an email.  If there's no reply in a few days I'll give 'em a call.


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## Weldo (Jun 15, 2020)

I got a reply from Clausing!  What awesome service!

Both parts I was interested in are discontinued of course but they did provide drawings.

This is the washer.  Should be easy enough to make.







The attachment below is the drawing for the sliding block.  I want to measure mine and see how it compares but it looks like the material called for is Oilite.  Mine is steel with brass added to the sliding surfaces.

Any thoughts?


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## ErichKeane (Jun 15, 2020)

Oilite is that impregnated Bronze, isn't it?  It looks to be pretty darn expensive to buy blocks of!  That said, its about $50 for a 3/4x2"x6" on mcmaster for generic bearing bronze.  After looking at the diagram, I think the idea would be that the material is self-lubricating.  I suspect yours is not in fact, since it is covered in braising rod, though I'd expect the braising rod to wear first.

Those diagrams are great!   I'm glad they are available, I love the ability to remake parts for this as they break!


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## Weldo (Jun 15, 2020)

I've not seen square/flat stock anywhere in Oilite.  So McMaster-Carr has it, huh?


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## ErichKeane (Jun 15, 2020)

They have a generic "weldable 954 bearing bronze", which I think is the same idea.  Oilite(the brand) doesn't seem to list rectangular/square bar stock as a thing, just round stock.

Hopefully someone more knowledgable can give a better opinion here though.


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## Lo-Fi (Jun 15, 2020)

EDIT: just seen the PDF: the block is oilite! I was looking at the washer, but that's brass. So your block is a replacement, presumably for a worn or broken block. Oilite plate is available, but it's going to cost. I reckon a bearing bronze block would probably do the job, though you might have to modify the oiling arrangements.






						Sintered Plates | Sintered Bearings | Oilite Sintered Plates | Bowman
					






					www.bowman.co.uk


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## Weldo (Jun 15, 2020)

Got some more drawings from Clausing!  I just sent another request and they answered in like 20 minutes!

These two drawings are some of the crappy ZAMAK parts.  I was curious if I could make these housings from scratch in fabricated steel as opposed to casting or machining.












I wanted S7-22, S7-23, S7-24, and S7-25, but it turns out they don't have drawings for 23 and 24.


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## ErichKeane (Jun 15, 2020)

The shapes to those components are pretty simple, they were cast for cost effectiveness I think. 

I pulled my feed selector apart to see how it works, it seems like it would be pretty trivial to remake! Same with the other two castings.


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## tjb (Jun 15, 2020)

Congratulations on your find.  Looking forward to following your progress.  I just finished a similar project on a pristine South Bend.  Not nearly as picture-heavy as yours, but here's a link.

Regards,
Terry









						Look what showed up in my shop!
					

A friend just got this gem and wants me to keep it in my shop - indefinitely - no, really.  I've wanted one of these for a long time, but I doubt that I could have found one in this condition.  It's a South Bend #7, and if you look through the dust, it appears to be in near mint condition.  It...




					www.hobby-machinist.com


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## Weldo (Jun 15, 2020)

I'm almost done washing parts.  I've found another small issue.

The plate in the picture is S7-14A in the diagram below.







I'm guessing that the pin is supposed to be a tight press fit into the plate, however mine has been welded and ground flat.  I didn't take a pic before I punched the pin out but you could see crack lines running around the circumference of the pin on the back side.  Also the pin had a tiny bit of wiggle and I could see the cracks opening and closing ever so slightly as I wiggled the pin.

So I punched the pin out.












You can see the broken weld around the backside of the pin.







And the broken weld around the hole.  Some of the weld is hanging on tight on the left side there.  I'll try to countersink it out as much as I can.







I'm reluctant to weld on an already machined part but someone else already has apparently, so it shouldn't be too catastrophic.  I'll bevel and chamfer the parts and lay a hot TIG weld in there.  Might have to choose filler carefully since the pin is likely, and the plate is maybe, hard tool steel.

There is also a grinded portion on the other side of the plate.  Not sure why this was done, but I don't think it will affect anything else.












This is the first  very major issue I've found.  Other than this there are a few small cracks in the zamak parts and some chowdery lookin stake marks on some of the bolts.  I'll post more pics as I clean the parts up.

All in all not too bad for a 60-70 year old pseudo-industrial machine.


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## Weldo (Jun 15, 2020)

Just found this pic on ebay.  Same used part I pictured in the previous post.







Maybe the weld on the pin is factory.  Or maybe this one has been repaired in the same way mine has.  What are the odds?  Looks like this piece doesn't have the grinded portion mine has though.


I also found this pic on ebay:







This block doesn't really look like Oilite, does it?  It doesn't have brass on it like mine does.


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## frugalguido (Jun 16, 2020)

I made a lot of the same parts that you found worn or broken. But it gave me an opportunity to improve them.
The sliding block,


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## frugalguido (Jun 16, 2020)

My crank pin was broken too and was repaired before in the weld area, guess what, it was broken again, so I remade the whole assy. On the new one I press fitted the pin then TIG welded, hopefully it won't break like the original.


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## Weldo (Jun 20, 2020)

frugalguido said:


> My crank pin was broken too and was repaired before in the weld area, guess what, it was broken again, so I remade the whole assy. On the new one I press fitted the pin then TIG welded, hopefully it won't break like the original.



Excellent work!  Very nice!  I like the solid brass block as well.  I may have to commission you to make me one!  

On my shaper I finally finished washing all the internal parts!  They cleaned up quite nicely.













I still have to do the ram, the column and all the external brackets/pulleys, but all the internal grease covered parts are done.

I also bought a piece of brass to make the spacer I'm missing.  It's supposed to be 2-1/4" round but I found a small square of the right material on eBay that's 2-1/8" square.  I think it'll work.  I'm not sure if I'll turn it down to 2-1/8" round or maybe just take it to 2-1/4" and it'll be like a square with rounded corners.

I'll get the column cleaned up in next day or so and begin re-assembly.  I'm thinking of picking up some assembly lube for all the new parts.  It's probably not necessary but it should stay in place better than a 10 weight oil.  It will likely take a few days to get the whole thing back together.  I'm going to have to fix small issues as I go.  There's small things like set screw marring on shafts and teeth marks here and there from pliers or pipe wrenches and the like.  I'll do my best to file that stuff down for easy assembly.


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## frugalguido (Jun 20, 2020)

If I remember right the block I made was from aluminum bronze. Check inside slide surfaces of the crank arm for wear and grooves, mine had a lot of wear in the center, I had to surface grind the area and then made the block to fit.


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## Weldo (Jun 20, 2020)

Right on.  I'll check into it.  Maybe that's why my block had brass applied to it.  Build up a little material and grind down to size.


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## Weldo (Jun 20, 2020)

@frugalguido nice weld by the way!  If you used any filler what kind did you use?  I've got a post over in the welding section about this very problem.  I'm looking for opinions on the best filler for this.


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## frugalguido (Jun 20, 2020)

ER-70 probably, I remade the whole assy, pin and all, for one, I didn't  know what type of weld filler was used in the previous repair, it looked like crap, 2nd  by the time I removed and chamfered the previous weld area, everything would be pretty thin. 3rd, the brass washer had worn the other side and the main piece was warped from heat. I always questioned the design, seemed weak only about 1/4" thickness at best supporting the pin and the pin is under high load. Seeing yours broken proved my thought. Look at the heat used in the old one!


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## Weldo (Jun 20, 2020)

The heat might possibly be from a preheat?  Most seem to recommend a preheat and slow cooling for welding high carbon tool steels.

But yeah, the design is not great.  I'm trying to remember why the backside it relieved like it is.  Maybe you could machine a pin with a flange on it, like a top hat and weld that flange?  Might take some strain off the weld.


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## frugalguido (Jun 21, 2020)

I think the recess is for the stroke length adjusting screw assy. Well, if the discoloration was from preheat it didn't work!


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## Weldo (Jun 26, 2020)

Quick update on this project.  I kinda stalled out for a few days on the reassembly because I want to have the oil on hand when I put all the pieces together.  I thought about using a separate assembly lube but decided to just use the normal lubricating oil.

I had a heck of a time trying to track down some ISO 32 way oil in a one gallon size.  Ultimately I failed to find it so I went with an ISO 68 way oil from Renewable Lubricants.  Hopefully it'll arrive next week.  

In the mean time I have a few other things to work on.  I got some special filler metal to give me the best chance at welding the pin onto the plate from a few posts ago.  I can also turn that brass spacer that I was missing.


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## Weldo (Jun 26, 2020)

frugalguido said:


> I made a lot of the same parts that you found worn or broken. But it gave me an opportunity to improve them.
> The sliding block,
> View attachment 327818



Hey where do the side oil holes connect to?  Do they run up into the semi circular "dish" on the top of the block?  I'm thinking about adding them on my block like you did.


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## Weldo (Jun 27, 2020)

Welded the pin today!

I gave it a decent groove and filled it up with TIG and Hastelloy-W filler.  Clamped it all down with heat sinks and such.

















For the welding I changed the spring clamps out for vice grips.







There's no discernable warping.


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## Weldo (Jun 28, 2020)

Yesterday I made the spacer I was missing.

The piece was 2-1/8" square so there's a few flat spots on the 2-1/4" outer diameter.  I don't think it's critical.

I scribed some marks from corner to corner to find the center point then drilled a center drill hole.  I then used that center drill hole to chuck up the piece in the 4 jaw by pinning the piece to the back of the chuck with a center in the tailstock.

I bored it out to about 0.751".  The pin itself mic'd exactly 0.750" to maybe a few tenths under.

After I had the center hole I just happened to have a 3/4" slitting saw arbor.  I mounted the washer in the arbor and made a scratch pass on the face at the proper diameter.  I then belt sanded off the bulk and cleaned up the OD on the lathe using the arbor again.


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## frugalguido (Jun 28, 2020)

Weldo said:


> Hey where do the side oil holes connect to?  Do they run up into the semi circular "dish" on the top of the block?  I'm thinking about adding them on my block like you did.


Sorry for the late reply. The semi circular dish is just to catch the oil when it is supplied though the "OIL" hole at the top of the arm, there is an additional large hole at the bottom of the dish,( kind of a reservoir for the oil), then there is holes that intersect this large hole to bring oil to the face grooves. Here is another picture looking at the top of the block,





I also made the block longer than the stock block, which is shown in the previous photos.


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## Weldo (Jun 28, 2020)

Thanks for the pic!  If my block is easily drillable I’ll probably add those side holes.

Does that added length of your block limit the stroke length of the ram at all?  I believe it’s the position of the block in the crank arm that sets the ram stroke length, is that right?


