Craftsman Lathe Build Dates ?

wa5cab said:
OK. You meant that you knew that the Craftsman lable was wrong for the mid to late 40's.

You will find the 101.21400 in the 1959 Power Tools catalog. There wasn't a 1958 Power Tools catalog but I managed to acquire copies of the lathe pages out of the Fall 1957 and Spring and Fall 1958 Big Books. The last catalog appearance of the 101.07301 is in the 1957 Power Tools catalog. The first appearance of the 101.21400 is in the Fall 1957 Big Book. Serial Number 0198xx was apparently sold in 1971. If we assume a fairly uniform sales rate over the 14 years from 1957 to 1971, Serial Number 001611 would have been made at a guess mid 1958. If sales tapered off in the last years, that would push it back to early 1958 if sales started off good instead of slowly ramping up.

With the exceptions of 1965 , I have scans (and a few originals) of either the Power Tools catalogs or the lathe pages out of the Big Books from 1931 through 1982. And I already know that the Atlas lathes were not listed in the Big Books in 1979, 1980 or 1981. Wish that I could find some more Atlas catalogs. Only have about five over the same period.

Robert D.
Click to expand...

5/10/13

Hi Robert D.

I just acquired a Craftsman 6" lathe --model 101.07301, S/N 6L-028211.

Do you have any info on when this was built or links to any more info - I need parts, especially tailstock which is missing.

I'm not sure how I will get reply on hobby-machinist website ( which I just joined last week ) so you can send any info you have directly to me at omsrof@gmail.com

I'm not sure how to attach pictures here so if you email me I can send pics of my lathe.

Thanks,

Dennes F
 
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Dennes,

The first thing that we can say is that it must have been made between 1939 and 1956 as those are the first and last years that the 101.07301 appeared in any Sears catalog. Beyond that, Clausing (formerly Atlas) has no manufacturing or sales data on any of the lathes. I have access to four lists (databases) that have places to enter Model Number, Serial Number and Date Made. Between the four, there are only about 240 entries. Of those, there are only about 15 101.07301's. And of those, there are only two that have entries for both Serial Number and Date or Year Made. One of the two has a question mark following the year. I assume that probably means the year was based on family memory of the sort that goes "Your uncle bought that lathe not long after the War.". Both years shown are 1947 so only one can be used at a time as the Serial Numbers are about 2500 apart. Anyway, doing a crude straight-line approximation from 1939 on one and then the other and assuming (since there is no data from which to do otherwise) the same number of lathes were sold each year, I get for yours 1949 and 1950. Pending any better data surfacing, I would go with 1949.

During the years that Atlas was making and Sears was selling the 101.07301, Atlas was also making and selling the 618 (and a few 612). In 1957, Atlas stopped making the 101/07301 for Sears and Sears begain selling 6he 618 under the Model Number 101.21400. The complete tailstock and all parts in it are the same on all four models (over the years the paint colors or shades may not have matched). If you look on eBay, you will quite often find ones for sale. And parts for them. They may be advertised under any combination of the Model Numbers. In about 1974 Atlas quit making the 618 and the 101.21400 and started making the 3950 (for one year) and then the 10100. Sears sold the 10100 under 101.21200. There was also a metric model 10200 but I don't think Sears ever sold it. Although the tailstock on those machines looks different (square corners like the Chinese imports), all of the parts used except for the main casting, ram screw and handwheel are the same as in the earlier ones. So you could use one of those if you had to.

Robert D.
 
I just picked up a 101.21400 today. Serial number 000450. Didn't have a motor, came with a bunch of tooling. Could one of you measure the diameter of your 2 step pulley that is on the motor shaft, think I may be missing this part. Everything seems to operate smoothly. I am going to do a complete refurb and paint over the next couple weeks. Best thing is that I only paid $50 for it! What is the standard horsepower and speed rating of the motor this came with. I have a couple donor motors to choose from.
 
