The Obvious Noob Question- 101.07301 Year? (i Know I Know...)

Roger that. sounds like a ton of work anyway :) Good news is the old Craftsman motor I remember from grandpa's garage did in fact get saved when when we had the estate sale before selling their house a decade or so ago, so I'll be digging that out of dad's shed sometime soon. It's definitely of a similar vintage, it was old when dad was young.
 
Actually, the Atlas lathes were intended to take some of their bed stiffness from the stand or bench that they were mounted on. The original stand tops were made of 2" thick maple, and the cast iron legs were intended to be anchored solidly to the floor or decking. You can make a light weight unit out of it if you wish. But it will not work as well as it was originally capable of doing. If you want it to work as well as it can, read and follow the original mounting instructions. The people who designed and built the thing knew what they were doing.

If you plug the bore of the spindle, you will lose the ability to mount things like dead centers, milling cutter holders and (except for the Jacobs 56) drill chucks on the spindle. Plus you will only increase the stiffness of the spindle maybe 20%. Most of the stiffness comes from the outer 1/3. Bad idea.
 
Gotchya. Solid spindle bad. Tons of work, shooting self in foot. Pardon the mess, but here's the table it'll end up on. On closer inspection, it's 3/4 particle board doubled up for about the outer 6" where the 2x2 steel substructure attaches.

IMG_20150507_225706.jpg

2" solid maple huh? Well then that's starting to sound like the preformed counter top idea might be better. The top, a 1/2" MDF underlayment and the table, all glued and screwed together would get me an area 25" x 48" x 2 1/4" thick to bolt through.
 
Medium Density Fiberboard. Particleboard, but made from finer grains and more glue under higher pressures than the low density board you're prolly familiar with as kitchen countertop substraight under Formica. Extremely dimensionally stable, very tough stuff when finished. If you look in the backround of a couple of the shots you'll see the work bench top in the garage is MDF my old man sprayed with Varethane 40 years ago and only the last 5 or to years are they showing their age... and they have seen years of hard use.

Nice little bonus today. Over at dad's working on bikes (that's where all the best tools live) and mentioned to my uncle this little project, he disappears for a little while and shows up with a nice chunk of maple butcher block 12 x 1.25 x 72 he had laying around ( I wasn't able to talk him out the 8" countertop lol) so looks like the plan is to chop it in half and make it into one single 24 x 36 top and section the superstructure of my existing 8' take to make a dedicated stand.
 
Well, as it turns out, the early Atlas catalogs say that the top board supplied with the 6" floor stands was only 1-5/8" thick. So 1-1/4" isn't too far off. Unfortunately, none of the 6" stand ads give the length and width. The board was mounted to cast iron legs that were wider apart at the floor than the width of the board. If you use vertical legs, and a wider top, weld in diagonal braces.

Most if not all photographs of the 101.07301 show the motor sticking out to the left of the headstock. I never understood that. Most 618 photos show the motor straight behind the headstock. If it will fit under the countershaft on the 101.07301, I would recommend that configuration. For one thing, it is shorter.

Another consideration is how you are going to level the stand. You should do that first before then precision leveling the bed. Although it is not in point of fact necessary that the bed be dead level, without seriously expensive equipment (in the $100K range and up), there is no low cost way to be sure that the bed is dead straight other than by making sure that it is dead level.
 
Yeah had noticed the offset motor placement... assumed it was just the difference in height between the beefier taller gennie Atlas countershaft bracket and the smaller cheaper Craftsman casting. Had planned on just using standard leveling feet, though that is a good idea perhaps to run a reinforcing beam on the 2x2 steel around the back and two sides down at the bottom to keep them squared up. Maybe add a 3/8 plate of steel op top under the maple and another 4" down and add a drawer.
 
While it is true that the 101.07301 apparently always shipped with the "A" rev countershaft bracket whereas the 618 went to the "B" early on, There are photos of the 618 in catalogs with what must be either the "A" rev bracket or maybe even the original one with the motor mounted behind the headstock. So I don't know what the deal was.
 
There is an Atlas Catalog of WOOD Cabinet Stands for the lathes.

It give a width dimension of 14" I have what I "THINK" is an original top on a 10F x 36 and the width measures 9". The Lath Feet are approx. 3/4" from both front and back edges.

if it was me I think I'd use the maple top as is without trying to double up on the width.
 

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From the writeups on the floor stands in the various catalogs, there was some sort of extension that attached to the top and/or left leg that supported the countershaft bracket and the motor. There wasn't one on either the wood or steel cabinets as they were as wide (deep) at the top as at the bottom (or lightly more).
 
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