Need help identifying this lathe please

Jake,

OK. When that happens to me, I answer the most recent one first and then do Reply with Quote for the earlier one(s) (and delete anything I'm not going to comment on).

Without a serial number, or the original invoice, I'm afraid that you're not going to pin it down to the closest year because the same machines were usually made for several years. I did just notice one thing, though. Photos of the early machines all show an oval ON-OFF switch bezel and matching mount in the headstock casting. Later the bezel and the casting changed to rectangular (like yours). The 1947 catalog shows only the rectangular one and only Timken bearings. The 1945 shows mostly rectangular but a couple of photos have the oval, although they are not of complete lathes. The 1941 shows only the oval. I have an L43 somewhere around here. When I locate it, I'll see what it shows.

Robert D.
 
Hey Robert,

As far as the serial number goes thats what i kind of figured. I noticed that too on power switch, but wasnt sure what that told me as far as years. figured oval meant earlier, as it seems to be a thing of the period. Now i dont know if this is just a silly thought, and sorry if it is because im new to this. But when my eyes need a brake from reading i sift though photos. one thing i noticed is that it looks a lot like a TH54 lathe. im attaching two photos with my hand in one. those as you can tell look a little off in color and also doesnt seem to fit the contour that it is resting on. May both be factory paint, but might be off a hair? not sure how precise they were with matching color from the factory. I know other elemets can mess with the paint color, but this does tell me that maybe they arent original to eachother? this machine does have the grayish blue color, but also has some green pieces as well. Im sure this thing has been brought back to life at one point. also i noticed that the pulley motor engage lever on the 10x24 uses a straight arm whereas in the photos of the th54 have a curved arm as in the photo attached which is my lathe. am i way off on this or could there be something to it? Somethings i see tell me its not a th54. What are your thoughts?
-jake

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neanderthalhuck said:
Hey Robert,

As far as the serial number goes thats what i kind of figured. I noticed that too on power switch, but wasnt sure what that told me as far as years. figured oval meant earlier, as it seems to be a thing of the period. Now i dont know if this is just a silly thought, and sorry if it is because im new to this. But when my eyes need a brake from reading i sift though photos. one thing i noticed is that it looks a lot like a TH54 lathe. im attaching two photos with my hand in one. those as you can tell look a little off in color and also doesnt seem to fit the contour that it is resting on. May both be factory paint, but might be off a hair? not sure how precise they were with matching color from the factory. I know other elemets can mess with the paint color, but this does tell me that maybe they arent original to eachother? this machine does have the grayish blue color, but also has some green pieces as well. Im sure this thing has been brought back to life at one point. also i noticed that the pulley motor engage lever on the 10x24 uses a straight arm whereas in the photos of the th54 have a curved arm as in the photo attached which is my lathe. am i way off on this or could there be something to it? Somethings i see tell me its not a th54. What are your thoughts?
-jake
Click to expand...

It is not a TH54. It has the vertical countershaft and it has babbit bearings so it is a V42?
The casting number on the inside of the bed will be the clue on the length of the machine, ie- 9-42 or 9-54 so the bed length is 42 or 54 or whatever the number says. Per your first picture at the beginning of the thread, it appears to have a shorter bed than mine but maybe it is the angle that the picture was taken. It does not have a 54" bed that is for sure. I included a picture of my 10F24 for comparison.

The serial number plate on mine was long gone by the time I got the lathe. The serial number stamped on the bed had been ground away during a resurfacing job as well.
Mine had the oval switch hole but the cover plate was square.
Mine was green and the old paint underneath was green as well.
The motor engage handle on mine was straight.
Pierre

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Jake,

Atlas Model Numbers 101:

With the exception of the 6" (612 and 618) and one group of 9" (918A,B,C), Atlas didn't use the center-to-center distance in any model number.

In all others, the two digits at the right end of the model number were the bed length. Up until 1948, this could be 36, 42, 48 or 54. From 1948, only 42 or 54.

On the 10D and earlier, model numbers were swing plus bed length plus a letter from A through E (except that the 10D didn't have a letter). So for example, 1042 or 1048B.

On the 10F, one or two letters plus bed length. The letters were as follows:

V Vertical countershaft (all models before the 10F only came with vertical countershafts)
H Horizontal countershaft
T Timken Bearings
If no "T", then it had babbit bearings.
QC Quick Change Gear Box (I don't know whether all original QC's were Timken but that may have been the case - however, you could retrofit a QCGB to any 10")

Your machine has a vertical countershaft and babbit bearings (Timken bearing headstocks do not have removable bearing caps, hence no hex bolt heads visible). If your machine has a 42" bed, it is a V42. If 36" bed, then V36.

Paint color can't really be used to date a machine for so many different reasons I'm not going to attempt to list them.

All available parts lists/manuals show the countershaft handle/rod as being straight all the way back to the 9" on both vertical and horizontal countershafts. Yours is bent. I have no explanation other than that (a) there are undoubtedly some parts lists that no one has a copy of and/or some PO bent it.

The square switch bezel and cutout/mount cast into the headstock first appeared in Catalog L43 (if Atlas did a catalog in 1942, no copies have so far turned up) with the Pic-O-Matic, an early attempt at a QCGB. The bottom of the mount (casting protrusion) is a little higher on the front of the headstock than is the oval one, so it probably had something to do with the Pic-O-Matic. There is one photo in Catalog L47 that still shows the oval switch mounting but the photo is of just a loose headstock which may not mean anything. And there are no listings that year for the babbit bearing models. So you might be safe saying that your machine was built between 1943 and 1946. However, I will point out that one must be careful about citing catalogs as gospel in cases like this. First, the retouch artists sometimes got carried away. Second, I know of at least one case (in a Craftsman catalog) where a photograph of a complete lathe was of a model that hadn't been built for 6 or 7 years. And third, just because it isn't shown in the catalog doesn't always mean that someone couldn't have called the factory and gotten them to sell one more of a nominally discontinued model.

Robert D.
 
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