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## frugalguido (Jun 28, 2020)

Yes, the position of the block in the crank arm that sets the ram stroke length. No, on the limit,  I measured the room left between the stock block and the arm with it assembled at the max stroke length , then added this amount to each end of the block. I hope you are going to make a new block? Yours looks pretty bad, have you measured your slot width for wear and grooves? Mine was worn in the center of the slot, probably from being used at a small stroke length most of its time. The block must be fitted with a very small clearance to the slot or you get a clunk when the ram changes position. This area of the shaper is a high load situation , which is why the pivot pin was broken and the sliding block wear takes place.


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## Weldo (Jun 28, 2020)

I've not actually measured the sizes of the slot or block.  They do fit together pretty nicely.  Maybe I'll assemble the parts and check clearance with feeler gauges.

I had not planned on making a new block, though it may end up being my first shaper project.  I don't have a mill to make a new block so I'd have to put the shaper back together and use it to make new parts for itself.  Talk about earning your keep!


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## Weldo (Jun 28, 2020)

I just spent some time with my parts and a feeler gauge.  Looks like I have about 0.005-0.006" on one end, about 0.007" on the other end and 0.011" in the middle.

Any idea what's the target?  Some gap is required for a film of oil I'd imagine.


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## Weldo (Jun 30, 2020)

Finally got my oil!  Shipping was super fast!  Thanks to Renewable Lubricants!

I decided to just go with ISO 68 way oil since I had a hard time finding ISO 32 way oil in a reasonable size.  Renewable Lubricants had it but it's not very common and would have been an expensive special order.

Here's a few pics of the jug.











It's plant based and made in the USA.  It's biodegradable and toxicity is very low.  The gallon was about $28.  I plan to use it for everything, bearings, bushings, ways, everything.  It think it'll be fine.


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## ErichKeane (Jun 30, 2020)

Nice! My bottle of Vactra 2 (which I use for everything) is about empty, so perhaps I'll consider that for my next gallon!


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## Weldo (Jul 1, 2020)

REASSEMBLY!

The time has come!  I've finally begun reassembly.  I considered making a new thread for this but decided to keep it here for completeness sake.

So the last thing to come out of the shaper column was the pinion shaft, thus it's the first to go back.

Here's all the parts to the pinion shaft laid out.  The two larger pins secure the pinion gear and the right hand spacer to the shaft.  There's also a woodruff key and a small pin that I'll show next.







The small pin goes here, between the pinion gear and the thinner spacer.  The thinner spacer does not have a cross pin of its own to secure it to the shaft.







There's a corresponding hole in the spacer.  This secures the spacer to the pinion gear.







In this picture all the pins are reinstalled.  The pinion gear has a key so it's only got one possible alignment but the thicker spacer may have to be spun 180 degrees for perfect alignment.  I noticed on mine that the holes only lined up perfectly one way.   Also the pins only fit into the holes one way.  They should slide in easily to about 1/4"-1/2" before they get snug.  Try them from either end before you hammer them home.







Here I began tapping in the race on the NON SHAFT side.  That is the side on which the shaft does NOT protrude past the bearing.







I tapped the race in with a properly sized piece of PVC pipe until I could start the threaded plug.  I then used the threaded plug to push the race into the column until the plug was about flush with the surface.  That's how it was when I disassembled it.  That's why I take pictures!







Next I packed the bearings with grease.  I did my best to clean them thoroughly in the parts washer of all the old crusty grease.  I used Lucas X-tra Heavy Duty Green.  At this point I also filled the shaft with grease from the end until it began coming out near the bearing.  This will save time versus using the grease cup later on, and now I don't have to guess if the grease has filled the shaft and made it to the bearing.







Then I set the shaft in place and started the other race into its bore.







I again used a PVC pipe to tap the race in until it bottomed out on the bearing.  Finally I reinstalled the shaft side plug.  Just barely snug so there's a bit of load on the bearing.  I'll probably check this again after the machine runs for a while.  As the grease settles in a tiny bit of slop may occur, just like the wheel bearings on your truck.







Hopefully all the alignments are OK.  I never pressed the bearings off of the shaft so I know they are in the proper place but the whole assemble can be shifted left to right by using the threaded spanner plugs.  As far as I can tell the only reason to adjust the shaft position is to get proper gear mesh between the pinion gear and crank gear.

More will follow soon!


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## ErichKeane (Jul 1, 2020)

Weldo said:


> REASSEMBLY!
> 
> The time has come!  I've finally begun reassembly.  I considered making a new thread for this but decided to keep it here for completeness sake.
> 
> ...


Hmm, given all that you are doing, it would sure be tempting to replace all the bearings while you're at it.


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## Weldo (Jul 1, 2020)

Honestly I never even thought about it.  You're right though, it wouldn't be a bad idea.

They do all seem to be in great shape, however.  No evidence of heat, scoring or abuse is visible on any bearing or race.  Maybe due to the relatively low rpm and load?  Or maybe because previous owners had kept it well lubed.


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## ErichKeane (Jul 1, 2020)

Given some of your other discoveries, I would be afraid that they would be damaged in some way. With cheap bearings (basically anything but precision spindle bearings) I tend to replace them any time I have them accessible unless I remember changing them before 

Typically these things take a bunch of work to get to, so the $5-$10 for a new bearing is worth knowing I won't be doing the teardown again in a month.


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## frugalguido (Jul 2, 2020)

My bearings were fine too, even on the bull gear assy.  Surprisingly the needle bearings on the counter shaft were good too, which are turning at a higher speed.
 Amazed that you aren't going to paint it, since it is completely disassembled?


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## Weldo (Jul 2, 2020)

I thought about it, but it seems like such a pain.  I may still decide to throw on a coat or two after most of the internals are in.  I just don't want to wait too long to reassemble since it's still kind of fresh in my head where all the parts go.  To do a proper paint job I'd have to sand/scuff, prime, paint, then wait for another week for the pain to harden.  I dunno, I just can't get excited about that part.

But like I said I may paint it just before I put the ram back on.  I can mask a few of the shafts or faces that remain bare and probably brush on a coat of grey hammer tone like I did with my lathe.  It would be cool if they matched!  It looked like that's how atlas painted them back in the day, after assembly.  That way they get the bolt heads and everything.


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## Weldo (Jul 2, 2020)

Got some more parts on!

Today I did the crank gear carrier.

These are the related parts.








I lacked a wrench thin enough to hold the jam nut on the carrier, so I held the gear with some cloth covered channel locks.  These nuts were still loose from parts washing disassembly.  Be careful in the tightening, the shaft should spin freely after the nuts are cinched up.







Next the adjusting shaft can be slid into the carrier.  This is the shaft by which you adjust ram stroke length.







Oil has been applied to the bushings inside.







Next there are a few small parts on the end of the shaft.  First is a spacer.  The chamfer faces out to clear the adjacent gear.







The small woodruff key and gear go on next.







And it's topped off by a lock washer and nut.  This sub-assembly is now ready for installation.







The carrier bearing housing gets bolted on with six bolts/lock washers.  Make sure the oil hole faces upwards toward the ram.







All tightened up.







Now the carrier is slid into place through the access door in the opposite side of the column.  Somehow you must hold the carrier in place while you press the outer bearing onto the carrier shaft.  In my case I used a small length of 2x4 and a piece of 3/4" plywood to wedge the carrier in place.  This allowed me to tap the bearing home with a piece of PVC pipe.  You can't really see the carrier in the pic below but it's being wedged up to the left side by the wood.







With the carrier wedged in place the bearing is tapped onto the shaft and into its race.







Carrier installed!  It's easy to feel when the bearing bottoms out.  There should be no play at this point.







Now it's ready for the crank gear and its related parts.


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## ErichKeane (Jul 2, 2020)

Don't you have a collection of open-ended wrenches ground thinner for exactly this case?  I have about a half-dozen wrenches over the years that are significantly thinner than when manufactured due to needs like this


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## Weldo (Jul 2, 2020)

Haha, I could find any doubles that I could grind down!  I have a crap load of random sockets though...


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## Weldo (Jul 2, 2020)

Got the crank gear in.

There's a pin in the crank gear.  It's at 12 o'clock in the picture.







It lines up with this hole in the carrier, also at about 12 o'clock.  The other six holes are for bolts.







The gear must be loaded through the top since it doesn't fit through the access opening.







The pin locates the gear and bolts go in easily.







I used a small piece of metal to hold the gear teeth while I cranked the bolts with a cheater bar on an Allen key.







Now the plate can go in.  I had to file some set screw burs on the brass post in order for the plate to slide on easier.







Set screw and lock nut tightened up.







Next the two bars that hold the plate in its slot would go on, but I'm gonna try and source new bolts.  They are pretty chowdered up.  Someone had staked a hell out of them at one point.  I want to be sure they come out next time so I think I'll look into some new socket head bolts.  Most of the Philips heads are badly rounded.


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## Weldo (Jul 2, 2020)

So I was rootin' around in my "3/8 Bolt" bin and lo and behold!  I found exactly what I needed!  Saved my a trip to Home Depot and probably $10!

I found stainless flat head socket bolts in 3/8-16.  The ones I found are 1" long versus the original 3/4" but they go in no problem.  The holes are through holes and they are tapped all the way through.  And the gear is thicker than the shank of the bolts so they don't protrude out the back side.







I hit the bars with an 82 degree countersink to get rid of any lumps from the old staking.  I think the large divots I'm seeing is where someone must have drilled out the original staking to remove the bolts.







Installed!  These bolts are a big improvement over the old Philips ones.  When I ran the bolts in I gave a little squirt of oil into the threads but now I'm thinking I should have used some low strength Loctite.  I think a liquid thread locker is a less permanent solution than staking.  I may take each bolt out one at a time and apply some.







Slowly but surely it's coming together!  I actually forget what comes next, gotta refer to the earlier posts!


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## Weldo (Jul 4, 2020)

Got most of it back together!  Pics and write up following!

Here's my take on the @frugalguido sliding block mod.  I drilled out the vertical oil hole to act as a bit more of a reservoir and drilled some intersecting holes to the sides.







In the sides I used a Dremel cut off wheel to make oil channels.  Not as polished as a small ball end mill but it should serve the purpose.







Before the block I installed the brass spacer I made.







Followed by the block.







And finally the crank arm itself.


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## Weldo (Jul 4, 2020)

Next up is the pivot link for the lower end of the crank arm.

Slide in the shaft part way at first.








Then a collar, the pivot, another collar and finally into the other side of the column.  As of now both collars on the pivot shaft can be snugged up.  Leave a tiny bit of play so they don't bind.  The big set screw in the pivot is kept loose.  We'll see why in a minute.







This is the pin for the crank arm to pivot interface.  Mind the flat spot for the set screw in the crank arm.







Here it is all hooked up.







Now install the plate that holds the sliding block in place.







Now you can let the crank arm slide on the sliding block to check for rubbing.  I let it protrude through the top of the column as I slid it back and forth.  At first it was rubbing the brass washer behind the sliding block.







