Menu
What's new

Atlas Drill Press

Dan Mosley

Dan Mosley

Member
Messages
1,169
Location
Palm Springs, Ca
Still needing a larger drill press I came across a ad on craigs list for a Atlas drill press for sale $75 asking and thru email would take $50. It has a 1 hp motor, 5/8 chuck, table goes up and down but does not tilt......probably built in the early 40's at a guess....states everything is there except belt cover.......seems may be a good ole machine to restore......thinking hard about this one..............any thoughts out there?

see pic below
 

Attachments

  • SD530761.jpg
    SD530761.jpg
    82.2 KB · Views: 60
I have no personal experience with Atlas tools, but it's my understanding that they made good quality machinery. For $50 I don't see how you can lose. If you end up not liking it, I'm pretty sure you could get your money back selling it again on Craig's List. The 1 hp motor is a good thing. The non-tilting table wouldn't bother me. (The one time I've needed to tilt the table on mine, I needed to tilt it front to back, not sideways, so I just built a temporary wedge-shaped auxiliary table to hold the workpiece.) It'd be nice if the table had a rack and pinion for raising and lowering it, but at $50, that wouldn't be a deal breaker.

My vote would be buy it if everything runs and there's no obvious looseness in the quill and chuck. I'm curious to see what any of the other guys think. ;)
 
Vaughn McMillan said:
I have no personal experience with Atlas tools, but it's my understanding that they made good quality machinery. For $50 I don't see how you can lose. If you end up not liking it, I'm pretty sure you could get your money back selling it again on Craig's List. The 1 hp motor is a good thing. The non-tilting table wouldn't bother me. (The one time I've needed to tilt the table on mine, I needed to tilt it front to back, not sideways, so I just built a temporary wedge-shaped auxiliary table to hold the workpiece.) It'd be nice if the table had a rack and pinion for raising and lowering it, but at $50, that wouldn't be a deal breaker.

My vote would be buy it if everything runs and there's no obvious looseness in the quill and chuck. I'm curious to see what any of the other guys think. ;)
Click to expand...

I agree with Vaughn, for $50, what the heck :D

Drill presses are fairly simple machines, if the bearings need replacing they are cheap and off the shelf stuff, easy to do as well.

Clean it up and get it working again, then put a nice sized aux table on it for wood working and you are good to go. :thumb:
 
One problem with many of these older drill presses is they didn't have any way to raise and lower the table.

I would rather have the cheapest Harbor Freight on the showroom floor than that one if I was looking for a drill press instead of a project.

Around here most of the good older drill presses sell for upwards of a grand....

I bought my bench top for 80.00 new with a bent up belt cover off a Cummings tool show truck. Straightened out the cover and use it probably more than any non portable tool I have. The table has a crank for raising and lowering and I use it all the time.

I may be wrong but I don't see any rack on the drill press in the picture..

That being the case it would still never lose any value at 50.00....
Garry
 
Dan Mosley said:
I thought you loosen a collar type clamp on the base to raise and lower it.................or am i wrong?
Click to expand...

No, you're correct. The rack and pinion makes moving it up and down easier, but the table on that Atlas is still movable. Kind of like the difference between having tommy bars or a one-handed key for your lathe chuck. They both work...one is just a bit handier than the other.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top