Atlas 3950 Lathe wandered home

[Markopolo]

howdy folks...

well, an atlas 3150 wandered home with me. of course I know virtually nothing about lathes, but I do know what a spindle is!!!! its a 6 inch, with several boxes of tooling, drill heads, drills, cutters and other stuff that I can barely identify...

most of you know I live out there, and access to parts and pieces can be hard... it sure would be nice if I needed a pin for something, or wanted to thread something, I could just do it on my own... i watched a bunch of you tube stuff on the little 6 in craftsman and the MK2, and this lathe while very dirty, seems to be pretty tight.. no gear wobble, or dings and dents... i will bring it all home today and go to work checking it out, cleaning it up. only thing it seems to be missing is a housing cover for the gears.. belt is pretty frayed, but got another 3 coming... Joined a hobby machinist group and been reading sense about 2 am...

260967

this is what it looks like out in his falling apart old shop. i did plug it in and it fired right up. the drawers underneath it are filled with parts and pieces and tooling..

got it from an elderly friend that charged me a couple hundred to make sure it got a good home... he said it was his fathers back sometime late 60's or early 70..

wish me luck...

[CastingFool]

That's awesome! When I worked in a machine shop, the lathe was my most favorite machine to run! Cut a lot of threads with one, but we used die heads.

[Jedman]

Marko, You did very well choosing the small Atlas lathe over one of the little import mini lathes.
You can make most anything you need with that size lathe and used parts are easy to come by on eBay.
When you can find a lathe with all the tooling and accessories at a price you think is fair you have literally hit the jackpot !
It seems that in recent years small lathes have become very desirable and prices have doubled or tripled in the past 15 years.
Remember to, always wear safety glasses, don't be in a hurry, remember almost everything you cut will have a sharp edge and when filing, grinding, or polishing try to cover the ways and keep them clean and oiled.

You are going to love that little baby ! Now if you can only find a way to obtain some small pieces of steel, bolts,
Nuts , washers, just about anything can be repurposed when you have a lathe.

Have fun and be safe! Jedman

[Green Frog]

That was originally thought of as a hobby sized lathe, but I’ve known pistolsmiths who could do all sorts of great stuff on them, up to and including barrel work. A very desirable accessory is the milling attachment that replaces the tool holder on your cross slide. If you live near a community college that has machine shop classes, it would probably be worth your while to take a course or two to learn (or review) the basics.

If you do sign up for such a class, one type of project they require you to make is tooling. I got permission in advance from the instructor to adapt the sizing of the tools for my lathe at home. As long as I made them to my (advance determined and recorded) specs, the instructor let that satisfy the project requirements for the class. :)

Froggie

[Misery-Whip]

Very nice. Ive been looking for one that size. 4 jaw chucks can be a pain, but there are tricks to getting them centered. For most work a 3 jaw self centering sure speeds up quick projects.

Enjoy!

[country gent]

A lot of these atlas lathes were used in maintenance areas in plants. The bigger were reserved for the actual machine shop or tool room. They are very handy and useful. With it you will want a pedestal grinder, for sharpening tools.

Connelys Book Machine tool rebuilding is very good ( if you can find it). It gets into rebuilding and working on metal working machines. THere are also several good magazines available. Home shop machinist is one.

Learn to use the 4 jaw chuck. Its way more accurate than the 3 jaw. A set of collets and closer is also handy. With the short bed consider stub drills. With a drill chuck and drill you run out of room quick. another nice addition is a spacer for the chuck a 3 or 4 legged star that sits in side the jaws leaving 1/7" of the jaws to clamp and hold the piece parallel.

That machine is a great find and will be handy.

[BP Dave]

Congrats! Making and modifying metal parts can be very satisfying. Please, please make it an ironclad rule to always wear eye protection, because just one small chip in the eye can really ruin the fun, and a lathe can sling metal chips about as well as any tool you will operate.

[KCSO]

Visit the Atlas Lathe site UK and you will find out most of what you need to know about that lathe. I ran several different Atlas Lathes and most of them are still running at Martin Motors making obsolete parts. If you would like to borrow for a while I have Atlas Lathe Operation and Machine tables from the 1980 reprint from 1938.

[1hole]

You have a terrific find for a home shop hobby tinkerer and that price is fantastic; congradulations!

I have no lathe "training" either but I stumbled over a similar size South Bend about 15 years ago and slowly taught myself what I need to know. I've had a blast making/modifying small gun parts and specialized reloading tools.

It helped me, a LOT, to first order a copy of "How to Operate a Lathe" from Lindsay Technical Books[ for not much, considering it's value to a noob machinist. Your machine will have different control details but the operating principles will be the same.

Retain all those scattered parts you can't now identify, it would be difficult (and costly) to replace any of them!

[kenton]

It looks like your tail stock has an armature chuck in it instead of a drill chuck. If you don't have one you will want to get an actual drill chuck.

[Clark]

I shot my first deer with a Win M70 I rebarreled from 30-06 to 270 with an Atlas lathe.

[ulav8r]

Kenton is correct. That is an armature chuck. In use the jaws just touch the armature and it rotates inside the chuck jaws(Lubed to prevent seizing in the chuck). A common accessory for electric motor rebuilding.

[Bent Ramrod]

Lindsay Publications is out of business, but the books have been taken over by the Olde Tyme Bookstore (something like that). By all means, get the Atlas Manual Of Lathe Operation, and South Bend’s How To Run A Lathe.

Atlas Clausing still supports the little lathes, with an ever-dwindling supply of parts, and someone is always offering parts on eBay. I broke the plastic cover on mine my last move; it hangs on with the one bolt that’s still left.

If you have all the gears, you’re set for every oddball thread ever used by a gun or reloading tool manufacturer; even some metric stuff can be done. The milling fixture is great for copying small parts, and even cutting extractor grooves in the breech end of barrels. I threaded a 21 inch barrel for a Stevens 44 on mine once; took some doing, but I did it.

All that’s left is getting a list of nearby scrapyards and industrial metal suppliers and having at it.

[Jeff Michel]

Those little Atlas's are nice lathes. Were me, and I wasn't planning on electric motor rewinding I'd stick that armature chuck on that auction web sight and sell it. They bring pretty good money and you could spend the proceeds on basic tooling and or chucks.

[ndnchf]

Congrats! You can do a lot of things on that little lathe. I have an Atlas 12x24, had it over 30 years and made hundreds of things in it. A few days ago I was turning 303 Savage brass into 44 Remington centerfire for an 1870s rolling block. I even made a video showing how I do it.

https://youtu.be/iVzb4WopeAM

[skeettx]

Wonderful, please keep us posted on progress
Mike

[samari46]

Sears Craftsman 6" was the first lathe I bought long ago. Used to haunt one place that bought out old machine shops. The stuff he had for the little 6" as far as spare parts had to be seen to be believed. over time bought what I could afford. Clean the gears with kerosene and lubricate them with a can of spray on wire rope and chain spray let sit over night then run the lathe with no load to let the grease thoroughly work it's way on and into the gear teeth. Any excess can be removed with paper towels and some kerosene. When I sold my 6" lathe the new owner walked out with a milling attachment,drill chuck, dead and live centers and live centers,3-4 chucks,steady rest & follower rest, faceplate,pre ground tool bits and much,much more. Given reasonable care it will last a good long while. Frank

[Markopolo]

wow.... thanks for all the thoughts guys...

[sharps4590]

You are going to be spoiled. Your next serious handloading tool will be a mill.....and you may ask me how I know that....:mrgreen:

[Three44s]

Way to go!!

Do not have any more fun than you can stand!

Three44s

[firebyprolong]

I grabbed the same lathe from a buddy basically because the price was right even though I have 12x36 lathe already in the shop. Only real issue I've had is that they can be a pain to cut tread on under power. You've got to take light enough cuts that a hand crank for the spindle makes it much simpler. I just pull off the belt and cut thread under hand power. That being said a guy can do really good work with that lathe. I just finished treading up a stub and 20" barrel for a handi rifle last week just to see if I could with that little lathe. I've paid for mine just by making screws about 5 times now and I'll keep it around as long as I can just because it will cut 30tpi for Lyman 310 dies.
Just remember those have lots of cast zinc and aluminum parts and DONT push it or stuff breaks. Light cuts and no hard stops are the order of the day. I wouldn't worry to much about the gear cover, mine has hung behind the lathe since the first time I had to change gears only because it has the gear chart glued to the inside. It hasn't been missed