You can slightly adjust the left - right position of the whole crank arm assembly by sliding the pivot arm on the pivot shaft.







It'll only move a slight amount but if the crank arm assembly is too far to the left it will rub on the big brass washer/spacer.  Also the inside of the crank arm cover (the one with the oil hole) will rub the sliding block.  I ended up pushing the whole assembly as far to the left as possible then just pulled it back to the right a tiny amount, snugged up the set screw and checked the motion of the crank arm.  I repeated this a few times until I could perceive no rubbing anywhere.  It very smooth now!


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## Weldo (Jul 4, 2020)

Ram time!

Here's the associated parts







First I had to finally clean the ram.  I'd been putting this off for a while.  It doesn't fit in my 2 gallon parts washer so it was a pain.







To get along with re-assembly I threaded in the ram adjuster screw about halfway into the block on top of the crank arm.  I actually didn't get a picture of the top block install but it's pretty straight forward.  Just a pin and set screw.  What is critical is that the counter-bored part of the threaded hole faces to the FRONT of the machine.







I installed the bevel gear into the ram.  It just protrudes through the top and is held in place with a collar.  There's a thin fiber washer captive between the bevel gear and the ram.

The ram is then set in the slide ways front first.  Don't forget the gib!







You have to weasel the threaded rod into the ram.  Line it up and slide the ram rearward.  Kinda hard to pict but you'll see when you do it.







Set the ram down gently in the slide ways in a rearward position.  That is let a few inches of the ram hang over the back of the column.  Now since the threaded rod is fixed via the crank arm it will stay stationary regardless of how you slide the ram.  So slide the ram forward slowly and reach up under the rear of the ram and make sure the rod is lined up with its hole in the back of the ram.  BUT!  Before you send it home don't forget there's a bevel gear on that threaded rod.

This was one of the more finicky parts of re-assembly.  Make certain there's no burs on the shaft, especially around the through hole for the pin in the bevel gear.  You have to hold the gear up in place.  There's also a fiber washer behind this bevel gear just like the one on the topside bevel gear.  Again, since the rod is fixed via the crank arm you can slide the ram FORWARD carefully.  The threaded rod will go through the bevel gear, then the fiber washer then finally it will protrude out the back of the ram.












Now you must line up the holes for the pin in the bevel gear.  This pin will secure the bevel gear to the threaded rod.  You can look through the hole in the top of the ram.  By rotating the square drive on top of the ram the bevel gear on the shaft will be caused to rotate since they are meshed together at this point.  Spin it while looking down the hole til you see the hole in the bevel gear appear.  Now rotate the threaded rod until you can see straight through and drop in the pin.  CAREFUL!  This pin is tapered, it will only go in one way!

Once the pin is in you can apply the brass washer and double nuts.  Leave a tiny bit of slack so the rod rotates freely.







I hope all that is clear.  It was kind of tough to work on that and get pictures at the same time.

Next the top slide is screwed on.  There's two flat head screws in the holes there that secure it to the block on the crank arm.  The handle can be threaded on as well.







Lastly, there's the hold down bars for the ram.  The shims were kept with their respective sides through-out the cleaning process so they go back just like they came off.












And that's the bulk of it!  The rod inside the ram was by far the most tricky part, everything else was fairly straight forward.  All that's left are the accessories that adorn the side on the machine, but as of now all the innards are back in place.  I've rotated the pinion shaft by hand and it feels very smooth.


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## Weldo (Jul 4, 2020)

I was just getting ready to bolt on the zamak cast parts and noticed some issues.  The part labeled "Pendant Gear Housing" part # S7-25D has several cracks in it and it looks to the naked eye to be warped and misaligned.












It looks like the small boss is pushed over to one side and it no longer perpendicular to the face.

I'm going to attempt to re-make this part from 1/8" steel plate as a fabricated weldment.

Here's the original drawing from Clausing.







And here's a simplified version I'm working on.  This is just the backing plate portion.







The idea is to make or have made the part above in 1/8" steel.  Then a strip will be welded around the perimeter at make a tray more or less.  Finally the important parts can be turned on the lathe and welded or brazed onto the plate.

I believe there to be enough information available between the drawing and the actual part to make this feasible.  Also the areas that interface with the shaper will be machined from steel so accuracy can be assured.  On the welded portion, the only critical dimension is the center to center distance of the large and small hole.

I'm still wrapping my head around the details and order of operations but I expect to try it out and I don't see why it won't work.  If it does work well I may attempt to re-make the other zamak parts.

We'll see...


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## frugalguido (Jul 5, 2020)

Good job on the sliding block, should help with the oiling.


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## Weldo (Jul 5, 2020)

Thanks for the idea!


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## Weldo (Jul 25, 2020)

Woof!  Update finally!  It's been about 90*F here for a few weeks and motivation to do anything but lay around is at an all time low.

Anyway, as stated previously I'm trying to make a fabricated housing from steel to replace one of the zinc castings.  I ended up finding a great company to laser cut my parts thanks to some members.  The company is called SendCutSend.com.  I chronicled the procedure over here on this thread.

Long story short I got the parts and finally got to tackin' today!

Here's the parts.  The round part is the main body and I also had laser cut a strip of the correct width, about 0.620", to make the side wall.  I pre bent the strip around a 3-1/4" OD pipe.  It sprung back to just about a perfect 3.5"!  The stack of random metal will hold the body plate the right dimension up from the table.  The original print calls for 0.677-0.679".  I should end up pretty close.







The main plate is clamped to the table and the strip is tacked around the circumference.  I sized the width of the strip so that it makes a half corner joint.  This will allow me to use the main plate as a form to bend the remainder of the strip while still making for an easy weld with good fusion.







A few tacks.







At this point I made a mistake.  To close up the last part of the large arc I clamped the strip across the hole with a pair of large C-clamp style vise grips.  Of course it deformed the hole instantly.  D'oh!  I tried to reshape it as best I could.  For the next attempt I clamped the strip to the closer part of the hole with a pair of plier type vise grips, NOT spanning across the hole.  This went better but I didn't take a pic of it.


I continued to work it around using vice grips for added leverage.  Bend a little and tack.  Bend a little and tack again.







Almost there!







I sized the length of the strip to be a little longer than the full circumference of the main plate.







I cut the strip with a hack saw at the overlap and clamped it together.  See the way the clamp is oriented?  This is how I did it on the other side a few steps ago.  Before I tried it this way I clamped across the hole and deformed it slightly.







And here's the tacked up part next to the original.







I plan to machine bungs to insert into the holes for the critical dimensioned parts.  I'm still not sure if I should weld the bungs in or maybe braze them.  Brazing might yield less warpage.  Or probably I should machine them after welding?  Might be hard to hold in the lathe.

So that's my progress so far.  I kind of stagnated due to the heat around here but it's still moving forward!


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## Papa Charlie (Aug 1, 2020)

Nice work and write up. Enjoyed reading your thread front to back.
Look forward to you completing your project.


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## Weldo (Aug 1, 2020)

Thanks!  I was hoping to increase the knowledge base for the 7b shaper.  Since I ended up having to tear down the machine almost completely I figured I may as well document it for posterity.  Recently, the terrible heat and humidity has zapped my motivation but I’ll get back to it soon.


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## Weldo (Aug 1, 2020)

Regarding the gear cover I’m welding up, I found the perfect piece of pipe to make the machined piece.  It’s gotta be 3.125-3.126” ID to mate with the shaper.  I found a piece of sch40 steel pipe that’s about 3.062” ID.


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## Papa Charlie (Aug 1, 2020)

I was not aware of shapers until I started watching Abom79 on YouTube. He is really into the shapers. But larger units. Just purchased a 60" Rockford Openside that he is going to rebuild. Has two other units that he had restored. I had little knowledge of them before watching his videos.
I saw an Atlas in my area for sale but it has been completely restored and they want $3200. Here in the PNW, people think that old POS equipment that requires complete rebuilds are made of gold.
Nothing like the Midwest or East Coast.

I not only enjoyed the content of your thread but the writing. Very well done.


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## Weldo (Aug 1, 2020)

Thanks again!  It’s pretty surprising what some folks are asking for these small shapers.  If you shop around eBay you can sometimes find a very larger machine for the price of an Atlas.  The only problem is most of us don’t have the room, power, or capability to move such a beast.


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## rwm (Aug 1, 2020)

This outstanding. 
Also, I had no idea there were this many parts in a shaper!
I would definitely Loctite those flat head screws. They were staked for a reason.
Your weldment is very nice and a good idea. You could also consider re-casting the cover in Zamac? Could you use the original as a pattern or is it deformed some way other than cracking?
Robert


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## Weldo (Aug 1, 2020)

The casting does appear to be deformed slightly.  I considered outsourcing it to be CNC’d from aluminum but I never followed through with that idea.  I assumed it would be very expensive.  So far I’m only in it for $30.  Oh, and I did restake the screws, just to be safe.


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## master of none (Aug 25, 2020)

Thank you Weldo I cant thank you enough I just bought a atlas 7 shaper and am going to dismantle it for inspection and painting this is a God send thank you, Rick aka Master of none .


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## Weldo (Aug 25, 2020)

Glad to be of help!


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## rwm (Aug 26, 2020)

How did you make out with the welded up gear housing? Got any final pics? I was looking back at the casting and it appears that it was die cast, not sand cast. That would make it hard to duplicate by casting since I doubt the draft on the pattern is sufficient for sand casting.
Robert


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## Weldo (Aug 26, 2020)

To be honest, the weather got really got here for the past few weeks and I've been whooped after work.  I haven't made any more progress on any part of my shaper project.  The gear housing is just tacked right now but it looks promising.  I found all the needed steel stock to turn the bushings so I'm just waiting for cooler weather and more motivation.


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## Weldo (Sep 7, 2020)

Small update!

I finished welding the gear housing part and began machining the bushing part.














The welded housing fits on the shoulder of the bushing to locate it and keep it centered during welding.













I just have to determine where to part off the bushing.


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## 9t8z28 (Sep 13, 2020)

EDIT:  I read through and found that you already received the below info.  
I currently have my Atlas shaper apart as we speak and I measured the S7-55 spacer for you.  It is as follows:
.092" thick x .750" ID x 2.25" OD
I would make the .750" ID a close sliding fit. 
The .092" thickness is probably within a thou of original as there appears to be little to no wear.  I really don't see any rotational wear or scoring. 
I am almost positive this is made from a good quality bronze. 

I also measured my S7-19 block.  There are a few scratches along the sides where chips made their way inside but it appears to be in spec and fits the S7-16A ram lever pretty well.  The dimensions are as follows:  .745" thick x 1.495" wide x 2" tall.  I wasn't able to measure the bore accurately at this time but I can tell you that the OD shaft diameter on the S7-14A block and pin measures .748" and the S7-19 block fits within a thou. 

