Photo Index - Sears | Craftsman - 101.06242

Machinery Photo Index

Manufactured/Badged by:
Sears | Craftsman
Chicago, IL

True Manufacturer:
Atlas Press Co., Kalamazoo, MI

Machine Specifications
Machine Class:	Wood Working Machinery
Machine Type:	Lathe, Wood
Machine Size:	9"x30"
Submitted By:	Stan Daniels

Machine Specifications
Description/Model:	101.06242
Date of Manufacturer:	1940
Serial Number:	none
Last Updated	8/6/2012 6:23:52 AM

Comments:

My father bought this Craftsman Convertible Lathe, new, in 1940 for $15.95 and a 1/3 hp Craftsman motor for $11.95. In 1941 he purchased the compound tool rest for $15.45. I inherited the lathe after his death in 1953 and have been using it mostly in wood turning in my home shop ever since. I have made at least a room full of turned things with this lathe over the years. In metalworking mode it runs a little too fast and the construction is not really rigid enough to turn steel very well, but it does fine on brass and aluminum, and I have made a bunch of handy little things with it. The tailstock has a No. 1 Morse taper and there is a " jacobs chuck mounted on a tapered adapter, with which a hole can be drilled in the workpiece that is held in the four-jaw chuck. The only care the lathe has needed all these years is to put oil in the headstock bearings before starting a turning operation. I had to replace the V-belt in 2000. It is a very practical tool and probably good for several more generations of use.

The stand is made of welded steel tubing for the legs and redwood planks for the top and the shelf, and cross-braced in back. It is a strong enough for its purpose and is light enough to move easily. Knowing something of the way my father operated, it was probably made in the backshop of the S.P. roundhouse in Houston, and paid for with a small bottle of cheap whiskey.

This was the second power tool that my father allowed me to use, probably starting when I was 13 or14 years old.

Until I visited this OWWM website, I did not know that my shop stationary tools were antiques. They were just the solid, functional tools that my father used to make a lot of the furniture in our home. But if they are antiques, I guess that I must be one also.

Edited 5/24/05: I have since found out that my lathe was manufactured by The Atlas Press Co, and that it is identical to the Atlas Power King No. 7090. See the Publications page of OWWM, select Atlas, select Power King Tools of Tested Quality, which is the 1949 catalog, and scroll down to the lathe pages. Apparently, the metal working compound rest was not made by Atlas, as their catalog lists only a compound rest for their 12" lathe. But it looks like the one in the Atlas catalog and has traces of the blue-gray Craftsman paint. But it lacks one of the functional features of the Power King: rather than rotating 360 deg, the compound slide can only be positioned parallel to the lathe bed, or perpendicular to it. But this lathe is a combination wood and metal working lathe, not metalworking bench top lathe which would have a powered leadscrew below the bed and a half-nut mechanism to engage the apron to traverse the cutting tool parallel to the bed. For this Craftsman lathe, the upper of the compound slides has to be set at the 90 deg position so it can do the job of the leadscrew and traverse the tool post parallel to the bed. Any suggestions on how the compound rest can be used when the slides are set at an acute angle to each other as shown in the Atlas catalog?

Stan

Photo 1:

Comments: Set up for woodturning, front view
Source: Me, using my son-in-law's digital camera

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Photo 2:

Comments: Set up for metal working. Note drill mounted in tailstock
Source: Me, using my son-in-law's digital camera

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Photo 3:

Comments: Top view of the compound tool holder. That is a cut-off tool in the tool post.
Source: Me, using my son-in-law's digital camera

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