unique Atlas lathe quick change gear box

[phut-time]

Ken Hollenbeck wrote an article in issue 6, vol 24 (Nov/Dec 2005), showing a unique Atlas gear box from Mechanix Illustrated, Oct 1946. Does anyone have a copy to e-mail or whatever?

[George Hodge]

Phut,did you ever get any response about that article? I found it in a stack of Mechanix Illustrated and have read it. Not a lot of information in the article,but if a person copied the pages and enlarged them,you might be able to redraw the plans.They're pretty faint in the magazine.
George

[jjking]

I made this one for a atlas several years ago.It is unique.

[George Hodge]

JJ,have you any plans or prints of your gearbox and setup?That looks like it came as an attachment! Fits great and looks like it would be just what I need to make!

[jjking]

Sorry.No plans.I got a gearbox off ebay for 15 bucks.Removed gears and went from there.As with everything I do I dont draw much up.Just little sketches and notes.A bad habbit.I kinda wing it.I sold the lathe and the guy couldnt believe it was home made.I added to the rear cover to cover the back of the box.It worked very good.
I just noticed that the lathe has another of my 5c chucks mounted on it.That one used a draw bar.

[George Hodge]

That would of made a good project for the magazine! I've got a South Bend QC gearbox and am looking at it and having grizly thoughts.

[railfancwb]

Village Press published a couple of articles/series about building a QC box for the Atlas 6" lathe from the ground up. One was reprinted beginning on page 48 in Metalworking Book One; it was fitted to the modern "boxy" style 6" lathe. The other one, which was also fitted to the boxy style lathe, was reprinted beginning on page 36 in Metalworking Book Three. Interestingly, it includes a chain drive between the original chain of change gears and the box itself.

Modeltec, which was trying to rise from the ashes of bankruptcy, published a series on a QC box for the old style Atlas 6" lathe in the six issues July - December 1991. Apparently the author of the series also published it in book form; at any rate I see it offered on eBay from time to time in the $40+/- Buy-It-Now range. The magazines can often be found on eBay or through http://www.railpub.com or other dealers in used hobby magazines.

One could upscale these designs to fit the 10/12 lathe basically by using larger pitch gears to match existing change gears and resizing everything else to fit. The 10/12 uses 16 pitch and the 6 uses 24 pitch -- both with 14-1/2 pressure angle.

Hope this helps.

Charles