If you need any other measurements let me know.  My machine should be back together in another week or 2.   I am almost finished cleaning all of the dried grease off of the 4 main bearings.  I have been using WD-40 and kerosene to clean almost the entire machine.  I know many will frown against using Kerosene because it smells, leaves a residue, is flammable and some say there are better chemicals to clean with.  I have been using it all my life and am happy with the way it works.  The only thing I have been having trouble with is getting the dried grease from behind the bearing cages.  I just got some Acetone and MEK and am gonna try that along with my ultrasonic cleaner. 




Weldo said:


> Haha I actually already found one extra!  I started the parts washing phase today.  All the fasteners that have lock washers have the internal serrated type.  There was one instance where I had four screws, each is supposed to have a lock washer.  Two of the screws had their lock washers, one screw had two serrated lock washers on it and another one had a split type lock washer.  So I took the split one off and transferred one of the doubled up serrated ones.
> 
> The only thing bugging me is the lack of the spacer indicated on the parts diagram back in post #13.  I'm not sure if I should attempt to make one and if so how thick should it be?  I'm planning on getting it back together and seeing what the clearances are like on that part.  Also I'm starting to wonder if the sliding block was remade at some point.  When I cleaned it up in the parts washer I found that the sides of the block that ride in the slot in the crank gear had been brazed up and ground flat.  I don't know if this is factory but it might indicate repair or replacement of the block at some point.


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## 9t8z28 (Sep 13, 2020)

I noticed that the drawings from Clausing for the S7-19 block state that the material is oilite.  Mine is not Oilite, for sure.  It's ground tool steel and between 45 and 50 HRC.  I am guessing they made a change somewhere in the time span that they manufactured this machine.  Mine is serial# 10442.  Not sure when it was built or who if anyone would have that information.  If you need to ever make a replacement I would stay away from brass.  I work with brass all day long and its just not hard enough to resist wear in this condition.
I checked my S7-14A block and pin and the pin is also welded and ground on mine as well.


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## Weldo (Sep 14, 2020)

Thanks for the info!  I really appreciate you sharing all the numbers.

I was wondering about the sliding block, maybe it's spec'd as bronze so it becomes the wear part since it is easily replaceable.  If the sliding block were tool steel is it possible that it could cause wear to the crank arm?  It that case the block would last forever but the crank arm would need replacement or resurfacing after much use.

Just a thought.


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## 9t8z28 (Sep 15, 2020)

The way I look at it is, the surface area of contact of the arm is far greater than the sides of the block which is also dependent on where the stroke is set.  The sides of the block are in constant contact.  I would definitely prefer to replace the block rather than the arm but I don't think they had thought to much about replacement, more so the longevity of the parts.  I do also think that a lot of these machines didn't receive the proper lubrication by the operator although I think the oiling system for the block is lacking and could use additional passageways directing oil to the sides of the block and arm.   I am unsure on the use of oilite as the material for the block.  I do think that oilite bronze would be good for lubrication but I am unsure of using it here because of the shock and load it has to withstand.  I don't think that they had high load (iron embedded) oilite bronze when these machines were being built but I may be wrong.  Maybe a steel block with oilite shoulders would be a good compromise? 

I think one thing that will greatly reduce future wear to the machine would be to put a bellow or cover over the opening of the casting below the ram.  When disassembling my machine I found a lot of chips inside the main cast housing.  Many chips were packed around the table lift screw gears and there are a few gouges to the teeth of the crank gear and the other smaller gear where it appears that chips got stuck.  There is also the scoring on the side of the block and ram (more so on the block) but I think this was due to the previous owner not lubricating enough. 

Sorry for the book.  Just my thoughts on the matter. 


Weldo said:


> Thanks for the info!  I really appreciate you sharing all the numbers.
> 
> I was wondering about the sliding block, maybe it's spec'd as bronze so it becomes the wear part since it is easily replaceable.  If the sliding block were tool steel is it possible that it could cause wear to the crank arm?  It that case the block would last forever but the crank arm would need replacement or resurfacing after much use.
> 
> Just a thought.


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## 9t8z28 (Sep 15, 2020)

I would like to add that I will be modifying my sliding block as did frugalguido and Weldo by drilling a hole perpendicular to the existing hole for oiling and also adding oil grooves to assist in lubricating this area.  Thanks for the great idea.  I don't think I would have done it otherwise. 
Question:  What kind of oil should be used here?  Way oil or a lighter oil?  I can't imagine that a light oil would stay in the reservoir as the machine is running even thought the machine operates at a slow rpm.  The arm pivots on an arc side to side but the sliding block is rotating up and down and this action I would assume would fling the oil off of it.   I assume that the reason you guys drilled the hole larger was to increase oil capacity but I can't see it remaining in the reservoir.

EDIT:  I was looking at the Ammco shaper and unlike the Atlas they have a Gitts oiler for lubricating the sliding block and arm.  I am not saying an oiler would be better, I'm just curious what everyone else's thoughts are as to what is better?  
Here is a photo.


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## Weldo (Sep 15, 2020)

It probably won't remain in the reservoir but the larger hole will allow just that much more oil into the side facing passage ways.  I made the hole as big as I felt comfortable because I figured smearing 2cc of oil is better than 1cc of oil.

As far as I could tell the manual recommends SAE 10 (ISO 32) for pretty much every part except one or two.  I think it's the oil cup on top of the ram that is recommended SAE 20 (ISO 68).

I had a helluva time finding an ISO 32 way oil so I just went with ISO 68.  I haven't run my machine yet but I plan on using ISO 68 on everything.

The gears in the column are recommended to be spread with grease.


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## 9t8z28 (Sep 15, 2020)

Thanks for the info.  I have Mobil DTE 26 which is a heavy medium hydraulic oil (ISO 68).  Is it similar to what you intend to use?  I don't understand oils and don't have the patience to either.   Would Mobil DTE 24 (ISO 32) work?  I can find that from Mobil on Amazon in a gallon container.  I assume there is a lubrication manual for this machine on somewhere on Vintage Machinery .com. ?  



Weldo said:


> It probably won't remain in the reservoir but the larger hole will allow just that much more oil into the side facing passage ways.  I made the hole as big as I felt comfortable because I figured smearing 2cc of oil is better than 1cc of oil.
> 
> As far as I could tell the manual recommends SAE 10 (ISO 32) for pretty much every part except one or two.  I think it's the oil cup on top of the ram that is recommended SAE 20 (ISO 68).
> 
> ...


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## Weldo (Sep 15, 2020)

Yea there is a manual somewhere on the net.  Hydraulic oil would probably be fine, although a proper "way" oil is specifically formulated for sliding metal surfaces.  It supposedly has better adhesion to metal surfaces as well, to keep a film coating on mating parts.

Ultimately the small Atlas shaper is probably light duty enough that any type of oil would work just fine.  This machine won't be seeing high rpm, extreme temperatures or crazy tons of load.  That being said, I did purchase a true way oil for mine...


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## Weldo (Sep 22, 2020)

Got a little further along on my part.

Parted off the section I needed.  Man, parting ops are tough on my little flimsy Atlas!  I think some of my fillings may have loosened up from all the chatter!







It fits pretty well in the welded part.  The ID is still a few thou small which is good.  I wanted to take a final sizing pass after it gets welded up.







Here's the fabbed part next to the original casting.  It's a close approximation.  Now I gotta machine up the smaller bung.


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## master of none (Nov 4, 2020)

Hi, I'm starting to put my atlas 7b shaper back to gather and I must have thrown out my  schematic for wiring the Atlas motor back up could you possibly tell me how to wire this back up it's a 1/2 HP,60 cycle,phase 1,8/4 amps and 110-220 volts any help would be appreciated ,thanks Rick


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## ErichKeane (Nov 4, 2020)

master of none said:


> Hi, I'm starting to put my atlas 7b shaper back to gather and I must have thrown out my  schematic for wireing the motor back up could you possibly tell me how to wire this back up it's a 1/2 HP,60 cycle,phase 1,8/4 amps and 110-220 volts any help would be appreciated ,thanks Rick


The motors on these aren't particularly standard (people typically just bought an off-the-shelf motor with these), so it is unlikely it shares wiring with the rest of our 7Bs.  Can you take a picture of the data-plate?  Typically there is a wiring diagram on it.


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## frugalguido (Nov 4, 2020)

Is it a Atlas brand motor?


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## master of none (Nov 4, 2020)

yes I just edited my post to include the Atlas


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## frugalguido (Nov 4, 2020)

The wiring is on page one of the owners manual, if this isn't enough info, I can take a picture of the diagram that is on the motor.


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## ErichKeane (Nov 4, 2020)

FYI: http://vintagemachinery.org/pubs/51/3563.pdf


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## master of none (Nov 4, 2020)

frugalguido said:


> The wiring is on page one of the owners manual, if this isn't enough info, I can take a picture of the diagram that is on the motor.


T hank's I totaly forgot about the manual but just to be on the safe side if you don't mind could you post a pitcher I'm not that good with electrical


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## 9t8z28 (Nov 6, 2020)

Are either of you using the steel spiral conduit to secure your wiring inside of the main housing to the switch?  I am trying to find some but I am unsure if I need conduit with the wire already inside of it or if I can buy just the conduit and run my own wire through it?


frugalguido said:


> The wiring is on page one of the owners manual, if this isn't enough info, I can take a picture of the diagram that is on the motor.





master of none said:


> T hank's I totaly forgot about the manual but just to be on the safe side if you don't mind could you post a pitcher I'm not that good with electrical


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## master of none (Nov 6, 2020)

9t8z28 said:


> Are either of you using the steel spiral conduit to secure your wiring inside of the main housing to the switch?  I am trying to find some but I am unsure if I need conduit with the wire already inside of it or if I can buy just the conduit and run my own wire through it?


Hey,I'm using the  spiral conduit  that was already on the shaper but I would think you could push wire through the conduit.


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## 9t8z28 (Nov 6, 2020)

That's the thing, I have the original conduit but the conduit was made to tightly fit the wiring and of course the wiring is rotten.  I pulled the wire out but obviously now I cant fit the same gauge wire back through it.  I guess I will have to see if I can buy it this way.  Last question, is there a specific gauge wire that should be used from the outlet to the motor and can I use a smaller gauge wire to the switch?  This would solve the issue of fitting wire in the conduit.  The motor appears to be a typical 1/2 HP. 


master of none said:


> Hey,I'm using the  spiral conduit  that was already on the shaper but I would think you could push wire through the conduit.


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## Weldo (Nov 8, 2020)

You may be able to use something like this:









			https://www.lowes.com/pd/Southwire-1-2-Liquid-Tight-1-Conduit/3622944
		


Its just a flexible conduit from Lowes/Home Depot.  You can get it by the foot but you'll have to figure out what fittings to use for the ends.

