Atlas Milling machine

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Troubled1

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I don’t know much about Atlas milling machines and was told by my brother that I should get one. I let him know I’ve been keeping an eye out for something but it seems he always snags the good deals. He sent me this picture of an Atlas and said I can take it for what he paid for it. He said it runs and has some tooling with it. There’s only the one picture. What can you tell me about this machine?
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I can get it for $100 CDN. Which when converted to USD roughly $65
 
Grab it!
Good price. Can't go wrong.
Sure a horizontal isn't as popular as a vertical in most circles, they're still a lotta fun. That one looks to have the arbor and support bearing (important) and a full whack of spacers.
Clean and lube everything. ("Lube" as machinists all know, basically means "covered with oil".) A pile of shop rags and some ultra-fine steel wool and it will be a beauty.
You'll need some cutters. Wheels for your arbor. But you can also get a holder for ordinary end mills.
Gladly take whatever he'll send you.
 
wrat said:
Grab it!
Good price. Can't go wrong.
Sure a horizontal isn't as popular as a vertical in most circles, they're still a lotta fun. That one looks to have the arbor and support bearing (important) and a full whack of spacers.
Clean and lube everything. ("Lube" as machinists all know, basically means "covered with oil".) A pile of shop rags and some ultra-fine steel wool and it will be a beauty.
You'll need some cutters. Wheels for your arbor. But you can also get a holder for ordinary end mills.
Gladly take whatever he'll send you.
Click to expand...
Something seems a little off. 3 step pulley on the countershaft but only a single in the headstock. Looks like original pulley on the motor and drive end of the countershaft. He said he’ll drop it off for me next week sometime. I believe by the round knob on the machine on the right hand side that it has the automatic table feed. I’m hoping he has some usable cutters with it. Glad to see it has a vise.
 
Here's the manual
 

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Sure.
Easy formula: 65 smackers = "ain't gonna be perfect".
But it's a good start.
 
Troubled1 said:
3 step pulley on the countershaft but only a single in the headstock
Click to expand...
I think the photo may be a bit deceptive — the belt may just be resting on the back gear assembly so it looks like it’s only a single sheave. But the multi-sheave pulley position is actually ahead of the back gear, so you might just not be seeing it in the shadows of the photo. You’ll find out soon enough.

I hear you though on something looking a bit off, there’s something about the countershaft bracket that doesn’t look right to me but I may be off base. Mine is an early MF and I know there were a couple of different iterations afterwards as far as range of speeds, so perhaps the countershaft brackets changed as well.

Can’t beat the price :encourage:
 
It’s been a couple of months so I’ll update this thread. My brother dropped off the milling machine as well a box of various tooling. The cutters range from 1/4”- 1” but unfortunately they have 1” and 1 1/4” borse and the mill only has the 7/8” arbor which by my machinist brother’s opinion, have never been used. There’s several sitting saws, again 1”& 1 1/4” bores and 1 slitting saw with a 7/8” bore and a bunch of involute gear cutters that appear to have a bores ranging from 5/8”-7/8”.

The milling machine itself appears to be complete. The handle for the back gear engagement was broken beyond repair, the gearbox housing for the table feed was slightly twisted and has a few cracks in it which I was able to somewhat straighten and solder the cracks and is functional and the large cast plate the change o matic housing attaches to has one small piece broken off where the bottom left bolt for the change o matic housing bolts on. (Sorry, no photo).
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Everything on the machine moved but barely as everything was gunned up with years of dried out lubricant and dirt. I stripped it down, glass beaded the painted parts, repainted, lubed and reassembled it.
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Although dirty, all the gears are in very good shape and cleaned up nicely. The dovetails and gibs were gummed up pretty bad but not rusted so again, cleaned and lubed. Everything is back together but I’m waiting on some Gits oil caps as a couple are missing so I have to wait just a little longer before I can try it out. Here’s the final product.

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At CA$100 you have a lot of room to buy a few parts, these sell for a lot more in worse condition.
If you have a lathe you can make a 1" arbour from drive shafting from Princess Auto, already has the keyway. You will need to add a MT2 taper at one end and a drive collar. Drawings are available in the downloads section on this site. (but you will need at minimun a US$10 membership, well worth it.) Look for part number M1-561L. You will of course also need to make spacer collars in variuos widths.

Gerrit
 
Yes I have a lathe so I’m considering making an arbor. Probably go with a 1” diameter and make some spacer collars for the 1 1/4” bore cutters. Hopefully I’ll have it up and running soon.
 
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