He finally got the metal lathe working

Very cool, Im jealous!

Is that a Craftsman/Atlas or neither? It looks familiar.

Would love to have one of those for my motorcycle repair business but just don't have the room.

A metal lathe, and the ability/skill to use it is something I wish to have someday. Really cool.

Looks a lot like the 6" Atlas that I have downstairs.

I've worked in machine shops several times. I started in 1960 in a milling machine dept. Then I was moved to some 'automatic lathes'. Remember this is in 1960 and the machines were already old! I later worked with some turret lathes and finally some engine lathes. I was given a little lathe about the size of the one you have; but someone stole it before I went to pick it up! The last lathe I work with for any length of time (about 2 years), was a 1956 Monarch. This was in 1973 and it had been completely reworked. It was like new. I was sizing bushings for the TriStar L-1011 passenger planes' landing gear and holding tolerances of +/- 2.5 ten thousandths of an inch. The new English Cholchester (sp?) next to it, wouldn't hold those kind of tolerances! The very last lathe that I worked with was an old turret lathe. It had some bad gears in the travel case. I tore it down and ordered the new parts. Before the parts arrived, the boss and I decided to 'part ways'. I walked away from him for cussing at me for the way I was performing a job the way the foreman told me to do it. He said that even though the foreman told me to do it that way, I should have known better than to do it!! About a month after I left, I received a postcard from him asking me to come put the lathe back together. He couldn't find anyone else that worked in the plant that knew anything about it. Instead of turning him down because he was such an 'a**', I went in the next Saturday and put it back together for him. It worked great! Made me feel like saying something nasty to him when he profusely thanked me several times for helping him out of a jam; but I didn't.

Franz said:

Is that a Craftsman/Atlas or neither? It looks familiar.

Click to expand...

Yes, it's a Craftsman