Need Craftsman info

[Kirbsterbbq]

I just acquired a Craftsman 101.07383. I bought it sight unseen, online auction type thing, when i went to pick up the lathe and first looked at it I thought it was a pig in a poke, but after some diligent scrubbing with a tooth brush,PB Blaster it looks actually pretty good. All the gears are that aluminum/manganese/compressed chicken do do, they actually look very good.

I would like to find out its approximate age and what kind of motor to put back on the lathe.

 

[RandyM]

I think it best you have this post as it's own thread as I have done. We don't want to be derailing someone else's thread. Hope you understand.

AND, Welcome to HM. We are glad you are here.

 

[westsailpat]

Welcome to H-M and the Atlas group . If you don't already know , this website is really good for documenting your machine . http://www.lathes.co.uk/craftsman/page2.html Check out that cleaned up blue one . This is not your machine but as close as I could come for right now . Our leadman Robert (Wa5cab) will fill you with the correct info prolly tonight .

 

[wa5cab]

Kirb,

The "chicken do do", as you called it, is Zamak V. Without it, it is highly unlikely that Atlas Press Co. would have ever built any lathes. Although Atlas did suffer a few foot shooting incidents with it over their half century of lathe production, for the most part it has performed quite well. The exceptions have been due to a problem called Zinc Pest, which is caused by using Zinc of insufficient purity in the pouring.

Atlas built the 3/8" bed 12" lathes in 14 models over the period 1936 through 1957(catalog years). In chronological order, the 101.07383 was 11th, and the last one with babbit bearings. It was built from 1939 through 1945, in four bed lengths. Unfortunately, the current company (Clausing) has no production records for any of the Atlas equipment. There are no dates in any castings used (except sometimes the bed, and that date will be about two years before it was first used), and unlike the models with Timken tapered roller spindle bearings, there are no dates engraved by Atlas on any parts. On the 10" lathes (with Atlas badges), Atlas apparently used one serial number pool from start to finish (with one temporary exception on early QC models). We really don't have enough examples to say for sure, but on the 12" lathes that Sears sold, it appears that they used three serial number pools, each beginning with S/N 1. These would be 101.07360 through 101.07363, 101.07380 through 101.07383, and 101.07400 through 101.07403 (and the QC variants 101.27430 and 101.27440).

Anyway, using that example and assuming (from what's really too small a sample to assume this from) that the highest serial number 101.07383 made was 011000, and that production of the 101.0738X line was built from 01/01/1936 through 12/31/1945, your machine was probably made in the first quarter of 1944.

What is your bed length? That's the length of the front way from under the left end of the headstock to the right end. Choices are 36",42", 48" and 54". The ways are the two flat strips that the headstock, carriage and tailstock actually sit on.

 

[wa5cab]

Also the proper single phase AC motor is 1/2 HP 1725-1750 RPM 56 Frame Capacitor Start with a single 5/8" diameter keyed shaft. It can be 120, 240 or 120/240 VAC 60 CPS, depending upon what you have available to run it. If you have 240 VAC readily available, that would be preferred. It can be one that can or can't be easily wired for reversing, but "Can" would probably be preferred. It appears from one of your photos that you already have a reversing drum switch. If you get one with an internal thermal overload protection, be sure that it is NOT auto-reset. Those are dangerous in this application.

 

[Kirbsterbbq]

I am confused how they sized their lead screws, I am told my lathe has a 5/8 inch lead screw but the only part on the lead screw that measures .625 is the part of it that sticks into the bearing holder on the head stock end, Tailstock end is .500 and the thread it self is just under .75

It is a bit confusing.

 

[Kirbsterbbq]

Also interesting the title I get for being a new member here, never thought I would be called the slime on the bottom of a surface grinder coolant tank. Funny.

 

[wa5cab]

Kirbsterbbq,

Well not many surface grinder types around here. It means shavings.

3/4" and 5/8" leadscrews refers to the nominal diameter of the thread. If the threads measure just under .75, you have a 3/4" lead screw, regardless of what someone told you. The 101.07383 came with babbit bearings and a 5/8" dia. lead screw. If it has a 3/4" one, someone replaced it. If it has power cross feed, they changed the carriage, too.

 

[Kirbsterbbq]

Robert,

To answer your question about the length of the bed of my lathe, the length of measured is 48"

Just a bit of my background, when I got out of tech school a few moons ago, my first job at the tool and die shop I worked for was cleaning the surface grinder tanks every Friday, so trust me I know what the meaning of swarf is. I thought I went to heaven when I was put on the Radial Arm Drill Press and the Moore Jig Boring machine after the tour of duty with rotten coolant and swarf tanks. Well the next 14 years worked up the food chain to finally getting assigned to the tool room, now that was Heaven, Hardinge Collet Lathes, Bridgeports with little or no backlash, Charmillles Wire EDM (love that machine) and a surface grinder room that was more like a surgical operating room, the coolest thing in the tool room was the huge black granite surface plate that looked more like a mirror. Made lots of cool prototype stuff, many items for the military and Polaris Industries.

But like all good things they do end, during the major economic down turn back in 2000 and 2001, more especially the economic uncertainty in Asia ,we lost a lot of contracts, business connections dried up and we laid off 50% of the plant 3 weeks before Thanksgiving of 2000, the killer to it all was when the tragedy of 9/11 occurred, it sealed the fate for the tool room and many of the tooling lines in the plant. 468 machinist lost our jobs 2 months after 9/11. The company is still in business, but it is a lot smaller today with maybe 1/3rd of the employees it had back in the late 90's

The good thing about the whole thing is, the company sent me back to school to re career in a different field as a part of our severance package, today I am a land surveyor, no more smelling like rotten coolant and tapmatic! ( the old good stuff with T1 in it)

I did enjoy machining, it was a great feeling to look at something you made, from a pile of steel or aluminum.

I am building a small machine shop for my own for my own use, as I collect antique gasoline engines and oil tractors. I know I could have bought a new import lathe with tighter precision, but where is the fun in that? Part of the addiction is the hunt for parts, the fellowship of others on the same quest and the satisfaction of knowing you saved a part of history, and of course cant forget the bragging rights!

Over the weekend I totally dismantled the lathe, cleaned every part, hand lapped the ways (yes I know the ways are not hardened), re polished all the gibbs and made a list of parts I need to get to make my lathe able to spit chips once again. It is a neat little machine, I really cant wait to turn my first raw casting on it, I am really looking forward to it.

It has been a while since I had my hands and head wrapped around a machine, but just like riding a bike, it is all coming back.

Kirbster

 

[wa5cab]

OK. I really didn't know that what we would probably have called "fines" are also called "swarf". I can sympathize with you about the smell from soluble oil.