I have a chance at a south bend 10x30 with 3 jaw 4 jaw chuck. Whith a lot of tooling. It has threading, and cutting tools. Face plate, colletts. The price is $1500. There is also an Atlas Lathe 10 x 36 quick gears, quick tool post, milling attachment, tooling, and 3 chucks. The price of this is $1700. I am leaning towards the South Bend which is considerably older, but in good condition. Any advice would be helpful. Thanks Clem

Clem; This won't likely help much but I have known smiths who use both South Bend and Atlas lathes. What ever you decide,I will be envious.lol derf

The Atlas lathes are usually associated with flat ways, which are not as rigid as for the carriage guiding. These were mostly made for home hobby usage & were sold by Sears for many years. However there is one model of Atlas that had Vee ways like the South Bend & Clausings.

This version apparently was a commercial model & not often seen. If the one you looked at happens to be that one, it then would put it up a notch or two as for being at least equal with the SB.

If you are planning on doing any rifle barrel work, then the 36" bed may have some benifit over the 30". As the advertised length is between centers. And after you put a chuck on the headstock end & a live center in the tailstock, it might be crowding it to get a 24" barrel in using a 30" bed.

The Sears lathe made by Atlas was a 12" on the same bed as the Atlas 10" FWIW; both had flat ways AFAIK.

Atlas is, of course, out of business. There is a source for parts, unfortunately, I no longer have the address, let it go with my lathe, but a search should turn up a source.

Regards,
hm

The biggest issue for gun work is the spindle bore. Almost a given that the Atlas has a small bore. The 10" South Bend is the break point. They made two, a light and a heavy. The light had a small bore (like 7/8" or so). The heavy has a 1-3/8" bore. The next size up, the 13", was available either way, but almost all of them I have seen have the large bore. The small bore lathes cannot be used with a barrel through the bore for things like crowning. A lot of gunsmiths historically used small South Bend and Atlas machines. I couldn't understand this until I read Roy Dunlap's old but excellent book. The thing is, the bulk of the older smith's work was on military rifles. These had smaller diameter stepped barrels. Dunlap discusses the fact that the small Atlas lathe will just barrel work for doing Springfield barrels, due to the contour. With modern barrels, this is a real limitation.

A larger lathe with a bigger bore will also let you chuck up an action, due largely to the physically larger chuck but also due to the bore. You can, for instance, crown rimfire barrles without taking the barrel out of the action.

My advice would be to get a larger lathe from 13" to 16". There are a few heavy 10"-11" lathes that will work, such as the Clausing and the SouthBend Heavy 10". In my opinion, the Atlas is no where near as stiff or stable as the South Bend.

I agree with Art.
When I bought my second lathe, I tried to be smarter and read advice FAQs on line about how to buy a used lathe:
http://www.lathes.co.uk/page2.html
http://www.mermac.com/advicenew.html

You can buy a "vee" way import{gasp, gasp, ugh, ugh) for less money that will be a superior lathe.And you need to shoot for a 36"bed. But there have been plenty of Atlas' and South Bends' in gunsmiths shops.

I think that you could buy a 13" South Bend for around $800 with a little research. Used machinery dealers are NOT the cheapest place to shop. Classified local ads and word of mouth are your best bet.

You can do small work on a large lathe but you can't do big work on a small one.

I started with an Atlas 10x36, then to a 12x36 import, and then to the present 14x60.

The spindle bore is not a concern for me since I do nothing through the bore, preferring to use a steady rest, but some think it's important.

Don't forget ebay!! That's where I buy 90% of my tooling.

I have used both exensively, which ever you choose, I would like the other, please email me.
Dr. Michael
dcwc@mindspring.com