Early Atlas 7shaper

[Silverbullet]

Still it's a nice machine , can't believe I owned one forty years ago and sold it for $125. Complete machine with cast legs and all working really well. Another kick in my own butt moment. YUPP young an dumb ...

 

[C-Bag]

Still it's a nice machine , can't believe I owned one forty years ago and sold it for $125. Complete machine with cast legs and all working really well. Another kick in my own butt moment. YUPP young an dumb ...

All us old dudes have those kinds of moments but it's hard to scale to the present. $125 40yrs ago is probably worth over $1,000 now and back then I could buy VW's in good shape all day for $300. Those same cars today are going for over $20,000! So it's hard to track with stuff that was common and seen as obsolete.

I also defied the trend and bought my complete 7b (except for the motor belt cover) for $125 last year in an estate sale.

 

[NCjeeper]

This placement thing of left and right side was one of those things we had a problem with cars. It was decided orientation was from sitting in the drivers seat. In this case with the SN it makes sense it would be on that knee as that's the side you operate from.

Only thing is if you look at the old Atlas repair parts list manual they say that's the right side. Weird. Maybe it was 4:59 on a Friday and the worker just slapped it there and clocked out for the weekend.

 

[wa5cab]

Yes, that could be it. But before forming any conclusions, we need 5 or 6 more examples at least. But we only have two that we know the serial numbers of and one of those, we don't know where it was found.

 

[wa5cab]

OK on no stamped S/N on the knee way. Actually, the left-right definition as pertains to wheeled vehicles, boats and ships dates back at least to the 15th Century. And has been applied in the same way on aircraft since the beginning. Note that it doesn't depend upon which side the driver is on (although the term "driver's side" does). However, the shape and location on the drawings of the few "handed" parts (those where there was a left hand and right hand part) clearly indicate that to the Atlas designers at least, left and right were as you would see if standing at the front of the machine with the motor on the far side from you.

Since at least the early 1940's, all Atlas serial numbers have been 6-digit, with leading zeros as needed. Early 10F lathes did not have the leading zeroes stamped and the one Model 7 Shaper that we have a photo of the serial number on doesn't. But all 7B nameplates that I've seen photos of the nameplate of have had the full six digits. This practice continued through at least 1980. There are three 7B nameplate photos at the bottom of Page 12 in the Serial Number thread in the Sticky area.

 

[brino]

Actually, the left-right definition as pertains to wheeled vehicles, boats and ships dates back at least to the 15th Century. And has been applied in the same way on aircraft since the beginning. Note that it doesn't depend upon which side the driver is on (although the term "driver's side" does). However, the shape and location on the drawings of the few "handed" parts (those where there was a left hand and right hand part) clearly indicate that to the Atlas designers at least, left and right were as you would see if standing at the front of the machine with the motor on the far side from you.

I once got a really weird look from a veterinarian when I said our dog had a problem on his "front drivers side paw".
It was perfectly clear to me, but I guess NOT universal.
I just could not bring my self to say "his left front paw", as I am sure the dog had no concept of left and right.

-brino

 

[wa5cab]

Well, be glad that you weren't in the UK. He would have inspected the wrong paw. Unless you remembered to tell him it was his Off Side paw.

 

[workingsteam]

NCJeeper,

Sears didn't begin selling the Atlas shapers and mills until 1953. So the fact that your motor has a Sears nameplate merely means that the OO bought the motor separate, or the motor isn't original to the shaper. Perhaps more likely the former, as the Dunlap name disappeared after about 1943.

The Atlas 7 (and 7A which was the same except no belt guards) first appears in the November 1937 Atlas catalog No, 28.. It last appears in the 1940 catalog No, 40 which was printed in November, 1939. Catalog No, 41 is undated but the shapers listed in it are the 7B and 7AB (no guards). So the probable production life of the 7A was November 1936 through November 1940. So four years. The only serial number that we have for a 7 is 001226. The earliest 7B serial number is 2038. So assume that between 1500 and 2000 Model 7's and 7A's were made. From your serial number (which you did not give), you can calculate roughly when yours was made.

My 7B Atlas Shaper has a serial number of 001824 and has a foot.

 

[wa5cab]

OK. Got it. Atlas made around 14000 7's. 7A's, 7B's and 7AB's and an unknown number of 101.16000's, which are all 7B's.. I would guess that your 7B was made around 1941. The foot wasn't present on the 7. It was added sometime between 001226 and 001750. The 7 and 7A did not have the foot. The 7 and the 7B came with all of the belt guards. The 7A and 7AB did not.

CORRECTION to what I wrote some time ago and that workingsteam copied forward: The Dunlap badge disappeared after 1943 from the 109.xxxx lathes. Sears didn't do a Power Tools catalog between 1944 and 1947. In the 1948 catalog, the 109.20630 carried a Craftsman 80 badge. But motors, grinders and a few drill presses continued to carry the Dunlap badge for the cheaper ones and the Craftsman badge for the more expensive. With a few Craftsman 80's badges in between. So my conclusion about when the motor on NCJeeper's machine was bought may not be correct.

 

[Booter]

Hiya folks,
First post to this forum.
I am currently refreshing an Atlas 7B shaper. It came out of Ohio a few years back and has been sitting in my shop waiting for the right time to work on it. Hope to have it operational again within two weeks. It was a complete takedown.
The machine's Serial number is 002455. It has its guards, which is what you'd hope for, with a 7B. Nothing major needed fixing, but it definitely has done its fair share of work over the years.
Have a couple of lathes and a couple of mills (one an Atlas horizontal) but there are just some jobs that a small shaper is really good at. So, I plan to be keeping it for a long time.
Will post images when she's done. In the meantime, here are a couple of what it looked like when it came home with me... the last digit on the serial number plate is a light stamping, so it is not so easy to read that particular digit.
I am near Toronto, Canada.
Thanks for looking
Jeff