I'm making a CAD model of my Atlas 618 and need some help

[romanjcg]

That is awesome news! These will come in handy for designing carriage auto feeds, DROs and CNC if someone were so brave. I think your drawing could be the foundation for something big. And maybe those people who design add ons to the 618 would be willing to share their designs as well. I am sure you will release your work when the time is right.

 

[mvagusta]

You could try calling Clausing:

Lathes - Clausing Industrial

Clausing has provided the metalworking industry with high-quality manual and CNC lathes for decades. With swings from 6 inches to over 100 inches, we have one

clausing-industrial.com

I called them to check on parts for my 1944 Clausing 100 and they sent me dimensioned drawings for parts they did not have.

I did call them, thanks for the tip. I talked to Erika Roe at the Clausing Service Center 1-800-323-0972 and she confirmed that they could only send drawings for discontinued parts. However, there was no list of what was available and what was not and the only way to find out was to request a quote, so I requested a quote for all the parts. From that I generated a spreadsheet that functions as a price list. I attached the quote and the spreadsheet at this link for anyone who is interested. I also uploaded 23 drawing files to the Atlas Lathe Drawings section of the Downloads area. Here is a link to that: Most Recent Atlas 618 Downloads

 

[wa5cab]

FYI, all of the original hand-drawn ATLAS drawings and at least some of the Clausing drawings were originally scanned to .TIF. These days, if you do not ask for .TIF you will probably get it converted to .PDF. Because few people these days have a .TIF editor, all of the Atlas drawings and most other drawings in Downloads are saved as .PDF. Note also that sometime after production ceased of the Atlas machines, and probably after after Atlas was dropped from the company name, Clausing had all or at least most of the Alas drawings scanned to TIF and then destroyed the originals. No effort was made to try to restore them. Most of the drawings that I uploaded to Downloads were at least partially restored.

 

[mvagusta]

Thanks for the info on .TIF files, restoration, and the history of the old Atlas drawings. I did some restoration on most of the PDF's that I uploaded recently. However, there were two that looked like they would take a lot of time to clean up, so I uploaded those in the state they were in as received from Clausing. I finished one of them and am slowly working on the other. Is there a way to update a revised resource in Downloads besides deleting it altogether and uploading the newer revision file?

 

[wa5cab]

I don't think that in general anyone but ADMIN's and certain MODERATOR's have Edit rights in DOWNLOADS but it might be those plus originator's. I think that .PDF is on the allowable list of extensions so if you uploaded any of the files that you are working on., try it..

 

[mvagusta]

OK, here is what I have found. If I click on a resource in Downloads, there is an option to Edit. If I click Edit a screen comes up that allows editing of everything except the resource itself. There is a button that says "Attach files" but only allows the selection of "Custom files" with extensions like .jpg, .mp3, .wav, etc. So editing does not allow replacement of the resource.

Instead, I find that I as the person who uploaded the file in the first place, I can delete it and then upload the new revised resource in its place.

I did this a little while ago with the M6-21A countershaft hanger, which is now cleaned up and is at version 2.0.

 

[mvagusta]

I have started the checking process on the CAD model of the lathe. I began with the countershaft hanger assembly, which included some of the first parts modeled. It was a little disappointing to find how many differences there were between the model and the factory drawing. Some reasons for this include:

1. The design changed a little bit between 1937 and the 1960's when my lathe was produced
2. A number of features were hand-ground after casting
3. There is a casting draft angle of about 3 degrees that causes a feature measurement to vary depending on where the measurement is taken
4. It is difficult to hand-measure surfaces that are organic rather than straight lines and planes

Below is an image of the cleaned up factory drawing:

The model was checked against the factory drawing by creating a drawing in the CAD system and dimensioning it in a similar way.

Below is an image of the CAD drawing. Fractions were converted to 3-place decimal dimensions and each dimension has a value enclosed in [brackets] that represents the factory drawing value.

I also think that the factory drawing is mislabeled, since it appears to show an earlier version of the hanger (M6-21) but has a drawing number of the later revised design M6-21A.

Anyway, these are a few of the difficulties involved in reverse-engineering a machine that was designed around 1937/1938 and was in production for almost 40 years.

The most valuable resource in reverse-engineering a cast-and-machined part is an original drawing, even if it is from an earlier version of the part. There are roughly 146 parts (not including things like fasteners and bearings) in this lathe and so far I have managed to acquire 28 drawings. If anyone knows where a drawing of an Atlas 618 part that is not already in Downloads can be found, please let us know.

 

[westsailpat]

Oh man ! I'm obsolete .
Mark .

 

[mvagusta]

Oh man ! I'm obsolete .
Mark .

Could be worse ... at least you aren't discontinued. Here's to continuation!

 

[mvagusta]

Update: There were 10 items on the the RFQ I sent to Erika Roe at Clausing that were not quoted and were not accompanied by a drawing. She offered to look for them in storage and I indicated that if I could only have one, the headstock casting M6-2 would be it. The headstock is one of the most critical parts on the lathe and was the most difficult for me to measure accurately with hand tools. Apparently there was no drawing or digital file for it. Bummer. But there was a blueprint, and now we have a high resolution photo of it! Below is a blowup of the right side view. Way to go Erika! Made my day. She also got hold of some of the others on the list that were in the TIF format that Robert mentioned. I cleaned up 6 of them and put them in the Downloads section along with M6-2.