On Wed, 5 Jan 2005 13:21:05 +0000, J. Mark Wolf
wrote:


After many weeks of scouring the universe, I have found 3 lathes that
are available for the taking.

1. One is an old Craftsman/Atlas 12" x 24" that the owner describes as
being in pretty good shape. I haven't yet seen it, but he is sending me
pics. It has what he thinks is the original greenish paint, has the flat
bed, and the stand with heavy cast iron legs, a couple chucks, and
various pieces of tooling.

2. I have also found 2 old Logans with collet type headstock. Both are
in good working order, and seem to be in fair to good condition. I will
examine them a second time this week, and hear them run etc. They both
have the flat belt drive, one of them has the integrated belt tensioner
in the belt cover.

If the other does not have the countershaft with the automatic
tensioning, and has the rear mounted drive, it must be a Montgomery
Wards 10" Lathe, built by Logan.

Also, since these are Flat Belt Drive, they were built prior to 1953.
Not a problem, but perhaps a bargaining point.

If you can come up with a Model Number and Serial Number, I can
provide additional details. Please copy me by direct email, as my
feed for Usenet is less than perfect.

The price is approximately the same for all the lathes, $800 - $900.

The pro's and con's, as I see them, include:

Logans are much older, and I don't know what part availablilty is and
will continue to be.

We carry over 4000 parts for various Logan Lathes and Montgomery Wards
Lathes. These are all new manufactured parts, not old stock or used
parts, although on occasion, we do provide used, properly described as
such. We plan to continue to support these Lathes.

The Logans have the flat belt drive, the Craftsman has the more modern
V-belt. Being a newbie I'm not sure if one is inherently better/worse
than the other, although continued availability of the flat belt is
certainly questionable.

Again, we carry the flat belts in stock; either cemented endless or
open with Clipper(r) lacing. Nothing wrong with the flat belt drive,
if properly adjusted and maintained. The belt will handle whatever
the Lathe was designed for. I have personally run Logan Lathes with
the flat belt, and have taken pretty substantial cuts in, for
instance, 6" dia Cast Iron.

There seems to be an absolute abundance of parts for the
Craftsman/Atlas series of lathes on Ebay. Logan seems to run a distant
third in this regard, just behind South Bend.

Sounds about right. South Bend built more lathes than Logan, which
would account for some of the difference. I don't know how many
Craftsman/Atlas were built.

My intended use is a home/hobby lathe, making mostly aluminum parts.

Please provide opinions (be gentle, now) as to which would be the
better advised purchase decision.

Well, I'm probably a bit biased, but I would recommend the Logan. But
that's just meg.


--
+--------------------------------------------+
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| Logan Actuator Co. http://www.lathe.com |
| Harvard, IL |
|++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++|
| Parts and Accessories for Logan Lathes and |
| Montgomery Wards Lathes |
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