Or maybe this:






Also from Lowes/Home Depot, it's a whip used for hooking up large appliances like A/C compressors and the like.  It's 6' long but you could shorten it.



			https://www.lowes.com/pd/Southwire-6-ft-8-2-Non-metallic-Liquidtight-A-C-Whip/3616542


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## 9t8z28 (Nov 11, 2020)

Thanks for posting this.  Great ideas.  Ill have to make a run to a HD or Lowes and see what they got.  


Weldo said:


> You may be able to use something like this:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## Weldo (Nov 17, 2020)

Oof.  I finally got around to welding my shaper part.

It's been a few weeks in limbo as my water cooled torch crapped out.  It sprung a bad leak and melted down completely so I had to replace all the hoses and find a new tig cooler solution.  Now I'm up and running again!

I welded the machined ring onto the sheet metal part.  I chose to stitch it rather than continuous to minimize warpage.












I think that amount of weld will be adequate, given the fairly low stress on the part.

Now I have to chuck it back up in the lathe and true up the ID to the perfect slip fit to the shaper's mating part.  This will be a few machining firsts for me.  I've never turned an eccentric part like this, nor have I ever indicated an ID to set a part in the chuck.  I also have to make certain the part is square in the chuck so the ID is perpendicular to the rest of the part.  Probably it will take an hour to set up and 2 minutes to cut!  Should be interesting.


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## Weldo (Nov 29, 2020)

More progress!

Here's the small boss I made for the housing.








Just mild steel, finish is kinda rough.  There's a small ledge to interface with the face of the other part.







In order for the boss to fit the housing I had to open up the hole to accept the boss.  Holding this thing in the lathe was a trip.  It's amazing what a 4 jaw chuck can do!  I actually had to grab it from the inside.  That's a first for me.












Here's how I indicated it off the old hole.  Got it to within 0.001".  After this I also indicated the face to ensure perpendicularity.  Got that less close, maybe within 0.005".  Should be good enough.







Turing nice and slow I drilled the hole out up to 1" then followed with a small boring tool to about 1.050" which is what the boss was made to.







Very nice fit!  Zero slop.

















A look at the underside.  The original cast part had a counter bore as such so I replicated it as best I could.







I then welded it on.  As with the larger ring I wanted to minimize distortion so I went hot and fast and only put 4 small welds.  I don't think this part gets super high stress so it should be alright.  If it cracks in the future it'll be easy to fix.  Another benefit  over the old Zamak part.







Here's the new one next to the old one.  Looks pretty similar!







The last step is to account for the mounting hardware.  The original had 2 holes per side, one for a screw and one for a dowel pin.  I'm thinking of welding a small block of steel to each side then just drill/tap as needed.  Should work out I hope.







It's nearing the finish line!  My goal is to throw chips over the Christmas holiday.  I'll have some time off of work and I want to get this thing fully operational.


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## rwm (Nov 29, 2020)

Damn fine work! One thing to consider. Welding blocks in there might distort the flatness of the part. You might consider brazing with silver solder. I probably would have brazed in that boss also but it looks great.
Robert


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## frugalguido (Dec 1, 2020)

Never got any notifications lately, do you still need the picture of the motor wiring?
On the conduit, I used some stainless AN hose, and just striped out the hose part and just used the outer stainless shield. I looks nice and was pretty easy to push the wire though.

P.S.  Send-Cut-Send moved to a new way bigger location, purchased another laser and also does bending now.
Lastly, nice job on the case.


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## 9t8z28 (Dec 1, 2020)

Do you mean AN brainded hose thats used in the automotive industry?  If thats the case I have some of that but wasn't aware that the hose could be removed from the braided outer portion.


frugalguido said:


> Never got any notifications lately, do you still need the picture of the motor wiring?
> On the conduit, I used some stainless AN hose, and just striped out the hose part and just used the outer stainless shield. I looks nice and was pretty easy to push the wire though.
> 
> P.S.  Send-Cut-Send moved to a new way bigger location, purchased another laser and also does bending now.
> Lastly, nice job on the case.


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## 9t8z28 (Dec 1, 2020)

Looks great Weldo!  Canty wait to see it finished.


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## frugalguido (Dec 1, 2020)

9t8z28 said:


> Do you mean AN brainded hose thats used in the automotive industry?  If thats the case I have some of that but wasn't aware that the hose could be removed from the braided outer portion.


Yes, but the one I used is for fuel injection, that had the nylon inner, so it was easy to remove.


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## Weldo (Dec 3, 2020)

Well, I couldn't leave well enough alone.  I'd been thinking about this part for a few days and I realized my logic may have been flawed when I thought if the boss would wasn't strong enough it would be easy to repair in the future.  Why not just make it so it's strong enough for certain?

So I added some gussets similar to the original.  







If I were thinking, I would have added the gussets from the beginning in the cardinal directions, but since I put my stitch welds north south east and west I opted to place the gussets in an offset manner between the cardinal points.







I suspect this will be completely resistant to failure, within reason.


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## Lo-Fi (Dec 3, 2020)

That ain't breaking in a hurry. Like it.


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## Weldo (Dec 3, 2020)

Thanks.  Yea I think this is a better solution.  Even a full circumference weld wouldn't've been as strong as gussets.


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## ErichKeane (Dec 3, 2020)

I think the original part had gussets to make up for the fact it was made of stinky cheese. The coaxial load on that part is basically zero. I'm sure the stitch welds would have been more than enough, so I have zero concerns with it now!


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## rwm (Dec 3, 2020)

That looks great! Nice job on the intricate TIG work.
Robert


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## Weldo (Dec 4, 2020)

ErichKeane said:


> The coaxial load on that part is basically zero. I'm sure the stitch welds would have been more than enough, so I have zero concerns with it now!



I thought so too, but I wasn’t sure about the loading.  It’s been so long since I’ve seen it assembled I’m not even sure how it works anymore!  Gonna have to refer to reference pics!


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## Weldo (Dec 10, 2020)

Had a half day at work today so I did a little more work on the shaper part.

To make enough thickness for the screw holes I welded small chunks to the inside of the main housing.  Here they are after filing flat.


















I then used the mating part to locate the holes.  Clamps and transfer punches did the trick.







Drilled and tapped to 10-24.







The mating part fits well!  This is without the dowel pins.







With the dowel pins installed I had to open up the receiving holes one step, from 1/8" to 0.136" to get them to align.  Not perfect but pretty close.  The parts go together well with not any perceivable slop.







There's gap at the joint.  I may try to tap the part flat with a big hammer.  Not sure if that's worth the trouble.







The following pic is how the joint looks with both factory parts.  The large end is better than the fit with my welded part but the small end is worse.  Maybe it's not that important?







I'll do some investigating as to whether it's my welded part or the mating original part that is not quite flat.  Maybe its a combination of both.

The last big step is to chuck up the housing in the lathe and open up the large bore ever so slightly.  I think I'm around 0.002" or so small.  I was waiting until all welding was complete before I machined it to the finished size.  As of right now it doesn't fit the shaper, but it's very close.  I'm looking for a perfect slip fit.


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## Weldo (Dec 12, 2020)

I wanted to close up the gap in the two mating parts before final machining.  Upon checking each part with the flattest surface I could find it looked like my steel part was very slightly banana shaped but the casting was worse.  I decided to leave the steel part as is and address the casting.

My first thought was to lightly tap it straight but this would likely have led to a cracked part.  I then thought of using heat to relax the part.

I clamped it up thusly...







And then heated the casting as much as I dare before it melted.  I actually did it in two rounds with the second round a little longer and hotter.

Here's how it ended up, it's much better!







You can see some of the old paint has burned to a crisp but I managed to avoid melting the zinc.  Now I'm finally ready to machine the ID.


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## Weldo (Dec 17, 2020)

Sound the trumpets, it's finally done!  It was a much longer process than I thought it would be, but the part is finally finished and fully functional.

I chucked it up in the lathe and removed about 0.010" from the ID.  Holding it was awkward and indicating it was very difficult.  I couldn't get it right on and had to find a happy median.  The indicator was showing about 0.007" runout but I think I can attribute that to welding distortion.

After I cut it to spec I unchucked it and tried it on the machine but it still was too small.  Actually it seemed to be slightly oval shaped.  I'm guessing that's because of how I had to hold it in the chuck.  It was difficult to tell if the part was being held tight enough without distorting the relatively thin section.

I didn't want to chuck it up again so I did this with the drill press.







Not exactly "machining" but I did get a very nice fit and a very nice finish with this method.  It's probably not perfectly round though...







Here it is on the machine.  It has a very nice sliding fit and moves freely with only the tiniest bit of slop.  It should work!







Now I hope to finish up the shaper rebuild over Christmas break.  I'll be off work from Christmas Eve until around January 3.  I should be able to get it shapering.  The last big part to disassemble and clean is the cross shaft and pulleys.


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## Weldo (Dec 19, 2020)

Finally it's time for some more reassembly.  It's been months.

This is the collection of parts that are left to re-install.







The bare feed assembly shaft and hub.







My fabbed part fits well, so far...







The small woodruff key is added.







And the spacer.  the spacer has a keyway cut into its ID.







Next is the retaining plate with its 6 flat head screws.







It's here that I ran into some minor troubles.  The housing must be very slightly recessed in relation to the cast iron hub face.  Otherwise when you tighten up the retaining plate it pinches the housing to the iron hub and does not allow the housing to pivot.  The housing must be allowed to pivot freely as the shaper table moves up and down vertically.

The spec is 0.373"-0.375" from the inner surface of the housing (the face you see in the above pic) to the face of the large machined ring on the housing.  My part varied as much a 0.007" or so, which I attribute to welding distortion.  I had already chucked up the part in the lathe and took a cleaning cut but I had not actually measured this spec until now.  Since the clean up cut on the lathe was pretty nice I knew the machined ring was flat so figured it was the backside that needed some clearancing.

I ended up using the Dremel with a cutoff wheel to grind the backside on the part as shown in the pic below.







I got in the ballpark by checking around the circumference with a micrometer, shooting for 0.373-0.375".  I set the micrometer to the target number and used it as kind of a GO-NOGO gauge.  Once the micrometer could pass over the whole circumference while set at 0.375" I marked up the housing with sharpie and installed it again.  I then rotated it around the cast iron hub noting a few snug spots.  Upon removal the sharpie was rubbed off where contact was still happening.  Just a little more grinding and it fit very well.

The below pic shows the grinding that had to be done.  It looks like more that it is.  Based on mic readings I only had to remove something like 0.007-0.010" from a few areas.  The worst was near the bottom by the triangle gussets I had welded on.







 It now can rotate freely without any snug spots.


