Should I buy this lathe for the Atlas Craftsman QCGB?

[ARC-170]

I found a lathe for sale "in good working condition" nearby that has a QCGB. Seller wants $1,350. Says there is "lots of tooling, too much to list", but no pictures to prove it. Machine looks dirty, but it could be fine. I thought I might buy it, put the QCGB on my lathe, then sell this donor lathe after cleaning it and making it all look pretty and work. The price seems way high; I've bought two other lathes for about $400 that were only a little worse than this one, but they didn't have a QCGB. I've also mostly parted out one of them and made all my money back and then some. I enjoyed the process of taking it apart, cleaning it and getting it running. Of course, there was nothing major wrong so it was easy.

What would I look for to see if this is a decent QCGB? It looks to be the same vintage as mine, so I'm sure the QCGB would fit. I know QCGB's are not cheap, but a quick Ebay search just turned up parts. How much are these? Thoughts?

 

[ErichKeane]

As someone who modified a QCGB to their lathe, don't be so sure it'll be a bolt on job! I did it to my 10" atlas and it required turning down the lead screw and machining the gearbox quite a bit. The distances from the face of the machine where the gearbox mounts, and the position of the leadscrew could very well be different. In the case of the Logans, an entirely different apron might be necessary as well.

Being able to switch the lead screw from one to the other isn't necessarily possible either, and likely not in a way that both would be swapped. For $1400, you likely won't be able to sell that lathe for anything near enough to be worth-while (unless there is a TON of really good tooling!).

Additionally, the gearbox there almost looks like this one: https://www.ebay.com/itm/ATLAS-12-C...-CHANGE-GEAR-BOX-HOUSING-386-031/373087685722

You'd likely be better off just buying the gearbox, modifying the leadscrew you have, and be done with it.

EDIT: I JUST realized that ebay add is the housing only?! You might end up getting a project here to modify a bunch of inexpensive gears and making some shafts In my case, I paid $350 shipped for the gearbox for my logan.

 

[ARC-170]

It doesn't look like, from the parts list I have, that the lead screw is any different, other than length. So I could use my existing lead screw. This lathe is a Craftsman and so is mine. It looks like it's "plug and play". Unless it's all buggered up!

I bought a "donor" lathe when I bought my "keeper" lathe for some of the safety covers and a few other parts. I've sold almost all the donor parts for about twice what I paid. I sold them really cheap in sub-assemblies, rather than at outrageous prices for a single part. But, I did get it pretty cheap. This lathe is on the pricey side, I think. I probably won't recoup all of my costs unless I can get it for cheaper.

 

[ErichKeane]

So in the case of the logans, despite the lathes being otherwise identical looking, there is some pretty significant differences: http://lathe.com/ll-group-archive/adapting_a_qc_gearbox.html

Basically, the location of the lead screw is in a different place as well. I'm not sure if the Craftsman you have has the same problem. In my case it was a little bit of very careful mill time to take ~3/8" from the mounting face, plus modifying the lead screw to get it to work. In my case, I was happy with the outcome.

If you're going to part out the donor, you perhaps will do better than trying to sell a converted-to-not-having-a-leadscrew version, but at $1500, it seems like making your money back would be difficult.

 

[wa5cab]

Atlas made a total of 5 versions of their QCGB. Two fit the Atlas 10" and three fit Craftsman and later Atlas 12". The two for the Atlas 10" include a tumbler for FWD-OFF-REV which the 10" did not come with originally. The internal parts are for the most part the same or the later versions will with only a few exceptions replace the earlier ones. The main housings are definitely not. I recall one person who was trying to fit a 12" box to a 10" but I don;t recall him ever reporting success.

Going price on eBay and elsewhere for any of the QCGB's has typically been $500 and above for several years.

 

[ARC-170]

What would I measure/look for to see if a given QCGB would fit my lathe? I saw a video on Youtube that compared three Craftsman QCGB and it looked like the one for sale would match my lathe, but I'd need to know what to look for to be sure.

I'm thinking if I bought the lathe, took the QCGB off, cleaned it up and then sold it and all the tooling for maybe $1,000 or so, I'd get a QCGB for about $300.

 

[Moderatemixed]

Keep in mind, that perhaps you might get the lathe, tear it all apart, get the bed ground (if necessary), strip it, paint it and put it all back together. Call it your “forever” lathe and then sell the one you
currently have and recoup ALL or perhaps more than you paid. That’s what I did. Then you won’t have to modify, turn, “jerry rig” or anything. Easy-Peasy!

Go get the darned thing! Good luck.


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[mickri]

Ask the seller for the model number and serial number. With those numbers you can cross reference to your lathe to see if it is the same as your lathe but with a QCGB.

 

[wa5cab]

You did not say what your current lathe is.

If your lathe is an Atlas 10", the Atlas Model Numbers are:

1500

1570

6800

If you have a 101.07403 or earlier, you need

101.20140

If you have one of the 1/2" bed 12" you need

101.20145 or 101.201451

 

[ARC-170]

Keep in mind, that perhaps you might get the lathe, tear it all apart, get the bed ground (if necessary), strip it, paint it and put it all back together. Call it your “forever” lathe and then sell the one you
currently have and recoup ALL or perhaps more than you paid. That’s what I did. Then you won’t have to modify, turn, “jerry rig” or anything. Easy-Peasy!

Go get the darned thing! Good luck.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Or, it could be a piece of junk that needs the ways scraped, the bearings and gibs replaced, have worn out screws, etc! Ha! I think I need to go look at it and see what kind of shape it's in. I think I lucked out on the 2 that I've bought; they were in decent shape and just needed cleaning up and a few parts

You did not say what your current lathe is.

If you have a 101.07403 or earlier, you need 101.20140

I have a 101.07403, so thanks!

Ask the seller for the model number and serial number. With those numbers you can cross reference to your lathe to see if it is the same as your lathe but with a QCGB.

I did that; they are slow to respond.