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Craftsman Commercial 12" Rebuild
- Thread starter Nitmare67
- Start date
So I have never ran this lathe before it was given to me rough shape and broken. I didnt know what to expect so I just hoped for the best. I rebuilt everything I could but I didnt touch the bed in hopes that it would be ok. Well it turnes out to have some pretty bad wear in the middle. Bad enough that it chatters and if i set the gibes tight enough it binds up once I roll the carriage back very far. Probably made production parts over and over.
So i picked up the phone and called Clausing to see if they still stocked the original Atlas 12" lathe beds and guess what..... THEY STILL HAD ONE. So I purchased a brand new 30-40 year old stock Atlas Lathe bed... commercial so it has the 1/2" ways. Now if you had bought an Atlas/Craftsman lathe new some 30-40 years ago it would have showed up like this... minus the 40 years of dirt. So cool like opening a piece of history! Still covered and protected in Cosmoline. I'm going to have the the nicest Atlas lathe in existence eventually lol. SOOO I also guess my color isnt a close to factory as I thought haha. I will paint it to match though. I've gone this far.
So i picked up the phone and called Clausing to see if they still stocked the original Atlas 12" lathe beds and guess what..... THEY STILL HAD ONE. So I purchased a brand new 30-40 year old stock Atlas Lathe bed... commercial so it has the 1/2" ways. Now if you had bought an Atlas/Craftsman lathe new some 30-40 years ago it would have showed up like this... minus the 40 years of dirt. So cool like opening a piece of history! Still covered and protected in Cosmoline. I'm going to have the the nicest Atlas lathe in existence eventually lol. SOOO I also guess my color isnt a close to factory as I thought haha. I will paint it to match though. I've gone this far.
Now that I have 2 lath beds already painted and looking nice I'm going to regrind the other one eventually and I will mate the too beds together to make one longer lathe. I have no plans on actually machining that far out I just want the ability to run my steady rest and tail stock out there.
So thats where I'm at today. Cleaning and prepping the brand new 40 year old Atlas lathe bed for paint. Then I will swap the beds on the lathe and start tramming it back in. Sadley i wont get to finish this project here completely because we're moving to a new house... new to house. We just bought a built in 1916 Craftsman style home in beautiful shape and best of all.... it as an 1100Sqft detatched garage.... 15 foot ceilings and enough room for all my toys or years to come!!
So thats where I'm at today. Cleaning and prepping the brand new 40 year old Atlas lathe bed for paint. Then I will swap the beds on the lathe and start tramming it back in. Sadley i wont get to finish this project here completely because we're moving to a new house... new to house. We just bought a built in 1916 Craftsman style home in beautiful shape and best of all.... it as an 1100Sqft detatched garage.... 15 foot ceilings and enough room for all my toys or years to come!!
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