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## Weldo (Dec 19, 2020)

Now that the housing is sorted out the threaded collar can go on to hold the gear in place.  There's a set screw in the collar.  The Atlas diagram calls for a piece of lead shot to be placed between the set screw and the shaft threads.  Not having any lead on hand I cut a tiny slice of 1/8" aluminum welding rod.  That seemed to work well.







Next is the feed adjustment gear with T-slot.







Below is the line up of parts.







The bolt goes in flush to the bottom of the T slot.







Brass/bronze bushing goes in from the back with a thin washer.







The bolt goes through the housing and also captures a link that's attached to the ratchet mechanism.







The ratchet link fits to the back of the housing.







And the bolt/gear assembly goes through everything.







Here I encountered another small set back.  I noticed there was not much thread protruding out the back of the ratchet link.  Upon investigating I found the thin washer didn't fit into the counterbore on my fabbed housing.  It's darn close though!












A couple seconds on the belt sander reduced the OD of the washer just slightly.  Now it fits in the counterbore.  Hard to tell, but it's in there!







Now the bolt protrudes enough for a washer and jam nut.


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## Weldo (Dec 19, 2020)

Next the T-nut is slid into place.







I bolted on the zamak cover and found another clearance issue.  The gear just barely rubs the cover as seen in the shiny spots below.







There's really no good way to fix this one.  When I designed this part I used the outside dimensions of the original housing.  See below in the Blue square.  I did manage to hit that number pretty close but I failed to recognize that the material thickness I made my part from is thicker than the called for 3/32" (see the Red circle).  Thus I ended up with less than 9/16" on the inside (see the Red square).  The total outside dimension should be right at 15/16".  I ended up a bit shy of that.  Now when I bolt the cover onto the housing, it pulls the cover slightly closer to the gears and they rub.







The solution I came up with was to place a washer in between the two mating parts to add some space.  It's not great but it does work.  Below you can see the fabbed housing on the right, zamak cover on the left and the silver vertical line is a #10 flat washer acting as a spacer.







The next part to go on is the link from the T-nut to the ratchet housing.







The square head bolt goes to the T-nut since it's the one you'd be adjusting with the little square drive wrench that comes with the shaper.







The large knurled nut can now go back on.







With that the shaper is mostly back together.  All I have left is all the stuff that hangs off the back like the motor and related bracketry.  I hope to get to that soon!


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## Weldo (Dec 26, 2020)

I hope everyone had a great Christmas!  I don't know about you, but I'm ready to get this shaper running!  Let's get to it!

There were a few small things to address during re-assembly.

First there was a broken screw for one of the ram wipers.  I drilled it out and was able to dig around with a small pick to remove the remnant.  It's really hard to drill a screw out exactly in the center.  I chased the threads and they work, just gonna use a longer screw than in the other holes.  The broken bit inside was pretty short and the top few threads are questionable.







The next minor problem was a sticky table support leg.  I removed all the parts and cleaned them up.

First you remove the square headed bolt then tap the clamping parts out with a punch.  Normally they'd push out easily by hand but these were so sticky with dried up oil.







Here's the parts.  The concave section clamps the support leg shaft.







And there's a captured nut on the back side for the bolt.  These parts are cast zamak I believe.







After some cleaning with solvent, the parts slip back in easily and the support leg freely moves up and down.


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## Weldo (Dec 26, 2020)

Next up for cleaning was this mess.







Start by removing the set screws in all the pulleys/collars.  There's a set screw in each pulley and one in a collar.







This one from the stepped pulley is longer than the others.







One in the braking pulley.







The large pulley on the opposite side mates up with the motor.







And there's one in the collar on the inboard side of the large single pulley.







Next I removed the brake/clutch lever.  There's two small pins that capture it on the cast iron bracket.







They tap out easily.







Now the lever with its shaft can slide out to the right in the below picture.







Now the pulleys can begin coming off.  These were very stubborn in my case.  A 3 jaw puller would have been great and I've been meaning to get one for years.  I actually lightly damaged a small woodruff key and some of the pulley IDs by trying to beat them apart.  There's a small key that holds the large single pulley but the collar does not have a keyway cut into it so the key must be removed before the collar can come off.







Now the shaft can be removed with the step pulley still on it.  It was easier to work on this way.







The roller bearings can be easily slid out of the cast iron bracket and the casting is bare at this point.







Now the brake pulley can be slid off.












This is the side that goes up against the step pulley.







And this side goes against the casting and the roller bearings.  Note the completely flattened out felt seal.  Not much sealing here anymore.







Here's the collar that was inboard of the large single pulley.







And its old felt seal.







Finally I managed to tap out the shaft.  All the parts are now disassembled.  Time for more cleaning!


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## Weldo (Dec 26, 2020)

IMPORTANT NOTE!

The shaft is not symmetrical.

Notice the spacing of the flat spots for the set screws.

This side is for the step pulley.








And this side is for the large single pulley.







Seen together you can notice the difference between the flat spots and the ends of the shaft.  Make sure it goes back together in this orientation.  In the below picture the right hand side is for the step pulley and brake pulley and the left hand side is for the large single pulley and collar.







Now all the parts are clean, ready to reassemble!


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## Weldo (Dec 27, 2020)

Reassembly of the pulley shaft and bracket.

After cleaning, the parts slide together very nicely, no force is needed anywhere.







Here's a close up of the bearings.  I can make out "USA 99026".  Not sure if these are still gettable but maybe it'll help someone.







I got new felt seals.  There's a seller on eBay that has them.  Here's a link to their seller page.  They also sell all kinds of felt wipers and other random tool related stuff.  Check them out!







Instructions with the felts.  Note the bottom where it says the 7" shaper uses oil instead of grease.







They fit perfectly!  Very nice product!







The felts are well proud of the surface.  A big improvement over the old ones.







At this point in reassembly the orientation of the shaft is critical.  Below are a few pictures to make it clear which way it goes.

One side is about 13/16" from the end of the shaft to the first flat spot.  This side accepts the braking pulley and the step pulley.












The other side is only about 3/8" from the end of the shaft to the first flat spot.  This end accepts the collar and large single pulley.  Also note that the flat spots are closer together than on the step pulley side.












Now that the shaft is correctly oriented we can slide the parts on to it.  I started from the brake pulley/step pulley side.  The brake pulley is slid on and set screw snugged.  It tight enough to capture the pulley on it's respective flat spot but still loose enough to allow the pulley to move.  Snug up the set screw and back it off a quarter turn or so.  This slight movement will allow you to get some compression on the felt seals before the set screws are completely tightened.







The key goes in for the step pulley.  The brake pulley has no keyway.  You can see a little damage to this key.  It's the one I messed up in disassembly.







Step pulley goes on again leaving the set screw only lightly snugged.







Now the bearings can be slid into the casting and the shaft slid through the bearings.


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## Weldo (Dec 27, 2020)

The shaft was actually somewhat snug going back into the bearings.  The bearings slid onto the shaft easily and the bearings also slid into the casting easily but I suppose when the bearings are captured in the casting there's very little clearance for the shaft.  The rollers are essentially squished between the casting and the shaft so it was kind of a snug fit.

Before it was sent home I oiled the felts.












Upon sliding the shaft all the way through the casting, the shaft wanted to push the opposite bearing out with it so I used a piece of pipe to push the bearing back into the casting.  No hammer was needed here, just hand pressure.







Now to assemble the single pulley side.  It starts with the collar.  The felt is oiled with way oil.  The felt faces the casting, of course.







Again leaving the set screw loose.







Now the woodruff key.







And the large single pulley.







For whatever reason the flat spot in the shaft for the large single pulley doesn't line up very well with its respective set screw.  But it should be good enough for keeping the pulley from walking off.







Now I held some pressure on the parts to compress the felts while all the set screws are tightened completely.  The felts were not super compressed, I can still see some tiny gap between the collar/brake pulley and the casting.


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## Weldo (Dec 27, 2020)

Now that the shaft and pulleys are done, the brake/clutch lever can be installed.

This is how it gets oriented.  The rubber wedge rides in the brake pulley, thereby applying friction when needed.












The cleaned up lever shaft slides in nicely.







Here's how the brake system works.  The wedge contacts the pulley when the lever is pulled sufficiently.







The two small pins can be tapped in to capture the lever shaft between the casting ears.







Complete!







Now it gets bolted to the machine.







There's 3 bolts in a triangular pattern.  The single one goes upwards.  To start the top bolt you must leave the bottom two bolts only engaged by a thread or two, this will allow the bracket to lean out at the top.  See the small gap between the bracket and the machine column.







The top of the bracket needs to lean outwards because there's an interference between the pivot pin and the top bolt head.  If the bracket is clamped tightly to the machine it will be impossible to start the top bolt.  Alternatively you could just start the top bolt first, before the two bottom ones.  It's just kind of awkward, not much finger room.







It was then that I discovered an interference issue with the brake lever.  It rubs the column pretty hard.







A slight bend can be seen in the lever handle.







Originally I thought I could remove the pin that captures the handle to its shaft, but the end of the shaft appears to be tapered very slightly so the handle cannot come off from that end.







I had to remove the two pins in the lever shaft and slide the whole thing out.  The bracket was able to stay on the machine.  I did still remove the lever from the shaft.  It's not really necessary but I already had the pin out at this point.

The lever was clamped in the vise, heated and bent slightly to allow clearance.







It's close but it clears!


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## Weldo (Dec 27, 2020)

Now attention is turned to the motor bracket.  Not much to say about this part, I just washed it down in the parts washer.  No disassembly was necessary.







It bolts on here with two bolts.












The bolt pictured below is for adjusting belt tension between the motor and the counter shaft.







My motor bracket had this ball stud on it.  It's not in the schematic and it looks shop made.  Not sure what its use is/was.







Now the motor!







Motor in place.  I wiped it down with solvent and it cleaned up pretty well.







Here's a question to anyone with one of these old Atlas motors.  In the picture below, am I meant to lube this motor with grease or has someone replaced the old oil cups with grease fittings?  Seems like they should be oil cups, and I know that most of the other cups on this machine were erroneously replaced with grease fittings.  There's no lube info for the motor in the manual I have.


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## Weldo (Dec 27, 2020)

The step pulley that mates with the counter shaft step pulley goes on next.

There's another interference with the feed mechanism.







I disconnected the link between the feed housing and the ratchet housing.  That allowed the feed housing to pivot out of the way enough to get the pulley on.







There's a key here.







And the pulley goes on with a set screw.  In hindsight there probably should have been a small lead shot or something similar between the set screw and the shaft.  I neglected to do that when I put this pulley on so I might have a tough time getting it off in the future...  As far as pulley position, I just eyeballed it to line up with the counter shaft step pulley.  It may need adjustment once the belts go on.







The grease cup screws on.  It's empty at the moment.







There's an accessory light that bolts to the ram ways.  It uses a single slotted round head screw to bolt to the way.







Wire clamp.







