Atlas 10F-28 purchase questions?

unioncreek

unioncreek

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I currently have a Harbor Freight 8 x 12 metal lathe, but need something with a longer bed. I found an Atlas number in the gear cover is 10f-28. I haven't looked at it yet, doesn't have a quick changer gear box, has babbit bearing. The bed length I'm assuming is 48 inches, owner says it's 36 from the chuck to end of bed. I've never dealt with babbit bearings how great of advantage/disadvantage are they. Not having a quick change gear box is a disadvantage for me, as long as I can still thread (comes with change gears) rifle barrels.

He wants $400.

Bob
 
A 10" Atlas with a 48" bed would be a 10x30. With the babbit bearings and that change gear cover, it should be an early relatively rare 10F. Deciding factors are if it has a 5/8" diameter lead screw and no power cross feed, it is a 10D. If it has a 3/4" diameter lead screw and power cross feed it is a 10F. There weren't too many babbit bearing 10F's sold. Look on the rear of the bed for a nameplate. If it is still there, the modal number should be either V48 or H48, depending upon whether it has a Vertical or a Horizontal Countershaft assembly.

The two main disadvantages of the babbit bearings are that you don't want to run them too much above say 1000 RPM. Which is definitely not an issue when threading. And if they are badly worn, replacing them today usually means another headstock. It is possible to re-pour them but it definitely is not a Saturday afternoon project. Otherwise, a lathe with babbit bearings can produce just as good work as pne with roller or ball bearings. AFAIK, all of the South Bend lathes of the period had somewhat similar bearings.

What you would want to do is to pull the two bearing caps and check the spindle journal condition. And measure the remaining thickness of the two shims that should be under each bearing cap. From the factory, the original shims consist of five 0.002" thick shims laminated into one 0.010" shim. As the bearings wear, laminations are removed to take up the clearance. When you remove the bearing caps and shims, be sure that you keep up with which shim was front and which was rear because when adjusting for wear, you would first remove one lamination from say the front and put the cap back on and check clearance. If still excessive, you would remove the cap and remove one lamination from the rear shim. And so on.

How good a price $400 is depends on a lot of factors, chief among them are location, overall condition, spindle and bearing condition, bed condition, and what else comes with the lathe.
 
Thanks for the info. I would say it's a 10F, I can see the knob that you use to engage the crossfeed. I'm located in eastern WA state, and the lathe is about 90 miles away. There are no accessories that come with the lathe, it just has a three jaw chuck.

Bob
 
OK.

If the bearings and the bed are in decent condition, $400 probably isn't a bad price. Someone from the Washington area can disagree if I'm wrong. Too bad that it comes with no accessories. Just about any three of them will cost as much as the lathe.

One thing occurred to me this afternoon that I need to mention. The bore through the spindle is 25/32" (just over 3/4"). A friend who I helped to get one of the later 12" Atlas machines and who uses it for gunsmithing says that if he needs to put the barrels through the spindle, he usually has to remove the front sight.
 
I will probably pass on the lathe. Too many negatives at that price. I'll probably just keep looking for something that will fit my needs better and has more accessories with it.

Bob
 
I didn't mean to imply that I thought that $400 was over priced for a good condition 10F with all the change gears. But merely that the inclusion of a few accessories would have moved it toward the bargain category instead of just a fair price. However, if you know going in that the 3/4" spindle bore is going to be a hindrance, then you should look for another make, as all of the Atlas built machines except for the 6" ones have this bore. Just be prepared to to usually pay more for equivalent condition.
 
I decide to make the owner an offer after it was on Craigslist for a week. Offered him $200, he accepted the offer and I traveled the 90 miles the next day to pick it up. A relative had owned it since the 60's and when they passed away the previous owner got it. He said he used it once or twice in four years and decided he needed the space. The Craigslist add didn't list any extras, but he remembered he had some things in a box. I'll probably sell the four inch Chinese three jaw, unless it works better than the one on my Harbor Freight.

It's a model H54, serial number is 025552.

