I bought an Atlas 6 inch lathe almost 40 years ago from Sears and I must
say it was one of the best tool investments I ever made.
It obviously wont handle anything large, but there just haven't been
that many times when this was a problem.
More typically I will need some small item, as for example a few weeks
ago I needed one of the brass screws which fasten down the gas guage
sending unit to the top of the tank on a 1935 BMW. You will not be
surprised to hear that my local BMW dealer does not have any of these,
nor does the local junkyard which specializes in Mercedes and BMW. But
with my handy little Atlas lathe these very distinctive pieces of
hardware are easily made so they can hardly be told from the originals.
This kind of operation is quite typical of the way this machine has been
useful.
In recent years I have seen asking prices for these lathes as low as
$100 and as high as $500. If you buy one, be sure you get the chucks
with it. A new chuck can easily cost more than a used lathe. Also bear
in mind that these little lathes can cut inch based and metric threads,
but you must get a complete set of threading gears to use this feature.
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