The wire is kind of unruly here.







I'll probably get a clamp on this bolt to hold the wire more neatly.







Now the oil pan goes on.







I had to clearance it a little because it hit the brake lever.


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## Weldo (Dec 27, 2020)

Belt fitting!

The belts that were on the machine seem a bit tight.  There's a link belt for the motor and a rubber V belt for the step pulleys.  The rubber one feels too tight so I'll make up a link belt for that side as well.







I still have to play around with tensions.  The motor belt feels too tight to me.  When I engage the clutch lever I can see the motor bracket flex just slightly.  I may add a link or adjust motor tension with the bolt pictured in a previous post.

Below is a picture of the belt under tension and how much deflection it has.  I had to push on it fairly hard to get that much deflection.


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## frugalguido (Dec 27, 2020)

Weldo said:


> Now attention is turned to the motor bracket.  Not much to say about this part, I just washed it down in the parts washer.  No disassembly was necessary.
> 
> View attachment 348833
> 
> ...


Mine has no grease fittings. I also noted that on the shaft that lifts the pulleys assy. to disengage the drive, that yours is very worn (the flat spots rounded over). Mine had this too, I made a new shaft and then heat treated it, so hopefully it won't wear like the original.


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## Weldo (Dec 27, 2020)

Thanks for the info.  So yours has oil cups or just holes?  

I did notice the rounded over bits on the shaft but I didn't think it was really a problem.  The final engagement points are unchanged so would it really matter that it's rounded over in the interim?  I could probably dab a little hard face weld on there buy I didn't think it was very critical.  Any thoughts?


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## Weldo (Dec 27, 2020)

Got some belts on.  I added one link to the motor belt to loosen it up a bit.  Seems better now.

And I made up a link belt for the step pulley side.







I think I'm gonna source a rubber V-belt for this side since the link belt contacts the motor just slightly.







Also swapping the belt to a different pulley is kind of tight with the feed mechanism.  The link belt is fatter than a regular V-belt would be.







The guards are on.  The big one just uses a hinge pin through a bracket on the oil pan.







And the motor side guard slips onto a shaft on the oil pan and uses a small bracket to the oil pan bolt.


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## Weldo (Dec 27, 2020)

Got a quick video of it moving!  It seems to move pretty well, of course I have no precedent to which I can compare it.

I still need to add the ram wipers, all the oil cups and the tool holder parts, but it's satisfying to see it move on its own for the first time!

I also need to do a full lube job.  I've been oiling parts as I assemble them but I've not done a full lubing in situ.





Your browser is not able to display this video.


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## frugalguido (Dec 27, 2020)

Weldo said:


> Thanks for the info.  So yours has oil cups or just holes?
> 
> I did notice the rounded over bits on the shaft but I didn't think it was really a problem.  The final engagement points are unchanged so would it really matter that it's rounded over in the interim?  I could probably dab a little hard face weld on there buy I didn't think it was very critical.  Any thoughts?


Screws actually , But after consulting a friend who was an application engineer for Chevron, he told me to grease the motor bearings and also the roller bearings on the counter shaft, plus the main bull wheel gear bearings, so I don't use oil anymore, (he sent me the grease that he recommended ).
My old shaft looks like it was repaired with weld too. I think the two buttons that ride on that area of the shaft are hardened from Atlas, so it wears the shaft. Here is a pic of the old and the new shaft.







Here is pic of my restored motor for reference.


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## Weldo (Dec 27, 2020)

Thanks for the pics!  Nice work on the shaft and the motor looks brand new!

I could see the application of grease being preferred.  Usually roller type bearings are packed with grease, like the wheel bearings on a car, unless they can be fully bathed in oil at all times, like in a transmission case.

I believe the big tapered roller bearings for the bull gear are lubed via grease cups on the original design.  So there's that.

Now you got me thinking of using grease on the counter shaft.  When I reassembled the countershaft I filled the casting with oil, but with only felt seals there was a puddle of oil beneath the shaft the next morning.  The use of grease in that application would be beneficial for sure.


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## Weldo (Dec 27, 2020)

So how did you address the greasing of your countershaft?  Drill and tap for zerks?


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## frugalguido (Dec 28, 2020)

No zerks, just packed the rollers, I think that it's ok considering where is the grease going to go.  On my Deckel mills, that use roller bearings on the spindles, they are lubed the same way. You just dissemble occasionally, clean and repack.  On the  big tapered roller bearings for the bull gear, I think looking at the Atlas manual, they show oil as the lube, which to me never made sense, how is oil getting to the bearings unless you put a bunch of oil in there, the oil git opening is between the two bearings? And it's not going to stay in there , no seals anywhere. To me grease makes more sense, treat them like you said, wheel bearings.


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## Weldo (Dec 29, 2020)

You're right, it is oil on the bull gear bearings.  It's the pinion that has the grease cups.

Honestly I'm torn.  Grease does seem to make more sense on the big roller bearings but I wonder why oil was spec'd?  Maybe there was no way to use a grease cup?  Did the Atlas shaper pre-date zerk fittings?  Maybe they intended the oil to leak out and lube other parts along the way, like the feed gear housing?

On my 10" Atlas lathe the roller bearings call for oil.  Every so often I add some but I never see it leaking out but there are stamped seals on either side of each bearing.  That leads me to believe that the spindle bearings are riding in a constant bath of oil, I suppose.  But like you said above, there's not really any sealing on the shaper.

For now I think I'll lube as the manual intended just because I'm so close to getting it all back together.  If we'd had this discussion a few months ago I may have taken a different route.  I appreciate it greatly, though.  I'm always ready and willing to learn new things and broaden my horizons.


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## Weldo (Dec 29, 2020)

I added the oil cups and ram wipers the other day.

There wasn't a cup spec'd for this hole but I added one just for the heck of it.







One on either side of the ram ways.












One for the bull gear bearing housing.







And one on the ram position lock.







I still need a right angle one for the counter shaft.







And the ram wipers with new felts.


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## Weldo (Dec 29, 2020)

The tool head.







First off, does anyone know if there should be a rocker for the tool post?  The manual doesn't show one but why would the washer be concave?







The tool post slips out.  Mine was tight and required tapping out.







Remove the double nuts on the clapper pivot pin.







The pin was tapped out.







The pin is tapered.







The clapper comes off readily.  It's hard to notice in the pic below but there was a small amount of mushrooming on the very corners of the clapper.  This was causing it to stick in its collapsed position.  I believe this mushrooming resulted from the tool post washer being installed and tightened with the concave side DOWN.  Thus an extreme amount of pressure was placed on just the very corners of the clapper.  I had to file it flat.







The underside of the clapper has a shallow counterbore for the tool post.







Lock screw.







I then began cranking the handle to separate the two parts of the head.







It got tight at one point so the gibs were loosened.












With the gibs loose the two components slid apart easily by turning the threaded rod.


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## Weldo (Dec 29, 2020)

Now the mounting bolts can be removed.







And the brass feed nut can be removed as well.  I had to tap it out due to sticky, dried up oil.



























The base is now bare.







The gibs are removed from the slide.


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## Weldo (Dec 29, 2020)

Now the slide can be stripped.

I started by removing the threaded rod assembly with two bolts through the plate.







The assembly slides out.







The nut on the end is loosed.







And the handle with its key can come off.







Next, the dial and nut thread off.  The dial should be able to freely spin about the nut, but mine was stuck tight, so the dial and nut came off together as one unit.  Of course the lock screw is loose.  The parts were still stuck fast.

















I then loosened the lock screw on the dial and tapped the pieces apart.  I used the base since it had a perfectly sized hole for pressing the nut out.  In retrospect I should have used a punch that more closely matched the size of the nut.  With the small punch in the pic I made a tiny dent in the top of the threads of the nut which made reinstallation difficult.  I ended up hitting the nut with a countersink to remove the small dent.







The separate nut and dial.







Finally the mounting plate and a small spacer.







The order of parts.


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## Weldo (Dec 29, 2020)

Now the slide can be disassembled a bit further.

It's held in a vise.








Now don't do what I did!  I tried to loosen the large Philips screw straight away.  It was very tight, so I got the impact screwdriver.  It was moving a bit with each hit but not freeing up.  This signaled that something was wrong.  Lo and behold, there's a set screw for this fastener!







With the set screw removed the bolt comes out much more easily!







I did chowder up the threads though...







I just happened to have some bolts that will work here.  The new one is stainless and an allen head, but it'll work, just have to shorten it.







Now the parts are separate.







Lots of old varnish!


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## frugalguido (Dec 29, 2020)

Put a small disc of brass or aluminum before reinserting the allen screw to protect the flat head screw .


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## Weldo (Dec 29, 2020)

Reassembly of the tool head.

Begin with the flat head bolt.  I used a new Allen head bolt in lieu of the old Philips one that I ruined.







As suggested by @frugalguido I used a small piece of aluminum to prevent thread damage from the set screw.  This is a tiny piece of 1/8" TIG rod.







I had to play with the tightness of the flat head for a bit to get a good sliding action without being to loose or too tight.  You also have to snug the set screw for every adjustment you make to the flat head, otherwise the tightness of the flat head bolt will be influenced by rotating the casting when you check its action.







Now to the base.  The brass feed nut goes in easily when cleaned up.







And the mounting bolts must go on before the slide goes on.  I threaded the rod in at this point, also.







Then the slide.  The square head lock screw is installed as well.







Slide in the gib spacer.  I also screwed in the gibs enough to capture the spacer but not enough to make the slide snug yet.







The handle parts come next, beginning with the small spacer and the plate.







The dial and nut have been cleaned and freed up.  On my Atlas lathe there's a tiny spring and ball detent on the "slide-side" face to keep the dial from being sloppy.  There is a hole in this dial but there's no spring or ball.  I forgot to check the manual to see if it's spec'd but it can be added later. 







Next is the key, handle, and retaining nut.  You have to play with tightness here as well.  If everything is just snugged up as usual the handle will be very hard to turn.  You have to back the dial nut off very slightly from the chrome plate and use the nut on the end as a jam nut to keep everything moving freely.  Also the bolts are added through the plate at this point.







Now the clapper.  It can only go on one way because of the tapered pin.







This is yet another instance of playing with fastener torque.  The clapper has to be able to move freely so you may have to back off the first nut a hair and use the second nut as a jam nut.







I had to file the ID of the clapper a little to get the tool post to slide in freely.  I'm assuming the washer should be installed with the concavity up, and that there should be a rocker.







Starting the bolts is kind of tough.  Maybe I should have installed the base on the machine and then reassembled the rest in place?







All back together!  At this point I adjusted all the gibs.


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## frugalguido (Dec 29, 2020)

After you run the Atlas for a while, you might want add some locks on the slide. A great addition IMHO.


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## Weldo (Dec 29, 2020)

Disassembly of the vise.

