Picked up two lathes in central Florida.

[Doc Hoy]

Over the week end I bought two lathes in Eustis, FL. One is a South Bend 9x40. This is my second South Bend 9 and I will post that on a separate lathe forum. For this post, the other is a Sears 101.21400, serial 019635. As a person who frequently lurks around on the Craigslist, I see these lathes often (I believe) as the Atlas 618. I have steered clear of them because I simply could not believe that Sears could sell a quality lathe. Upon getting the thing home and beginning the restoration, my reaction is, "Hmm, Not too bad."

The main problem with the lathe is that the connector gear on the banjo is missing and appears to have been missing for quite some time. The feed screw is in excellent condition but was seized in the close feed screw bushing. Tapped it out with the assistance of some Kroil, cleaned it up and it turns freely. I am going to need that gear. I printed the manual from "Vintage Machines" and it is quite helpful. Additionally the small handle on the cross feed is broken. It appears the machine rolled over onto its front. The machine was from an estate and probably did not get the care in handling it deserved.

Now that I have posted this, I will go through the history on the Atlas forum. I will also get some photos posted.

Any thoughts would be helpful.

Tnx,

Doc

 

[Aaron_W]

Over the week end I bought two lathes in Eustis, FL. One is a South Bend 9x40. This is my second South Bend 9 and I will post that on a separate lathe forum. For this post, the other is a Sears 101.21400, serial 019635. As a person who frequently lurks around on the Craigslist, I see these lathes often (I believe) as the Atlas 618. I have steered clear of them because I simply could not believe that Sears could sell a quality lathe. Upon getting the thing home and beginning the restoration, my reaction is, "Hmm, Not too bad."

The main problem with the lathe is that the connector gear on the banjo is missing and appears to have been missing for quite some time. The feed screw is in excellent condition but was seized in the close feed screw bushing. Tapped it out with the assistance of some Kroil, cleaned it up and it turns freely. I am going to need that gear. I printed the manual from "Vintage Machines" and it is quite helpful. Additionally the small handle on the cross feed is broken. It appears the machine rolled over onto its front. The machine was from an estate and probably did not get the care in handling it deserved.

Now that I have posted this, I will go through the history on the Atlas forum. I will also get some photos posted.

Any thoughts would be helpful.

Tnx,

Doc

I have the same lathe. The older Atlas /Craftsman 101.7301 had a few differences I guess to lower the cost, but the 101.21400 is basically identical to the Atlas 618 other than the name badge.

Personally I think it is a very nice option for somebody that wants a small lathe. Since it is basically a scaled down version of the 10" Atlas it has features and tooling available for it that don't really exist for many others in the size / price class. It also has a very large range of threads that it can cut so long as you have all the change gears.

Obviously a South Bend 9 outclasses it in every way, but I think these are nice machines for the size.


Parts are pretty easy to find used, and there are even a few people making new parts for them. Clausing also has some parts available, and will provide drawings for the parts that they no longer support.

When I got mine it had not been used much in recent years and many parts were frozen from dried oil. Once I got it cleaned up everything moved freely.