Each had its market and each served their respective market well and it's unfair to put the two up head to head, iI's really no contest. The last production Atlas-12 I looked at (years ago) was around $2200 IIRC, the last production South Bend 10" I looked at in the same year was $5200. While Atlas and South Bend may have had machines that occupied the same size segmant of the lathe market they were two completely different classes of machines with respect to design and quality of constructuion.
#Atlas lathe parts for sale full
It is not unheard of to see a clapped-out Atlas 10 with a working gearbox bought for the full market price just to get the gearbox off it. Nowadays folks want a QC box and an Atlas 10 QC gearbox is extremely rare and consequently very expensive, several times their original cost, even in poor condition, which almost all of them tend to be because they are now all at least 50 years old. QC boxes were of course always available as an accessory which in the 1950s added maybe $125 to the cost of the machine. Huge numbers of that machine (estimated at 1/2 million) were produced and the majority of those were sold without quick-change gearboxes for reasons of economy. The Atlas 10 (one of which I own) has the same phenomenon. Atlas Ten Inch Lathe Headstock Gear & Pulley Replacement Belt Change. Just as with any tool mfg the number of accessories produced, such as collet sets, were tiny compared to machine production numbers and the marketplace now reflects that difference. Lathe Parts, Lathe Tools, Milling Machine, Machine Tools, Lathe Projects, Pulley. (At one point in the 1970s, shortly before production ceased, IIRC you could buy the last version of the 618 for $289.) Most of these buyers didn't know what a collet was and to reduce the initial cost they bought only as much tooling as they needed to do basic turning.
There were many tens of 1000's of 618s sold, mostly to folks who always wanted a "lathe" to fiddle around with and this machine was the entry point. The prices asked (and paid) are simply a function of supply vs. I've owned and trade a number of Atlas/Craftsman 618s over the years and while there might be a tiny segment out there who are indeed "Collecting" the vast majority of owners are simply trying to accessorize and increase the versatility of their machines.
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