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

[mvagusta]

Another update on the Atlas 618 CAD modeling project. The first subassembly chosen to be fit-checked and drawn up, M6-31X headstock spindle assembly, has been released and uploaded to the drawings download area. Here is a link to it. There are 17 drawings altogether. All of the spindle parts have been drawn up, but there were some parts missing from my lathe as I received it, so a few of the drawings are incomplete or representative only. If anyone finds errors or omissions in the drawings, has information on missing dimensions, or has suggestions of any kind, drop me a line and I will make updates when I get a chance. The tumbler assembly is next on the list, followed by the back gear and the headstock assemblies.

 

[mvagusta]

Making progress on the Atlas 618 CAD modeling project. The M6-58X reverse tumbler assembly has been uploaded to the Downloads area. Here is a link to the downloads area. There are 11 new drawings altogether. If any of you finds errors or omissions in the drawings, has information on missing dimensions, or has suggestions of any kind, drop me a line and I will make updates when I get a chance.

 

[mvagusta]

Another update. The M6-2X headstock and M6-243X assembly have been uploaded to the Downloads area. Here is a link to the downloads area. There are 19 new drawings altogether. If there is anything that needs to be fixed, send me a note and I will make updates when I get a chance.

 

[mvagusta]

The M6-21AX countershaft hanger and M6-20BX countershaft assembly and part drawings are done and can be found in the Downloads area. 15 new drawings. All of the multiple-step pulleys are now in the Downloads area, so if you need to know the diameters of one of them you can find a drawing of it there. One thing to keep in mind about that is that the dimensions of many parts changed over the years. So far, any duplicate part that I have obtained does not measure the same as the one that I had to begin with. Most of the time the differences are insignificant, though.

 

[mvagusta]

Just finished uploading the final drawing of my Atlas lathe, serial number 011120 that I have come to know was built between 1946 and 1949. There is now a drawing of every part of the lathe in the Downloads section, which hopefully should be useful for the purpose of designing fixtures or making DIY replacement parts like pulleys. It was fun but it's good to be done.

The next task is to strip it and paint it. Before I put it back together. Since it's already apart.

 

[WobblyHand]

Just finished uploading the final drawing of my Atlas lathe, serial number 011120 that I have come to know was built between 1946 and 1949. There is now a drawing of every part of the lathe in the Downloads section, which hopefully should be useful for the purpose of designing fixtures or making DIY replacement parts like pulleys. It was fun but it's good to be done.

The next task is to strip it and paint it. Before I put it back together. Since it's already apart.

View attachment 482986

What an awesome job! My hat is tipped to you for such wonderful work!

 

[Rob_fixit]

Thank you so much for all of your incredible work! It has been very helpful in understanding the lathe as I have been working on it.

Is there any chance you could export some parts as stl files so they could be 3d printed? I need to make some cranks / handwheels. If not, I can model them based on your drawings, and with your permission, make them available via the downloads section of the forum.

 

[Just for fun]

Nice work Augusta, I mean really nice work!

 

[mvagusta]

Thanks for the complements, you are all very kind.

As far as making STL files for 3D printing ... I plan to do that but not until I finish a few other things like clean, strip, and paint the lathe castings, put the lathe back together, finish the bench I am building to mount it on, build a leveling system, mount and level the lathe, and get it running.

Also, I have not yet figured out how to handle the sharing of various file formats in a way that is not going to be a nightmare of data entry, change tracking, and upkeep for me. None of the vintage machinery forums to which I belong is set up for this kind of file management, including this one. What I'd like to find is a vault where I can just dump the latest files as a group transfer (no data entry) on a site that is public-minded (open source, public domain, free to access, etc.), that can handle binary files easily, and isn't owned by a company that asserts rights on whatever is put there. I have looked at GrabCAD, GitHub, SourceForge, and a few other places I can't recall without finding anything that seems to fit the bill.

The issue is that the number of files to be managed has the potential to be huge. Here are the stats for the CAD model:

Total components in Atlas 618 Lathe - ASSY: 374​

Parts: 349​

Unique Part Documents: 233​

Unique Parts: 232​

Subassemblies: 25​

Unique Subassemblies: 24​

Unique Subassembly Documents: 24​

Maximum Depth: 4​

Number Of Top Level Components: 14​

Resolved Components: 373​

Resolved Documents: 256​

Lightweight Components: 0​

Suppressed Components: 1​

Hidden Components: 0​

Virtual Components: 0​

Envelope Components: 0​

Number Of Bodies: 394​

Number Of Total Evaluated Mates: 30​

Top Level Mates: 34​

Flexible Subassembly Mates: 0​

There are a number of file formats that folks are likely to want, such as STL, Parasolid (.x_t), IGES, STEP, and DXF. SolidWorks can save a file in all of these formats and 20 more. I don't even know what half of them are.

I uploaded 180 PDF drawings to Hobby-Machinist Downloads section and it was a little painful. Took me 20-30 hours. Very dull. Files must be uploaded one at a time. Searchable information is entered in 5 blank fields labeled Title, Tag Line, Type (this is actually the file being uploaded), Version Number, and Description. Because the system does not offer a preview to a person who might want to download the file, a graphic image of the part and a thumbnail of the drawing are created and pasted into the Description box. (Otherwise a person would have to download a file to find out what it really is., which is a pain) This process is repeated for each file that is uploaded to the site.. So it was a lot of work that was less than exciting for just 180 drawings. (Not that I am complaining, I was happy to do that. I just don't feel like doing it again.) If I saved 256 model files in 3 different 3D formats, that would be 768 files to upload and to enter data for each file one at a time. I am laughing to myself at the idea of doing that or even half of that. I can't think of anything that would motivate me to want to do that.

I am open to suggestions. I may end up doing DropBox or Google Drive or something like that. But not before the lathe is up and running. This is what it looks like at the moment ...

 

[Just for fun]

That does sound like a lot of work, I don't have any ideas for you.