The vise.







The two nuts are removed and the vise can be separated from the swivel base.







There's a heavy pin acting as a pivot.







The T nuts can slide around the groove in the base.







And exit through the square hole in the back side.







While on the back side, the key can be removed.







Now for the screw assembly.  Remove the set screw on the end collar.







I had to hold the collar with pliers because of thread damage caused by the set screw.  Then just crank the vise handle to run the collar off.







Behind the collar is another collar with a pin.  The pin rides in a slot cut into the threaded rod.







Behind that is another spacer.







Now these screws hold the threaded rod support plate into the slide.







Crank the handle again to free the rod from the moveable jaw.







The rod comes out as a unit.  Really the plate is unthreaded so you could remove the rod before the plate is unbolted.  Either way works.







The plate simply slides off the rod.  And the moveable jaw slides off.







Here's a look at the underside of the moveable jaw.  It's got shims and the bolts were very tight so I did not disassemble these parts.












Lastly, the jaw pads are removed.












This is all the vise parts laid out.


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## Weldo (Dec 29, 2020)

frugalguido said:


> After you run the Atlas for a while, you might want add some locks on the slide. A great addition IMHO.



You mean like the one on the milling attachment?


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## Weldo (Dec 29, 2020)

Reassembly of the Vise.

First I screwed on the face pads because it's easier before the jaws are together.












Then the moveable jaw slides on.







The threaded rod support plate captures the moveable jaw.







The rod goes in.







The rod is turned counter clockwise (it's a left hand thread) to thread it into the moveable jaw until it pokes out of the main body.







Now the first spacer...







Followed by the one with the pin.  It lines up with the slot.







And the threaded collar.  The tightness of the threaded collar has to be adjusted until the vise operates freely.  If the collar is too tight the vise will be hard to crank.  I ran it on finger tight until it touched the spacer behind it then backed it off very slightly.  I applied the set screw and it seems good, it's easy to turn with very little slop.







I put another piece of aluminum in the set screw hole.  This one was made from a 1/4" round bar sanded down to fit in the hole.







The key goes in the bottom of the base.







The T nuts are fed in through the square hole.







And the pivot pin is dropped in.







Now the vise can be added to the swivel base.







I found some 3/8" washers that had a nice compact OD.  A normal 3/8" washer hung over the edge giving an untidy appearance.







The 4 washers for the base needed to be trimmed to avoid interference with the base casting.  The ole Whitney No.38 bench shear makes a quick and clean cut.







Installed!


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## Weldo (Dec 29, 2020)

*IT'S DONE!!!!*

With that, this machine is once again a fully functioning shaper!  All that's left to do is a full lube job and bolt up a tool holder.  I hope I can get another short video of the first chips.

I ended up ordering a new V-belt for the step pulleys.  The true V-belt will be lower profile than the link belt and should not rub the motor at all.  It'll still work with the link belt though.

I'd like to eventually remove and clean up the table.  It's the last part that's untouched by me.  But for now I wanna see it working!  The table seems to move freely enough.

Also there are some minor cracks in the ratchet housing that are in the back of my mind.  Someone makes a 3D printed ratchet housing on eBay made from a heavy duty plastic.  It actually looks like a decent option.  I considered trying to fab a ratchet housing like I did for the feed gear housing but the ratchet one is much more complex and might not be practical.  Not impossible though.

I still have some accessories to clean up and possibly make parts for.  I think they both are missing a part or two.







Man, it's been a long road, and I'd like to thank all the folks who followed the process and offered words of encouragement and advice.  I'm grateful to be an accepted member of this wonderful community!  Thanks for everything, guys!


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## Lo-Fi (Dec 29, 2020)

Nooooo.... No more lovely pics of it in pieces  

Seriously, though, thanks for the thorough thread. I've been living vicariously having no shaper of my own. 

And congrats on a great rebuild!


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## Weldo (Dec 29, 2020)

Haha, thanks!  I hope this thread can help someone in the future.  It was a labor of love!


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## 9t8z28 (Jan 5, 2021)

Weldo said:


> Thanks for the info.  So yours has oil cups or just holes?
> 
> I did notice the rounded over bits on the shaft but I didn't think it was really a problem.  The final engagement points are unchanged so would it really matter that it's rounded over in the interim?  I could probably dab a little hard face weld on there buy I didn't think it was very critical.  Any thoughts?


My motor has oil cups


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## 9t8z28 (Jan 5, 2021)

Weldo said:


> And the ram wipers with new felts.
> 
> View attachment 349014


Did you felt wipers for the ram/cross-slide not come with rubber wipers?  I still have my originals that fit with the new felts.  Surprisingly they are not dry rot


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## 9t8z28 (Jan 5, 2021)

frugalguido said:


> View attachment 348879


Awesome job restoring that motor!


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## 9t8z28 (Jan 5, 2021)

frugalguido said:


> After you run the Atlas for a while, you might want add some locks on the slide. A great addition IMHO.


Can you show us what you mean by locks on the slide?


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## 9t8z28 (Jan 5, 2021)

Weldo said:


> Also there are some minor cracks in the ratchet housing that are in the back of my mind.  Someone makes a 3D printed ratchet housing on eBay made from a heavy duty plastic.  It actually looks like a decent option.  I considered trying to fab a ratchet housing like I did for the feed gear housing but the ratchet one is much more complex and might not be practical.  Not impossible though.





> There is a guy on the Atlas Facebook group who has a homemade ratchet cover made from aluminum. He didn't even know it wasn't factory until I told him. I would try repairing yours. I posted a thread about repairing it in these forums. If I was you, I would attempt making one. I would make it from aluminum and I really dont think it would be that hard. Did you ever get the drawing of it from Atlas? I remember you got the drawing for the housing that you made.


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## 9t8z28 (Jan 5, 2021)

I dont know why I cant fix my quoted reply so here it is without the quote
There is a guy on the Atlas Facebook group who has a homemade ratchet cover made from aluminum. He didn't even know it wasn't factory until I told him. I would try repairing yours. I posted a thread about repairing it in these forums. If I was you, I would attempt making one. I would make it from aluminum and I really dont think it would be that hard. Did you ever get the drawing of it from Atlas? I remember you got the drawing for the housing that you made.


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## Weldo (Jan 5, 2021)

Hey.  About the wipers.  I do have original rubber ones but they are rock hard and not really useable.  I believe the deal was that the new ones are thick enough to not need wipers.  I mean they take up the whole tin cap with the felt alone.  I did get wipers for the table but I'll put them on when I disassemble and clean the table assembly.

Regarding the ratchet housing, I did get a drawing of the rear portion of it but not the front part, the part with the selector lever.  I probably could make one, I may revisit the idea in the future.


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## smokey357 (Jan 6, 2021)

Thanks for taking the time do document your journey on the shaper


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## oppomojos (Jan 17, 2021)

Weldo. thanks for this thread with detailed description and pics(not to mention time).    I have 4 7B's with one being partially disassemble....but not for long.  I've been running a shaper going on 39 years and still amazed what these little Atlas shapers do.  thanks again


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## frugalguido (Jan 17, 2021)

9t8z28 said:


> Can you show us what you mean by locks on the slide?


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## oppomojos (Jan 18, 2021)

frugalguido, one of my machines has the same style of lock that uses the gib adjustment hole for mounting.  I use this machine when cutting parts that require a long stroke and the clapper gets to "clapping".  Not sure if two locks are better than one but using the existing gib holes is an option and works well for me.  On the final cut, when critical, I also take the backlash out in the raising feed direction until snug.


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## Booter (Jan 26, 2021)

Hi Weldo,

Thanks very much for posting such a comprehensive teardown document.
Your efforts just saved me a pile of time .... specifically, my issue was removing the ram easily and your information about punching out the pin on the bevel gear saved me a lot of messy work.
Now the fix/upgrade to my Atlas shaper will go smoothly.... !   (My fix is to the threads on the ram adjusting block... one is stripped...  )

Jeff Booth
Oakville, Ontario
Canada


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## Weldo (Jan 26, 2021)

I'm glad you found it helpful!  That was my inspiration behind all the work of creating this thread.  I've not seen a similar comprehensive teardown with pics and such.  I suppose this is my contribution to the community!


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## mpoore10 (Feb 23, 2021)

Weldo said:


> My motor bracket had this ball stud on it.  It's not in the schematic and it looks shop made.  Not sure what its use is/was.
> 
> Here's a question to anyone with one of these old Atlas motors.  In the picture below, am I meant to lube this motor with grease or has someone replaced the old oil cups with grease fittings?  Seems like they should be oil cups, and I know that most of the other cups on this machine were erroneously replaced with grease fittings.  There's no lube info for the motor in the manual I have.


My 7B is not as far along in rebuilding as yours, but close. My motor bracket had the threaded hole in the same place as where your ball stud is located. The threaded hole is not in the drawings I have either. My guess is a running change to add support for the motor, but I really don't know. Given that two machines have the same hole, I think it is safe to say it was a factory deal.

The motor bearings are shielded on one side deep groove roller balls. Grease could not flow through the bearings and I think it would run hot. However, there is a relatively water tight cavity for oil dripped through these openings to bath the bottom half of the bearings. I replaced mine with double shielded prelubed bearings so I don't have to deal with lubing them. The oil cups are now cosmetic.

If someone has used grease, I think you may need to tear it down and replace the bearings. You should also check for a leaking cap that contains pcb's and look over the fabric wire insulation that might need attention.


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## Papa Charlie (Feb 23, 2021)

The ball stud almost looks like it is designed for a spring, for what purpose I don't know. I would not think you would need it given the tensioning method for the drive belt.

Maybe as a way to add some dampening to the motor plate to allow for the jumping around of the unit when used. I know these units can be quite violent if run at full speed due to the inertia.

Or maybe it is just a way to keep the motor plate from dropping down too far onto the bench or stand when changing belt.


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## mpoore10 (Feb 23, 2021)

A rubber foot pad would make sense. Motor vibration can affect finish on lathes, so I would think the same applies to a shaper.


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## Weldo (Feb 23, 2021)

Interesting theories!


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## Marine Man (Jun 18, 2021)

Weldo this is a brilliant thread. Thanks for sharing. I am busy in the midst of my shaper rebuild and have consulted your thread numerous times. 
Just one question I have is with your side oil port mods on the sliding block, does it not tend to drain the slot reservoir on top a lot faster to the detriment of the main bush its supposed to lubricate? 
My arm sides and block are scored so this is obviously a weakness on these machines and I considering doing the same mods you did.


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## Weldo (Jun 20, 2021)

Thanks for the kind words!

You're right that the lubrication of the sides of the sliding block may indeed be to the detriment of the main pin.  Perhaps if I were to do it over I would make the side oil holes very very small.  Like 0.060" or less so that oil does get to the sides of the block, but at a very slow pace.


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