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Unimat Hobby Lathe Restoration

Kurt Konrath said:
OK, ladies and gentleman, If I can call you that....

First up today is repair of the motor power cord. So first step was to remove the black tape to see damage, then inspect wire to actual damage which looks like a not so friendly rat or squirrel might have nibbled on.

I think I had show the power cord and damage in another posting so here is repairs.

I stripped back insulation on cord till I got to damages spot, which exposed about 4" of wire. Then I measured what I needed from original ends for installation.

Next up was to cut and strip the wires and solder the new ends for installation in the switch housing.

View attachment 534375

then it was time to reinstall the cover and check how it fit and went together, all was well at this point with repairs.

... Last but not least was a quick test run and all was well.
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You've gotta love those old school electrical parts. They sure don't make them like they used to. Everything is held together with screws, and you can fix it easily. Today's equivalent is just some sort of cheap plastic snapped and permanently glued together. If it breaks, you have to order a different part online.
 
pugwash said:
UNIMAT produced a riser block to significantly give more swing.
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I see that Kurt has the table saw accessory, and while I don't have one and can't be absolutely certain, I'll add that I believe the headstock riser block must be used with the table saw accessory so that the table is raised high enough for the back end of the table to clear the motor when the table is mounted on the lathe.
 
pugwash said:
UNIMAT produced a riser block to significantly give more swing.

View attachment 534419View attachment 534420
Click to expand...

Yes, EMCO did make a headstock riser block for the Unimat SL/DB. This is reportedly used with the table saw accessory to raise the table high enough for the table to clear the motor when mounted on the lathe. (The square cross-slide milling table may require it for the same reason, but I've never tried that, so I can say so for sure.) There has been discussions on the Unimat forums regarding the availability of a tailstock riser and, until your posting above, nobody has ever been able to confirm the existence of a Unimat factory part tailstock riser. I've never seen one in the manuals or advertisements. It's been something of an ongoing mystery why. It appears I may be looking at one. Certainly, the chuck and the tailstock dead center are at the same height, and it appears your machine has a tailstock riser in place. If so, can you offer any explanation. Was there ever a "unicorn" Unimat tailstock riser? Is yours a shop-built part? Can you post a "all sides" pictures of yours?

Thanks much!
 
I don't recall whether I mentioned it before, but the late Gerald Wingrove's book, The Techniques of Ship Modeling, should be on every Unimat owner's bookshelf. Wingrove, probably one of the greatest all-around miniaturists of the last fifty years, made extensive use of the Unimat SL/DB. His Techniques of Ship Modeling generally addresses all manner of scratch-building techniques for ship modeling, including setting up a workshop space, Wingrove had at one time a "representative" position with Unimat and wrote several Unimat publications on the care and use of the Unimat SL/DB lathe. Although not a Unimat publication, Techniques is chock full of details on the use of the Unimat SL/DB lathe is ship modeling and addresses several very useful shop-made accessories, such as a pattern copying jig for turning identical duplicate parts. See: https://www.amazon.com/Techniques-Ship-Modelling-Gerald-Wingrove/dp/B002K4SS6M
 
Bob Cleek said:
I don't recall whether I mentioned it before, but the late Gerald Wingrove's book, The Techniques of Ship Modeling, should be on every Unimat owner's bookshelf. Wingrove, probably one of the greatest all-around miniaturists of the last fifty years, made extensive use of the Unimat SL/DB. His Techniques of Ship Modeling generally addresses all manner of scratch-building techniques for ship modeling, including setting up a workshop space, Wingrove had at one time a "representative" position with Unimat and wrote several Unimat publications on the care and use of the Unimat SL/DB lathe. Although not a Unimat publication, Techniques is chock full of details on the use of the Unimat SL/DB lathe is ship modeling and addresses several very useful shop-made accessories, such as a pattern copying jig for turning identical duplicate parts. See: https://www.amazon.com/Techniques-Ship-Modelling-Gerald-Wingrove/dp/B002K4SS6M
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The Wingrove UNIMAT Primer....

www.ebay.co.uk

Unimat Lathe Projects by Gerald Wingrove | eBay UK

A beginners guide to the lathe and how to make 10 useful tools by Gerald Wingrove, new.
www.ebay.co.uk
 
pugwash said:
The Wingrove UNIMAT Primer....

www.ebay.co.uk

Unimat Lathe Projects by Gerald Wingrove | eBay UK

A beginners guide to the lathe and how to make 10 useful tools by Gerald Wingrove, new.
www.ebay.co.uk
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Obscenely expensive, likely because it had a very small print run. Published in 1999, it addressed the Unimat 3 lathe, successor to the Unimat SL/DB lathe which itself was discontinued in 1990. It would appear the book was "dead on arrival." See USA eBay: https://www.amazon.com/product-revi...show_all_btm?ie=UTF8&reviewerType=all_reviews
 
Bob Cleek said:
Yes, EMCO did make a headstock riser block for the Unimat SL/DB. This is reportedly used with the table saw accessory to raise the table high enough for the table to clear the motor when mounted on the lathe. (The square cross-slide milling table may require it for the same reason, but I've never tried that, so I can say so for sure.) There has been discussions on the Unimat forums regarding the availability of a tailstock riser and, until your posting above, nobody has ever been able to confirm the existence of a Unimat factory part tailstock riser. I've never seen one in the manuals or advertisements. It's been something of an ongoing mystery why. It appears I may be looking at one. Certainly, the chuck and the tailstock dead center are at the same height, and it appears your machine has a tailstock riser in place. If so, can you offer any explanation. Was there ever a "unicorn" Unimat tailstock riser? Is yours a shop-built part? Can you post a "all sides" pictures of yours?

Thanks much!
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Bob, unfortunately I don't own one.

All photo's I may use will be factory kit unless I mention otherwise.

I have photo's of a a vast library of their kit options; I don't own half as much as I'd like.
I could spend weeks downloading this material, but won't!
I am happy to share here what I can on specific requested items.

The ones I posted include the matching tail stock riser, so between center work can still be done.

The table saw photo includes the headstock riser.

They did a nifty little machine vice too.

1 s-l1600.jpg
 
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Bob Cleek said:
Obscenely expensive, likely because it had a very small print run. Published in 1999, it addressed the Unimat 3 lathe, successor to the Unimat SL/DB lathe which itself was discontinued in 1990. It would appear the book was "dead on arrival." See USA eBay: https://www.amazon.com/product-revi...show_all_btm?ie=UTF8&reviewerType=all_reviews
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This I DO have a copy of!

Though the cover shows the Mk 3, most of the contents were SL related.
At the time of publication the Mk3 was relatively new.

The Wngrove Techniques of Ship Modeling book is quite common and cheap to buy here.
 
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pugwash said:
Bob, unfortunately I don't own one.

All photo's I may use will be factory kit unless I mention otherwise.

I have photo's of a a vast library of their kit options; I don't own half as much as I'd like.

The ones I posted include the matching tail stock riser, so between center work can still be done.

The table saw photo includes the headstock riser.

They did a nifty little machine vice too.
Click to expand...

I have the machinist's vise. Nicely made item.

If that's an EMCO photo, then they must have made a tailstock riser. It's got to be the rarest part of all. I've shopped eBay for Unimat parts for years, just to keep an eye on the market, if nothing else, and I've never, ever seen a tailstock riser. It's easy enough to make one, I suppose, but I've never seen one offered for sale.

Another project on my list!
 
Bob Cleek said:
I have the machinist's vise. Nicely made item.

If that's an EMCO photo, then they must have made a tailstock riser. It's got to be the rarest part of all. I've shopped eBay for Unimat parts for years, just to keep an eye on the market, if nothing else, and I've never, ever seen a tailstock riser. It's easy enough to make one, I suppose, but I've never seen one offered for sale.

Another project on my list!
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Bob, once again you have piqued my interest; upon re-visiting the riser photo's I posted, you may well be correct; those risers aren't the normal factory colour.
I'll come back on that tomorrow.

Kurt has raised the profile of UNIMAT and laudably got favourable responses.

When I got my lathes and tried to encourage interest around 10 years ago, all I got was derision from folk telling me the UNIMAT was obsolete and way inferior to admittedly superior modern equivalents.
 
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