Craftsman lathe is it a good deal?

I agree at that price you really cant go wrong. I would snap it up in a minute!!
 
Like Buck said, the flat way Atlas lathes are great. I have a 618, the 6in Atlas, and it is fantastic.

You have to be careful with this Atlas / DunLap model.
If it is cheap enough, I could see the temptation. But if anything goes wrong, or you actually want to accessorize it, you are putting bad money back in.

WAY better to get any other Atlas in terrible shape, and have fun rebuilding it.

Unless you want to have a little fun, then strip this one down and sell it off. That IS, IF the spindle is still straight NOW. These have a 1/2-20 spindle from my memory, which were known to bend. This makes the machine pretty useless.
I would also check EBay quickly and see what parts and accessories go for first.

Let us know what you do!

Bernie
 
itsme_Bernie said:
Like Buck said, the flat way Atlas lathes are great. I have a 618, the 6in Atlas, and it is fantastic.

You have to be careful with this Atlas / DunLap model.
If it is cheap enough, I could see the temptation. But if anything goes wrong, or you actually want to accessorize it, you are putting bad money back in.

WAY better to get any other Atlas in terrible shape, and have fun rebuilding it.

Unless you want to have a little fun, then strip this one down and sell it off. That IS, IF the spindle is still straight NOW. These have a 1/2-20 spindle from my memory, which were known to bend. This makes the machine pretty useless.
I would also check EBay quickly and see what parts and accessories go for first.

Let us know what you do!

Bernie
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While sold by Sears and others, this lathe never was in any way related to Atlas lathes. This machine and other 6" V way machines sold by Sears was made by a long gone company by the name of Double A or AA. I have several of these machines myself and I would strongly reccommend finding something else to put both time and money into. Pardon my french, but this just must be said, remember this and it will serve you well. "You can't polish a turd" :biggrin:

One last thing to keep in mind, it does not much matter what you do or what you buy to restore or improve that machine, it will never be worth more than a few hundred bucks; and that is assuming you take the time to restore it and pour more money into a toolpost and holders etc etc to outfit it enough to sell it to someone else new to the hobby that is not aware just how undesireable these machines are. You would be lucky to ever even get out of it what you had in it and in fact may not even be able to do that! About the only thing I could suggest a machine like that would be good for would be to clean, repaint and in general restore. Then take the machine and set it on a mantle or shelf as a cute little collectable that looks nice setting on a table or the like. Don't even hook up a motor, just set it there like you would a model car or something.


NOTE: For anyone that already has one of these old machines I certainly mean no disrespect to you, your machine of choice, or anyone else. (as I said, I have several of these machines muyself) I am simply trying to give this fellow the most honest opinion of this machine that I can.
 
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I agree with Uncle Buck, unless penn turning is your goal stay away from this.
 
I would buy it and turn around and sell it on ebay for $300-400 and put the money toward a different (better) lathe.
 
VSAncona said:
I would buy it and turn around and sell it on ebay for $300-400 and put the money toward a different (better) lathe.
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I started out with a 109 lathe, and moved up to the 10" Atlas. I would say that for that price you should snap it up and use it for a bit or just sell it. If it has a full set of change gears they are worth the purchase price right there. I believe the 6" Atlas uses the same change gears as the 109.

A good way to put an inexpensive, but decent chuck is to make an adapter from the 1/2" 20TPI spindle to 3/4 16TPI. You can then mount a Taig or Sherline chuck on it for ~$70. I did that on my machine and even made the adapter in place on the spindle so it ran perfectly true.

Good Luck
 
Save your money and keep looking. I had one of those, I was tickled pink for about 2 months. out grew it pretty quick.
You are really pretty limited as to what you can do on one of those.
 
Ok we'll I'm passing on this lathe what does everyone thing about the grizzly g0602 lathe
 
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