Old Atlas 12x36 Acorn conversion
Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2025 11:25 am
Hello!
I have recently completed my Acorn conversion of an old Atlas 12x36 lathe. I bought it in pretty rough shape a few years back. The QC gearbox was missing and it had rust on almost every surface. I cleaned it up and added wanted to do a CNC conversion. This video was my inspiration.
I changed a few things to my liking. Added some telescoping ballscrew covers from China. The ballscrew on Z is a cheap Chinese but seems accurate to me. The X ballscrew is a really nice ground one from Japan, found on ebay. With both, my backlash is right around .0015, so I am happy with that.
After buying the wrong encoder, and having 2 different old VFDs fail on me, everything seems to be working well.
I also use the Shuttle Express for a pendant. I like how that works for manual machining.
Here's some pictures of the machine. It's not a looker, but it seems as accurate as I could ask for and measure.
Best regards,
Mike
I have recently completed my Acorn conversion of an old Atlas 12x36 lathe. I bought it in pretty rough shape a few years back. The QC gearbox was missing and it had rust on almost every surface. I cleaned it up and added wanted to do a CNC conversion. This video was my inspiration.
I changed a few things to my liking. Added some telescoping ballscrew covers from China. The ballscrew on Z is a cheap Chinese but seems accurate to me. The X ballscrew is a really nice ground one from Japan, found on ebay. With both, my backlash is right around .0015, so I am happy with that.
After buying the wrong encoder, and having 2 different old VFDs fail on me, everything seems to be working well.
I also use the Shuttle Express for a pendant. I like how that works for manual machining.
Here's some pictures of the machine. It's not a looker, but it seems as accurate as I could ask for and measure.
Best regards,
Mike