# Stumbled upon a Craftsman 101.21200 Lathe



## bama7 (May 8, 2019)

I just got back from what I believe is a really good buy this morning. I got a Craftsman 101.21200 Metal Lathe in what looks like really good condition with extras! I don't know if the motor works, but should not take much to find out. It is dirty, but did not notice any damage. Cleaning will tell me that I hope. It is missing the Gear Housing Cover.


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## wa5cab (May 8, 2019)

Looks pretty good.  Besides the gear cover, the only other common accessory that I don't see is a 3-jaw chuck.  When you get time, please complete the MK2 survey questionnaire up in the Sticky area.


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## markba633csi (May 8, 2019)

If you need a belt (and it looks like you do) US bearings and belts has 2L belts for cheap.  I think it's about a 29"
I'll go check mine and see how good my memory is
Mark
ps yep it's 2L 290 made by Pix (India)
pss I see you have the milling attachment but I wouldn't plan on doing a lot of milling on this lathe- the spindle drive coupling is a weak point


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## T Bredehoft (May 8, 2019)

wa5cab said:


> I don't see is a 3-jaw chuck.



Does one of the four jaws have a scroll?


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## mmcmdl (May 8, 2019)

Looks like the one 4 jaw is a scroll chuck . ( on the right )


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## bama7 (May 8, 2019)

It definitely needs a belt and thanks for the info. I haven't really taken the time to check out the chucks very well. Although one appears to be new. It has some sort of a "film" on it. I will look for the "sticky" area and see if I can add any info.


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## bama7 (May 10, 2019)

bama7 said:


> It definitely needs a belt and thanks for the info. I haven't really taken the time to check out the chucks very well. Although one appears to be new. It has some sort of a "film" on it. I will look for the "sticky" area and see if I can add any info.


I sent a completed copy of the survey to your email address today.
Sorry, I sent this to the wrong person.


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## bama7 (May 10, 2019)

wa5cab said:


> Looks pretty good.  Besides the gear cover, the only other common accessory that I don't see is a 3-jaw chuck.  When you get time, please complete the MK2 survey questionnaire up in the Sticky area.


I sent a completed copy of the survey to your email today.


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## bama7 (May 12, 2019)

I believe the motor I got with the lathe is original to it. Should this lathe have a forward and reverse? I know zero about wiring. The next to last picture shows the wiring harness. It does need replacing.


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## wa5cab (May 12, 2019)

Well, I have seen much worse.  The main thing that appears to need replacing is the electrical tape around the wire bundle.  What you should do about it depends upon where your switch or switches will be mounted.  The Atlas 6" machines, unlike the 10" and early 12" ones, do not have a place on the front of the headstock to mount the motor ON-OFF switch.  

As to whether or not you should wire the motor to be reversible, that depends upon what you intend to do with the machine.  There are two common instances where you need to be able to reverse it.  

The first is for grinding with a tool post grinder of any type.  For proper grinding operation, the the rotation of the work piece and the grinding wheel should be in the same direction (both either clockwise or counter-clockwise.  The rotation direction of the grinding wheel for OD grinding should be clockwise as viewed from the tailstock end of the lathe. This will direct the spark stream downwards rather than upwards, for safety reasons.  The normal rotation direction of the spindle is counter clockwise. If you  try to grind under these circumstances, the RPM of the spindle will be subtracted from the RPM of the wheel, reducing the relative velocity at the point of contact.  Any grinding job run like this will take longer than it would if the spindle were turning in the opposite direction.

The second is for any operation that requires you to keep the half-nuts engaged for the duration of the job.  One such may be cutting metric threads on an inch-based machine.  Doing an operation like this will be much quicker and easier if you can complete a pass, stop the motor, back the cutter out, reverse the motor and let it return the carriage to the start position.

So what you do about the wiring harness depends upon whether you want to make the motor reversible or not.  And if you do, upon whether you are going to have a separate ON-OFF and FWD-REV switch.  The ON-OFF function should have the switch located somewhere between the operator and the lathe, so that you never have to reach over the lathe while it is running.  As you should never reverse the motor rotation while it is running, if you have separate switches for the two functions, the FWD-REV switch can be located anywhere.  If you sometimes have children or other knob twiddlers in the shop, it is common to use two switches, with the ON-OFF switch mounted somewhere on the front of or in front of the lathe, and a separate FWD-OFF-REV switch mounted somewhere behind the lathe.


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## bama7 (May 12, 2019)

Thanks for the reply. I have no need for having the motor to run in reverse, but was curious to see if they were intended to go in both directions. I do intend to put the on/off switch on the front of the bench. I will try to locate the correct wires to test the motor and then eliminate the others and then rewrap the harness.


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## wa5cab (May 12, 2019)

OK.


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## bama7 (May 12, 2019)

As I have stated earlier I know nothing about wiring and am not kidding as I will now prove. Here is what I want for info. Looking at a normal 3 prong plug, Big blade on the left, Small blade on the right, and Half Round blade on the bottom. Which color wire from my harness should go to which blade? All I want is to attach the plug to the harness and plug it into the wall socket and watch it run, hopefully clockwise looking at the end of the pully.


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## wa5cab (May 13, 2019)

bama7,

Unfortunately, no one can tell you that.  The three wires going to the AC supply plug should be green for ground, white for Neutral, and Black for Hot.  Your photos show three bundles pf wire coming out, with 2 wires, 2 wires and 4 wires.  Unless you can find the original wiring diagram and it actually matches the wire colors, you had better take it to someone who knows what they are doing and have them wire the line cord.

