SWAPPING PARTS 10F - To swap or not to swap?

H

HarryH

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Hello All,
I have only just joined this forum, but have picked up many helpful tips reading threads over the past months.

I have recently acquired two 10 inch lathes - one is a Sphere with a 42 inch bed, the other is an Atlas with a 36 inch bed. The Sphere is a dog – leadscrew gearbox broken, back gear pinion teeth missing – although the bed is not that bad, despite having had chucks dropped on the ways right next to the headstock. The Atlas is a beauty, well used but nicely looked after, and had its bed ground at Acorn Tools here in the UK, back in around '84-85.

My question is relatively simple. I'd like to take the best of the two machines (i.e., the longer bed and not much else from the Sphere) and combine into one. What is left can go for spares. Has anyone had experience of mixing and matching bits? I appreciate that headstock alignment may be time consuming, but I'm OK with that. At the very least I will have a machine that suits me plus a very nice (short) bed that someone may like, a pile of gears, tailstock, a headstock with removable caps, maybe a spare motor and several chucks.
Any advice gratefully received . . .
Harry
 
The bed of a lathe is just like the foundation of a building. If there flaws or cracks in that foundation, that building will not stay level and develop cracks in the plaster. Most of your work will be the first few inches near the chuck. Personally I would not change the Atlas at all. There are ways to cut stock longer than the bed such as adding a steady rest and/or a cat. If you really want a longer bed, then sell one or both and upgrade to what you want. Just my 2 cents worth.
 
First, the Sphere is only a 10x24 so not much gain. . And remember that to use the Sphere's bed, you are also going to have to use its rack and lead
screw, too. I would get by with the 10x18 Atlas until I came across a 10x36 whose bed, rack and lead screw are good and either do the swap or just use the 10x36.
 
Thanks for thoughts. Yes those extra 6 inches make quite a difference to the two particular projects I have in mind. The smaller machine came with a steady rest and yes I could make a spider or cat, but then I'm starting to get restricted in diameter of what I can mount. I was assuming to leave the leadscrew and rack with the Sphere as they are specific to bed length. You've got me thinking more :)
 
John may have a point. J have heard it said that the Sphere is just a re-badged Atlas but I vaguely recall that there are some differences. I just don't recall the details. If you need a longer bed, you need to look for a longer bed, not to remove the tailstock and try to depend upon a steady rest. I still think that your best bet would be to look for a 10x36 bed, rack and lead screw.
 
I did some looking on the Lathes UK site, and that does seem to be correct, and there were lots of differences, they seem to be a mix and match proposition, for the most part, made cheaper than cheap, perhaps even a bit shoddy in places.
 
benmychree said:
Apples and oranges do not mix.
Click to expand...
A good point, but the two mixed would make a good juice. And "Golden Delicous" does mix (sorta) with "Granny Smith" for some applications. That is an interesting proposition to mix the two machines. It would be a handful at best to retain alignment. However, if you had the time to shut down both machines for an extended foray, it would yield a very interesting result.

Consideration of course being given to the Sphere having the same flat ways as the Atlas and both having the same (16DP20*) gears. The lead screw must have the same pitch as well. Swapping the tail stock with the head stock would ease things a little. I'm literally just babbling about an interesting but possibly not very practical conversion. But definately interesting. My personal machine is a 12" Craftsman (101.27440) with a long (54") bed. I don't use it very often, but when I do need it, a steady rest wouldn't do the job. The down time would be the biggest problem for me. But in light of the two being so similar, mixing some Craftsman parts and some Atlas parts does sound plausible. Sounds like a UK version of the same thing to me.

.
 
My understanding is that early in the War the British bought a lot of 10" Atlas lathes. Either later in the War of after the end of the War, Sphere and Atlas came to a commercial licensing agreement whereby Sphere at first bought some of the parts from Atlas and made some the parts in the UK and later made more or all of the parts .
 
Thanks everyone for more thoughts. My research told me that the Sphere model lathes (plus Harrison and Acorn) were assembled under licence from Atlas and utilised mostly Atlas made parts. Machine belt and side covers were made in engineering plastic, as were some of the main headstock and countershaft pulleys, as were some leadscrew reversing gear boxes, and carriage handwheels. Castings for the Sphere feet were UK made (with the name incorporated in the casting), but the Harrison version just had a plate rivetted on. The cross slide on the Sphere and Harrison models was also wider than the Atlas by about three quarters of an inch. Some lathes (like mine) had removable, plain bearing top caps on the headstock, but with Timken bearings underneath. Motors were UK sourced.
Having looked at dozens of hideously abused bits of kit, from Atlas and Boxfords to Southbends and Myfords, this led me to thinking that if the core parts are identical, a cautious cherry picking swap would be a way to get going without spending a fortune, and I would learn a good bit along the way. At the worst, I would be scrapping a machine for more than I gave for it.
 
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