Congratulations. I like to use Hoppe's No. 9 nitro cleaner (it's a gun
cleaner available at sporting goods stores) for shiny metal that's been
covered with varnish from dried-on oil. It doesn't take off paint but
works well on dried-on oil. I also have had good luck finding obscure
bits for old common machine tools on ebay, in case you're thinking of
pursuing a follower rest or something.

I'd suggest focusing your efforts on designing and fabricating a solid
lathe bench and getting this little gem back to work!

Grant Erwin

GTO69RA4 wrote:

After two rather debatable lathe gloats (stripped SB9 junker and a large
oddball worn antique with loads of unrelated crap), I finally found a lovey,
useful lathe I know you guys would love to see.

Saw an ad for an Atlas lathe a few miles from here on an online classifieds
page. Guy's dad (40 years as a GE maintenace machinist) had died, and son was
more into woodworking. $200 later I end up with this:

members.aol.com/gto69ra4/Photos/atlas.jpg

It's an early '50s Atlas 10x24 with power cross, Timken headstock, 1/2 horse
motor, and a QC box. Apparently his dad must have been more into woodworking,
too, since this lathe is absolutely, 100% like new. Everything's shiny and
clean, the ways just have some faint marks to indicate where the saddle ran--no
wear I can find. It's crapped up with dried oil and grease but appears great
other than that.

Equipment included was a 3-jaw, 4-jaw, Jacobs tailstock chuck, faceplate,
steady rest, carbide triangle cutter holder/post, lantern toolpost, knurler,
parting tool, thread tool, several toolholders, lots of various bits and
cutters and boring bars, a few live and dead centers, some big milling cutters
on tapers, and the usual collection of wrenches, nuts & bolts, and junk you get
with an old machine. Also came with the original changegear gaurds (it was sold
as a gear machine but converted to QC when bought new in '52). The bench came
with it but is basically firewood.

Came with the original manuals for lathe and gearbox, plus a period Atlas
catalog. Lots of the little Atlas tooling also came in their little cardboard
boxes with instruction sheets.

Any online Atlas resources or pages I should check out? I just signed up to the
Yahoo group and have poored over the UK lathe site. I figure this must be an
$800 machine locally so I'm walking on air.

GTO(John) --still waiting for a $5 HLV-H I'm sure Wayne will be finding
soon...