So I'm going through the Atlas mill finally. when I got it, the entire gear box was gutted and missing, the lower u-joint for the table feed was broken and the handle was broken off the back gear knob. I got a gear box a while back but have been procrastinating on the project due to the back gear knob mainly. It's a concentric knob that rotates the back gear in/out and they are a common breaking point being pot metal. Mine had fused to the head prior to my owning it, I'm assuming that's why the handle was broke off. There's a seller on eBay offering newly machined knobs for $80 or so but I figured if I could get the bushing out, I could make one myself god cheap or free. It took me a while to free the frozen, fused knob from the head and get the shaft out without further destroying it. Once I got it out, I quickly came up with a plan. I found some bar stock close in diameter to the knob's bushing and turned it down to size in the lathe. After I got it sized, I cut it to length(over) in the band saw and faced it on the lathe. With it sized and faced, I offset it in the 4 jaw chuck the same distance as the bushing, center drilled and drilled to size and reamed. It fits, it works, now I just have to cross drill it for a roll pin that hold it to the shaft in relation to the bushing on the other end. I'll have to come up with a collar with ball bearing detent or something to hold the two factory positions indented into the head. More to come, hopefully have this thing running this evening.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk