New to the Forum and a 101.07301 Craftsman 6"

[garrettdave]

Hello, I'm new to this forum, normally I am at the wood and old arn forums.

I picked this up last Friday, no motor, tool post, steady rest or 3" chuck or drill chuck but for $125 I'm happy with it. I'm sure I'll have more questions as I get into but I do have a few of questions for now.

1)This didn't come with a motor so I'll use an old , so wondering if motor pulleys for the thin belts are available at normal places like Grainger, McMaster....others that have reasonable prices?

2)Have seen several posts here about switching to link belts so assuming they come in the correct size, but not sure exactly where to purchase them from?

3) Pic 2 & 3. Wondering about the age of this lathe? Atlas made with a 1X8 TPI spindle. The badge in the 3rd pic, is the same Craftsman badge I have on a Walker Turner/Craftsman 6" jointer with a 1939 or '40 vintage. The S/N on the ways is stamped 3757. Lathes.co.uk mentioned the model badge with s/n badge was 1946 to '56 so I am thinking early '40's?

4) Last pic and question... I removed the set screw from the gear that was circled in red, but it wouldn't budge. Didn't want to crack it getting it off. Do I just need to get some penetrating oil on it? Pull it off with a puller?

Let me know if I did anything wrong in the post and if folks are purists at keeping things vintage. Orig paint is blue, but I am leaning toward black enamel.

Thanks in advance.

[RustyBolts]

Welcome to the group. I'm pretty new on here too and have the same lathe. Mine looks exactly like yours. The serial number is missing on mine, but I think it's from around 1950 or so. It's the same blue and has the same 8tpi x 1" spindle where the chuck spins on. It looks like you have the boring tool holder in there where the lantern style toolholder usually would be. You can get lots of parts for these on ebay. I struck out trying to get parts from Claussing. Claussing supposedly has parts for them, but they didn't answer my emails. Maybe calling them on the phone might work. So far I got what I needed from ebay.

Try getting a toothbrush and some kerosene and scrubbing everything with kerosene to loosen up the old oil that tends to glue everything together. Once you get things apart, acetone on a Q-tip works good to scrub away the hard shellac stuff left inside of holes in gears and bushings. The crusty stuff on the bed of mine was impervious to everything and I wound up shaving the flat machined surfaces clean with a new razor blade, being careful not to scrape the steel. There's a few people on ebay that sell reprints of the original owner's manual and there are pictures of all the pieces that help when you start to take it apart. Cleaning it up also helps a lot in seeing what you're doing. Go easy on the gears because I think they're made out of zinc, and chip easy compared to steel gears.

I haven't needed to take that particular gear off of mine yet. It looks like it should come off, but it's probably glued on by dried up oil. I'd soak it with penetrating oil or kerosene or something before trying to pull or pry it off. If it's like mine, all of those things that are supposed to be a close fit were tough to get apart due to dried up oil acting like glue or shellac.

There's a lot of good helpful people on this site that will help you out.

Good luck.

[RustyBolts]

By the way, the old Craftsman motor that came with mine is a 1/4 HP 1750 rpm split phase motor with a centrifugal start switch with a 1/2" shaft, if that helps you figure what motor you want to look for. I think 1/3 or 1/2 horsepower might be better, and a capacitor start is probably more reliable. 1/4 HP seems a little weak. I hear vacuum cleaner places might be a good place to look for the smaller sized belts. I bet McMaster-Carr or Grainger would probably have them too though. I have my probably 50 year old belts, and they still work fine amazingly.

[Professor]

Q1. I needed a motor for my South Bend lathe so scrounged around and found a discarded washing machine motor. It has plenty of torque for the job and it even has two speeds giving me a little more flexibility. I was able to get an appropriate pulley from my local hardware store.

Q4. The collar at the end of the shaft is used to take up the end play in the shaft. The setscrew in the collar keeps the collar from turning. Once the screw is loosened, the collar unscrews from the shaft (they are standard threads so you turn it counter-clockwise to remove it). Once off, the gear behind it pulls straight off. There is a woodruff key that keys it to the shaft. A wheel puller might help but use it gently so you don't break the Zamak gear teeth.

This should be a nice little lathe once you get it cleaned and set up.

[7of7]

I just replaced the belt on my lathe with a link belt, the vibration has been reduced by about 75%, and the remaining vibration is probably from the other belt, which I intend to replace shortly.
If you have a harbor fright tools near where you live, they have them.

[garrettdave]

Thanks for the info....

Rusty Bolts and Professor, thanks for the info. I have an old Master 1/3HP motor and AB switch off a 4" Homecraft jointer that should work great for this.

Professor, thanks for the blowup. Looks like the exploded view in the manual would be helpful.



7of7 good info on the belts, I have seen the link belts at Harbor Freight. Did you use a standard 4L size on the narrow little pulleys (if I recall, you might have a 9" or 10" lathe)? Without having them side by side seems like Harbor Freight had the standard 4L size...the old belt / pulleys I have seem narrower although I haven't measured. It could be the difference in a 6" Vs. a larger machine.

[7of7]

I have the 12", it has a 1/2" wide belt.

[Kris B]

Hi,
I got the same size lathe only a later model with the Timken roller bearings not long ago. Your model should have the oilite bearings if I am not mistaken.
I received plenty of tips and help on the yahoo atlas 618 group and atlas craftsman group. There are a bunch of files for download. Any motor will do as long as it is 1725 rpm and preferably not stronger than 1/2 hp as these are light duty machines. The recommended one was 1/3 hp per the manual. Yours may have wider belts (1/2) hard to tell from the picture, but I know mine uses 3/8 belts. I am switching the old style belts with the link type, Grizzly has both sizes, BTW. Harbor Freight currently only carries the 1/2 width; note that red colored belts should be a notch better in quality than the green. The age of these lathes varies, as they were in production for years, (so parts are still available either from Clausing, eBay or Sears) your model is at least 50 years old. Sears also carries the old type belts at about $10 for the pair, cheapest out there. Also, from what I remember from reading the manual, the collar circled in red - you need to unscrew it and not pull it out. There should also be a tiny little lead ball that was used to prevent the threads from being damaged by the set screw that needs to be replaced when you put the collar back on the spindle. Check out Littlemachineshop for a tooling package for these lathes. Also they turn out on online auctions from time to time.

[garrettdave]

Kris,
Thanks for the Grizzly tip, 3/8" belts are what I have and Grizzly has them!

Dave

[Faust]

I have used a scotch brite pad on a 7" buffer to clean my ways. I don't think I am removing any metal. I have heard of people using a kittle kerosene as a lubricant, I haven't done this.