Also, one of the photos showing the printing on the side shows "PROTECTOR TYPE BK".  As I do not see a red reset push button, that causes me to believe that the motor has an automatic reset thermal overload breaker buried inside somewhere.  That is not a safe thing to have on a lathe because you have no way of knowing how long it willl take for the breaker to reset itself.  About the only thing that you can count on is that if it trips because of a crash or similar event and you do not first pull the plug out of the outlet, you will probably have your hands buried in the machine when it cools off enough to reset and try to restart the motor.  And lose a hand or worse.


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## bama7 (May 13, 2019)

wa5cab said:


> bama7,
> 
> Unfortunately, no one can tell you that.  The three wires going to the AC supply plug should be green for ground, white for Neutral, and Black for Hot.  Your photos show three bundles pf wire coming out, with 2 wires, 2 wires and 4 wires.  Unless you can find the original wiring diagram and it actually matches the wire colors, you had better take it to someone who knows what they are doing and have them wire the line cord.
> 
> Also, one of the photos showing the printing on the side shows "PROTECTOR TYPE BK".  As I do not see a red reset push button, that causes me to believe that the motor has an automatic reset thermal overload breaker buried inside somewhere.  That is not a safe thing to have on a lathe because you have no way of knowing how long it willl take for the breaker to reset itself.  About the only thing that you can count on is that if it trips because of a crash or similar event and you do not first pull the plug out of the outlet, you will probably have your hands buried in the machine when it cools off enough to reset and try to restart the motor.  And lose a hand or worse.


That doesn't sound good about the hand thing. I will try to find a local electrician to help out on this one. Thanks for the reply.


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## markba633csi (May 13, 2019)

Looks like that motor was borrowed from some other machine- 
Normally black wires are "hot" and connect to the narrow prong on a plug. White wires are "neutral" and connect to wide prong. The roundy center prong is ground (green wire) and would connect to a case screw on the motor. 
I see two cords in your picture- unfortunately we don't know which is for the plug and which is for a switch. Plus three other wires unaccounted for, not a lot to go on- perhaps you might should consider another motor? 
Mark


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## bama7 (May 13, 2019)

markba633csi said:


> Looks like that motor was borrowed from some other machine-
> Normally black wires are "hot" and connect to the narrow prong on a plug. White wires are "neutral" and connect to wide prong. The roundy center prong is ground (green wire) and would connect to a case screw on the motor.
> I see two cords in your picture- unfortunately we don't know which is for the plug and which is for a switch. Plus three other wires unaccounted for, not a lot to go on- perhaps you might should consider another motor?
> Mark


It looks a lot like a washing machine motor or maybe an industrial fan type motor. It was attached to the lathe when I got it. I have three motors at home. Two are 3450 rpm and one is 1740 rpm. Problem is the 1740 rpm motor turns counter clockwise looking at the pully end. Of all things it only has three wires coming out of the motor. Black, white, and green are the colors. Would it change the direction of the motor if I swapped the leads around or just burn the motor up? I don't think it will change direction, but I have to ask.


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## wa5cab (May 13, 2019)

If you simply swap the white and the black, it won't be safe for someone later who isn't smart enough not to trust an unknown person's wiring but it will run fine and in the same direction as before.

Following assumes that the 1740 RPM motor is capacitor start.  What you need to do, assuming that there is one, is to open up the junction box on the motor and see whether there are more wires visible and if you are lucky a note either on the JB cover or on the circuit board that says something like "TO REVERSE SWAP RED AND YELLOW WIRES".  Do that and ir will run clockwise.  If you only find places to attach the three cord wires, you will need to take it to someone who knows what they are doing inside of capacitor start motors and have him/her do it. All single phase capacitor start motors are reversible.  Some just make it easier to do that others.


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## cdhknives (May 13, 2019)

Most certainly do NOT use the motor that came with it for metalworking.  The open frame motors like that will get metal chips in them and fry in very short order.  I don't even like them for woodworking machines but they will at least survive a bit longer with wood dust in them.  You are probably right on an old washing machine or fan motor.  They are common in such applications because they are cheap.


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## bama7 (May 13, 2019)

cdhknives said:


> Most certainly do NOT use the motor that came with it for metalworking.  The open frame motors like that will get metal chips in them and fry in very short order.  I don't even like them for woodworking machines but they will at least survive a bit longer with wood dust in them.  You are probably right on an old washing machine or fan motor.  They are common in such applications because they are cheap.


In one of the pictures you can see what appears to be duct tape covering some openings. I made contact with a guy today who has a couple of motors like I need. Hopefully we can get together soon and make a deal.


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## bama7 (May 14, 2019)

One of the motors I have had the ability to go clockwise by swapping the wires around and it worked! I was looking yesterday for another motor and a guy called me today. He has what I want for $25. I plan to head that way tomorrow morning. That will give me two motors for the two lathes. Can’t beat that. I am still waiting for the new belt for the 101.21200 and some parts for the 101.07301.


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## bama7 (May 18, 2019)

After swapping wire to get the motor to turn clockwise I installed the motor under the lathe table top with the pulley to the left end, headstock end. Well I had to swap the wires back to have the motor turn counter clockwise. Maybe I am now a two wire electrician. Nope not a chance. I almost forgot to mention this is the 101.07301 lathe I am talking about this time.


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## wa5cab (May 18, 2019)

Which direction the motor needs to turn depends upon whether the motor is mounted straight behind the headstock and countershaft with the pulley on the left end of the motor (most installations) or to the left of the countershaft with pulley on the right end of the motor as shown on some early 6" installation drawings.


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## bama7 (May 19, 2019)

Here are some pictures of how and where I mounted my motor on the 101.07301. It seems to work well and is out of the way.


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