Jaimie,

We don't currently have the diameter specs on either the M6-428 (1/2" bore) or M6-429 (5/8" bore) motor pulley for all of the 6" Atlas lathes. Hopefully, someone will measure theirs and chime in.

The original motor recommended for the 618 and 101.07301 was 1/4 HP 1725 RPM. Within a few years, they upped the recommendation to 1/3 HP, although some catalogs continued to list 1/4 HP as the minimum. You don't really need anything larger than 1/3 (honest, not Chinese) but in any case, don't put anything larger than 1/2 HP on it.

We don't have any firm dates on any of the 6" machines but the 101.21400 first appeared in the Fall 1957 Sears Big Book. So yours probably dates from late 1957 or early 1958.

Robert D.
 
Thanks for the info. I am going to look tonight when I get home to see if the original pulley is in the box of parts, I quickly went through it yesterday and thought about the pulley hours later. I figure if someone can roger up with a rough OD for these pulleys I can either buy a part or I can source / modify one and get damn close to the original. I am even thinking about making one on my 1940 15" Leblond. Sounds like it would be a fun project.
 
Jaimie,

There is a drawing of the 10"/12" motor pulley under the Atlas folder in Downloads. The Atlas part number is 10-428. The one that you need is M6-428 (1/2" bore) or M6-429 (5/8" bore). When you get your hands on one of the latter two, you might mark up that drawing and send it to me to upload. It won't do any good for you to upload it as it will go into the moderation que which no one currently has access to.

Robert D.
 
Robert, you've lost me. Where is the download folder that you
are referring to, and are you saying that the motor pulley is the same size as that on the 10" / 12" machine?
 
Jaimie,

I'm sorry. I didn't check your post count before I wrote that. Access to Downloads is slightly restricted because early on we had several people from other sites join, download several hundred files to upload to their site, and quit. The system is currently set to give access to Downloads when either a member goes over 30 posts (you are at 6 as I write this, and please don't make 25 posts that all say something like "This is just to get me over the stupid post limit" as they will get deleted) or they make a donation (I don't know whether there is a minimum amount set, but $10.00 will work). When either of those requirements are met, a clickable line item saying "Downloads" will show up on the Drop-down under the "For Members" button in the main command ba (note that although the post count criteria will be applied immediately by the server, the donor status has to be done manually because of some problem with a recent software update, so it won't be instantaneous).

Back to the pulley - No, the 6" and 10"/12" motor pulleys are not the same. For one thing, the belt widths are different. I don't, as I wrote earlier, know what the dimensions are of the 6" pulleys but I know that they are different because (a) the belts are smaller in width and (b) the part numbers are different. The early (up through about 1957) Atlas part numbers identify the machine that the part was first used on. And the 6" pulley is M6-428 or M6-429 whereas the drawing is for 10-428. If that pulley had been used on the 6", the part number would have remained 10-428.

The reason that I suggested downloading the 10"/12" pulley drawing is that when you or we get the diameters and center to center spacing for the 6" version, it would save a lot of time to just edit or mark up the 10" drawing. Knowing the motor belt Industry standard part number (supposed to be 3L210 for the 6"), you can get the dimensions for the Vee's out of Machinery's Handbook.

Robert D.
 
Again Robert, Thanks for the great info, I am excited to start running this lathe and I will either locate a suitable Atlas part for the motor shaft or I will start running it with a temporary pulley of the correct width and a midrange size to get me started. I am going to continue cleaning it up and start the fabrication of a steel stand this weekend. I am still hopeful that one of the other forum members that has one of these will reply with a measurement of the OD of the two step pulley.

From there, as you said I can purchase a commercial replacement, or I have some Aluminum stock that I can use to make a set. Really shouldn't be that complicated, I will rough out all the dimensions and make a form tool for the "V" Would be a handy skill to develop, so in the future I can create precisely the size of pulley I need. I have plans to build a Power Hacksaw in the very near future.
 
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