New to me Atlas 10f

[norton91]

Hi,

What is now turning out to be a retirement hobby - machining.

I've had over here in the UK a small Warco lathe for 3 or 4 years and I was bored on holiday in October 2018 and I researched upgrading so I've spent a couple of months upgrading it.

I found this Atlas on eBay at £62 about $80 with 6 days to go and I got a bit hooked so in the end I paid £310 for it, the best part of $400.

It was left to a gentleman selling having been left it from his neighbour who passed at 82 and had been using it on and off for sime time I was told he was making cannons on it. It was extremely well oiled although some of the oil has gone hard or stained the metal easily cleaned but it looks like there was a load of sawdust and general dust around so the general appearance was not the best. On the good side is it looks very complete I cant find anything wrong with it, the head bearings are as tight as you want I made them at one and a half thou movement, the rest looks really really good.
So a week after buying it I'm starting to take it apart and painting it, I was going to leave it but I've decided to paint it, I've used tractol paint in squirrel grey couldn't resist the squirrel grey name.
Anyway the reason for this post is to try and find the age of my lathe.
The serial number is H15474S and it has I believe the original Thomson Houston type bs2410 half horsepower motor again like the rest of the lathe in very good condition. Thomson Houston was a subsidiary of general electrics and is based in Rugby England. My guess is it's early 40s and was sent over during the second world war, on the motor plate it has W2 in the top right hand corner.
Any help would be gratefully received.

Nigel

 

[wa5cab]

What is the bed length (length of the front way - choices are 36", 42", 48" or 54")? Or its model number if it still has its nameplate probably on the rear of the bed. The model number would be "H" followed by one of those four 2-digit numbers.

On the date or year of manufacture, we have concluded that all 10" except about the first two years of production of the QC model (1947-1949) share a common serial number pool. And we date the lathes by the fact that excepting maybe the earliest production with Timken bearings, the Timken bearings have an inspection date hand engraved on them. However, these dates are only visible if the spindle is removed from the headstock. So we only have a relatively few dates. The earliest date that we have is 11/28/40 on serial number 022114. I would guess that your machine was made in late 1938 or early 1939.

 

[norton91]

Thanks for the reply.
The bed length is 42ins, and being that early would make sense with such little wear it was maybe ordered by a hobbyist and not brought over for the war effort.
I will shortly be taking the shaft out so will report back with any date I find.

Kind regards

Nigel

 

[wa5cab]

OK. Bear in mind that dating the lathe by the dates on the two bearing cups and/or cones in reality only sets the earliest possible date that a machine could have been made. It is fairly obvious from comparisons of the dates on the right and left bearings that Atlas did not practice FIFO (First In First Out) on their warehouse parts inventory. The current record on the difference between the dates on the two bearings is almost a year. The average is probably two or three months. Very few have the same dates.

Another point is that we don't know for certain whether the dates were put on by someone at Timken or at Atlas. And we also know that the practice stopped sometime after 12/20/1952, which was reported on a 101.27430. We know that several of both the first and second or final versions of the Atlas or Craftsman 1/2" bed 12" machines have been reported as definitely not having an engraved date. The first of those were apparently built during the Summer of 1957.