I checked the play in the Babbitt hearing headstock, put a 16 inch bar in the chuck placed an indicator on the ways and have .002 inches of play vertically and horizontally. What's an acceptable tolerance? I'm going to remove the carriage and clean it good, the power cross feed is frozen up and can't move it. The lathe was pretty dirty, but it was oily dirt so everything was protected. I pulled the right side Babbitt bearing cap and the front shim is one piece of .007" brass and the back shim is .011". Didn't look at the left side yet. Is there a certain torque for the cap screws on the bearings.

Bob

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Last edited:
unioncreek said:
I checked the play in the Babbitt hearing headstock, put a 16 inch bar in the chuck placed an indicator on the ways and have .002 inches of play vertically and horizontally. What's an acceptable tolerance? I'm going to remove the carriage and clean it good, the power cross feed is frozen up and can't move it. The lathe was pretty dirty, but it was oily dirt so everything was protected. I pulled the right side Babbitt bearing cap and the front shim is one piece of .007" brass and the back shim is .011". Didn't look at the left side yet. Is there a certain torque for the cap screws on the bearings.

Bob
Click to expand...

From the one photo of the lathe, it appears to be complete.

0.002" vertical movement of the spindle would be excessive. However, the bar is 16" long, some of which would have been inside the chuck. Where, relative to the chuck, did you measure the 0.002"? The proper way to do it is to remove the chuck. Stick a 3/4" OD (or a little smaller) round bar or pipe through the spindle. Place the indicator to indicate under the register (the unthreaded area between the threads and the spindle flange), zero the indicator, and then pull up on the bar. Any vertical movement will indicate clearance between the spindle journal and the bearing. It should be essentially zero. Repeat with the Indicator against the front of the register. Pull forward and then push rearward. Add the two.

The original shims were 0.010" thick and were made up of five 0.002" shims stuck together. Go to

http://www.hobby-machinist.com/resources/babbit-headstock-bearing-adjustment-pdf.3218/

for the factory instructions on adjusting the two babbit and one ball bearing. Note that whomever adjusted the shims last apparently didn't follow the instructions. They must have removed two shim layers, both from the front shim. They should have removed one layer from each shim pack.

On the proper torque for the bolts, the factory instructions do not say. I just went through several bolt torque tables and found the numbers to vary. Plus bolt torque tables are intended to give the figures for developing the rated tensile strength of the bolts, which is of secondary importance here. But in any case, guessing at an appropriate torque requires first knowing the bolt grade. Which if anyone ever told me, I've forgotten. Look at the bolt head. The standard way of marking bolt heads to indicate grade (rated tensile strength of the bolt material) is by stamping raised lines in the head. No lines indicated Grade 1 or Grade 2. So assume 1. Two lines from near the center to near the outer edge and in line with each other is Grade 3. Three lines at 120 deg. is Grade 5. I'm sure that they won't be Grade 6 or 8. So look at the bolt heads and report grade.
 
Just looked at the bolts and they just have 1035 on them they look like they could be original. The back shim is not original, the front one looks like it is. it's shaped like the bearing cap. The back one is just apiece of rectangular stock. I haven't looked at the left side yet. I'll try and remove the chuck this week and get a better reading on how much play there is in the spindle. What is an acceptable tolerance on the Babbit bearing.

Bob
 
Bob,

I'm not certain when the head marking standard actually went into effect. I thought that it was before WW-II but perhaps it didn't get into common use until during the War. As I said earlier, the manual doesn't really give a clue. So as the bolt heads aren't marked, assume that they are Grade 1. If they are 3/8"-16, oil the threads with the same SAE 20 ND as used most everywhere on the machine and torque them to 20 lf-ft. If they are smaller, let me know. The manual doesn't say.

The manual excerpt that I posted the location to earlier doesn't give any clue as to running clearance. Because of the slight but definite drag mentioned in the bearing page I uploaded, I had assumed that the clearance was zero. But as Jon mentioned this morning on the Yahoo list, there is an oil film. So just go by the "slight drag" description. I don't have a babbit bearing headstock to play with.
 
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