Atlas/Craftsman Serial Numbers and Bearing Dates (if applicable) For Database Entries

Ever since I was a small boy, I remember this lathe on a work bench in my Grandads shop in a small town in north east Colorado. My Uncle got it from him when he passed away, When my Uncle recently passed, he left it to me. I had not seen it in many years until I went to pick it up from my Aunt. When I was in trade school to learn to be a machinist, my Uncle had asked me to make a part for it, the cross slide, which is still on it some forty years later.
It is a Atlas 10 inch, 48 inch bed lathe. It has the plain head stock, with the babbitt spindle bearings. It has the square light switch type on / off switch. I have been looking for its serial number while taking it apart to clean it. I was finally able to locate its serial number, D2107 on the apron side of the bed and a date of 1-28-36 on the other way of the machine. My lathe has a POWER-KRAFT motor on it, similar in most respects to the photos of the Atlas motor I`ve seen pictures of. There is one tag the is missing and appears to have been a large decal
Is it possible that the date is the date of manufacture ? Did a chain of stores called Montgomery Wards sell Atlas Lathes ? POWER-KRAFT was their brand of tools. Also, Can any one tell me what a very lightly built 4 jaw chuck would be used for ? It is about half the weight of the other 4 jaw and has what looks very much like a starter ring gear on it on the back of the chuck. The teeth of the ring gear are above the OD of the chuck. I will post photos of the numbers on the bed of the lathe and of the chuck when I can get my iPad and iPhone to communicate again with each other again.
I hope that my lathe ID will help the data base.
 
No, Wards sold the Logan 9" before Logan was Logan. And then later the 10". Your motor just came from Wards. Even right up to the end, Atlas didn't include a motor with any of their lathes. They sold motors but you bought them separately. Or used one off of Granny's old wringer washing machine. :tranquility:

I've got to get to bed. I'll get back to your lathe in the morning (later this morning). In the meantime, confirm that the ON/OFF switch is in a box attached to the front of the headstock. And that the lead screw diameter is 5/8" and there is no power cross feed.
 
M3 New said:
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Grandmas washer was gas powered till it was converted. I have that engine as well !
Some how I posted 2 of same photo. No power feed. Lathe has a 5/8 lead screw. The photos of the chuck I question are there too. Not sure if ring gear was added or not. If it was it is very well done.
 
OK. Electricity came to my grandparent's house during WW-II. By the time that I was old enough to notice (maybe 1948), both of the washing machines in the wash house were electric.

Confirm that the upper compound swivel is attached to the cross slide with two studs. ON/OFF switch is mounted in commercial sheet metal outlet/switch box which is attached to the fabricated inner part of the change gear guard adjacent to the threading chart. This is the lowest serial number yet reported and the first reported to have a date stamped into the bed. Where is it stamped relative to the serial number? And the serial number does not have an "S" stamped to the right of the serial number. The next higher serial number (2373 S) does.

I don't know about the chuck. When you said "ring gear", I assumed either hypoid or spiral bevel. But it's a spur gear, like a flywheel ring gear. My only guess is that it was a part of a rotary table, maybe home-built or limited production.

Everything that you have described or shown is consistent with what we think that we know about the early 10D. The date could have been stamped on the assembly line. If so, it wasn't done with the same set of number stamps. But it wasn't done with the same set of stamps. Note the differences between the "1" and the "2". Maybe one person stamped the S/N and another one stamped the date.

I'll try to delete the extraneous photo.
 
image.jpeg The washer had long since been changed to electricity, but I was given the engine when I was in my early teens in the '70s. Mom tells stories of the engine though.
What you wrote about the switch box it correct and its mounting location. I had never found a lathe like it in any photo or sketch until I went to a Atlas site in the UK and scrolled through it reading. There was one there on that site very close to mine.
On the switch box decal, it says that the lathe was patented in 1933. Not until I was cleaning the ways did I find the numbers on the bed. Standing in front of the lathe, Looking straight down. The serial number is closest to the outside of the way toward you. The date is on the far side of the other way. The tail stock can slide basically between the two numbers
There is no other letter or number before the "D" stamped in the bed. The bed is very rough and have had to run a very fine honing stone on it to remove high spots and dings in the bed. So I am certain there is no other letter
In the photo is the cross slide and the compound are attached with studs. Don't know if it is the original compound but I made the cross slide in trade school. My uncle had said something broke and he had tried to find the parts to fix it. But he asked me to make them instead.
Sorry for showing only parts. But am cleaning it and making sure all of the oil holes are open. Most I have found are plugged
I love reading this thread and what you are doing piecing a history of Atlas products together.

image.jpeg
 
Sorry I nearly forgot, The gear on the chuck is a starter ring gear. On the jaw side of the chuck is the lead in for the starter pinion gear. I wasn't sure anyone would know what it was for. But was hopeful. Thought about indexing as you said or some obscure attachment for it. .
 
MN,

I finally figured out that the weird looking whatsit behind most of what you have photographed is a bucket or something similar used to set the subject object on. Earlier, my mind kept trying to make it a part of the object!

Everything you have shown seems to be consistent with photographs in a 1936 catalog. So we finally appear to have one hard date on a 10D.

The letter "S", when it appears, is stamped to the right of the serial number, with a space between it and the number.
 
Went out and looked again. There is no "S" on the bed after the serial number.
Yeah , I had the parts on a milk can to photograph them
 
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