FILENAMES:

AtlasBed1.jpg
AtlasBed2.jpg
AtlasBed3.jpg
AtlasBed4.jpg
AtlasBed5.jpg
AtlasBed6.jpg
AtlasBed7.jpg

DESCRIPTION:

These are pictures of the bed condition of an Atlas lathe.
 
Posted by Matthew Dilligan <dilligan@hotmail.com>. 

The following description was provided:

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From dilligan@hotmail.com

The pictures AtlasBed1-7 are from a 10" Atlas lathe I bought from a school,
it is a TH42 with the roller bearing headstock and a quick change box. It
looks to be 50's vintage and was oringally in a lab but for the last 10 
years at least has sat unused in a student-run shop. It was very dirty 
when I got it, it appeared to have a good layer of sawdust all over it and
all the grease had dried up to the point where neither the QC box or the 
table feed worked (cleaned up nice but was pretty caked).
 
I'm curious if anyone has any idea what the scratch marks that cover the 
bed could be or if they will affect the operation of the lathe (have not
had it under power yet). 

AtlasBed1 shows the section where the quickchange gearbox was bolted, it
is very smooth and has the machine ground look similar to parallels etc. 
You can see how the bed finish changes as it gets away from this area and 
towards the main part of the bed.

AtlasBed2 shows the higher wear area of the bed, the carraige "track" has
mostly erased traces of the scratchs except for towards the end.

AtlasBed3 is a pretty good picture of the scratches, you can see they don't 
look regular enough to be some real grinding operation, to me they look 
like the result of a stiff wire wheel or lightly applied sand paper. In 
generall they are too shallow to "catch" a nail on or really feel except 
for the area below....

AltasBed4 sorry it's so big but it shows the overall finish pretty well and 
also shows the very deep scratches in the upper right of the picture on the
inside of the far bed rail. These scratches are deep enough to feel with a 
fingernail.

AtlasBed5 sorry again another big pic but a good closeup of the deeply 
scored area shown above.

AltasBed6 more scratches...

AltasBed7 shows the tailstock end of the bed with some general scratching and
someone's name engraved in it "J S MURRAY" or something. Note how the lower rail
is beveled at the end, is that normal? Scratches are pretty deep here.

So any ideas? Ham-fisted cleaning job? Some backalley form of spotting or similar
to enhance lube retention? Comments to dilligan@hotmail.com are most appreciated.

Matt