When you get down to it, they're junk but I like my 12x48 atlas (craftsman). No hardened ways, no rigidity, no quick change. That's fine. I mounted it to a concrete bed and the lantern works fine. Setup to grind using a starrett or equiv. protractor and the South Bend "how to run a lathe" and grind your own tooling. Gear change: fixed is fine if you have the OG manual and all the gears. The gears are cheap.
I make all my cuts then final thousandths use a file, then sandpaper. That center fixture is worth $250 on ebay (although that's the smaller one, I think it's only $80-150). I paid $800 for a 10x48 atlas some five years ago, tried to sell it it went nowhere but don't have the heart to part it out. Came with that cast center rest, 4 jaw, 3 jaw, some chucks, some tooling. It's fine but slow, guys hate them because they don't grind their tooling correctly.
I make all my cuts then final thousandths use a file, then sandpaper. That center fixture is worth $250 on ebay (although that's the smaller one, I think it's only $80-150). I paid $800 for a 10x48 atlas some five years ago, tried to sell it it went nowhere but don't have the heart to part it out. Came with that cast center rest, 4 jaw, 3 jaw, some chucks, some tooling. It's fine but slow, guys hate them because they don't grind their tooling correctly.
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