Identify this mini lathe?

[Peter Martin]

This is for sale locally for $100, which I think is about $75 too much.
It needs a lot of rust remover and some polishing of the ways. On the positive side, it has a 4 jaw chuck.

I'm not sure how, or if, this thing could ever cut threads.

Pete
Sioux Falls SD.

[blue60]

A link or a pic of the lathe would help

[Peter Martin]

[blue60]

Wow, that half a lathe is in rough shape, I would only offer scrap value on it myself (if that).
Without a info plate, it will be hard to find parts to get this up and running again and would be a long go just to get a very basic machine.
I am not saying its a bad idea just be prepared for alot of headaches.

[Kenneth_V]

I have to agree with blue60.

It is a noble project to revive something from the dead but you may be inheriting a lot of headache with many unknowns.

There are some good deals that come up if you are not in a hurry.

I personally would wait for a better candidate with a known lineage.

[stratmando]

May not be All Bad, Would feel how Bearings are Moving, if and how easy to replace. Check how the chuck works, full open to full close. Can have the motor on or Below Bench. Could make nice easily. If you have time, If Time is money, may not be worth it. Would be a nice Wood Lathe. Some of that Old Stuff Is Quality, you should see signs of it in Jaws and Bearings.

[stratmando]

Appears big, how long is it?, A Grill Brick is perfect to getting a good flat surface on the Rails.Sanfblaster an Paint could make short work of it. If not sold already, price might be lowered.

[Jacob Morgan]

What is it that you want to use the lathe for? What size parts and what kind of tolerances? Do you want to be able to do threading?

That lathe, as others say, looks kind of rough, and kind of light-weight for a metal lathe of that size. What does it have for longitudinal traverse?

Depending on how big the parts are you want to machine, could look at a Tiag or Sherline. Compare the cost of that lathe and the parts and time to get it going, might be ahead to buy a new mini lathe if you will only be working on small items. I got a Sherline a while back and have been very happy with it. Tiag is a bit simpler and costs a bit less. Sherline has more available accessories.

[Black85vette]

I have owned several lathes and currently have a large Atlas 12x36. The lathe you show looks like it might be a Craftsman. They made a lot of home shop lathes. It cannot do threading without gears on the end and an Acme thread connected to the carriage. Not many home units have that. The other issue is lack of tooling. Missing is the piece on top that mounts your cutting tools. Unless you just really enjoy restoring old machines (I do) you might pass on this. I find that having a machine shop is necessary to repair old equipment. I would also verify that it actually has bearings and not brass bushings. I used to have the Harbor Freight mini lathe and found it very useful and well supported. Parts are available at Littlemachineshop.com and lots of users out there on forums to help. About threading; my lathe has a gear box and I can cut any pitch thread, however it is somewhat of a pain to do that. It takes some skill and experience to get it right. Mostly I just drill and tap a piece of metal, insert a piece of threaded rod cut to length, then locktite it in place. I will say that my lathe may be one of the most useful tools in my shop and gets quite a lot of use.

Side note: cutting threads on a lathe is called Single Point Threading. So you might make a tool using single point threading to use for single point picking.

[blue60]

I thought it might be a early Sears Craftsman Lathe but the tail stock looks wrong from all the photos I have seen.

[cledry]

Chuck is probably worth $100.

[cledry]

The knobs mean it is an Atlas who made lathes for Craftsman. None of the Atlas lathes are bad but they aren't that good either.