TOPIC:

HI!... LOL, Well I have a 50FT X 24FT garage that's heated and A/C'ed so I have no problem with space.

my hobby room is only 4x3 mtr, but I still cant find my protective glasses

These things are fun oops carefull always wear goggles



first project to get into lathing? will be a checkers game
or maybe backgammon hmmm next step up chess

@ Waterbok - your belts arrived here, I sent you a PM on Friday so check your inbox.

Hi Jonny did you have a chance to test yours?

been practicing a bit


getting there, turn by turn

waterbok wrote:

Hi Jonny did you have a chance to test yours? ...

Not yet, TBH I haven't had much that needed doing on the lathe for a couple of weeks, but now I've sorted through my Wild Willy bits there are a few bit & bobs I could do ... another reason I haven't been in that much of a rush is because the "belts" I bought, supposedly supplied to original spec. sizes look identical in every respect to the undersized and fragile o-rings I had before If I'd known that, I wouldn't have bought 6 sets

I'm therefore not at all hopeful of a useful service life from the shorter "belts", so I've also bought some o-rings (honestly described this time see ebay # 321261350912) - thought these are a bit of a punt, the shortest ones they have are 63mm ID x 5mm (so 73mm OD), a bit longer than the (UK) orange belts I've also tried... I'll let you know how I get on.

Orange belts from the US have a better reputation, but with shipping costs & the near certainty of getting slammed with import duties & fees, they've just too expensive


Your set went off Monday am BTW (by untracked air), signed for / tracked really would have been 10 GBP

waterbok wrote:

...
been practicing a bit
...
getting there, turn by turn
...

That's looking pretty good - if you'd started with a bigger diameter & finished with some 60 grit wet & dry it'd be round ... just not to any particular dimension, so I see why you want to try making a ball turning attachment.

Think all those 'black' belts are just normal 5mm NBR 70 O-rings.
Dont think anybody makes those <) shaped original belts (I got 2 that still work, are the long ones for the 'highspeed' motor to spindle setup)
Ordered some factory machined blue PU rings from the US. see how they work out.

Just testing my skills on that piece of aluminium, still have to pay attention to quite some things (that SL got loads of screws that got to be tightened ), to prevent the tool bits from vibrating and hacking into the material.
Got to dig out some old school books me think

Ordered a piece of 20mm aluminium for the block to get the spindle up that should give some more room for the ball tool.

Ordered aluminium 5,6,7,8,9 and 10 round 500mm long.
That should do for some TF parts and other round thingies.

And some more aluminium for a test ballturning setup round 40 and some 8 and 15 mm plate.

Ah and had a delivery from the US (2weeks) some PU belts



edit: the belts are quite a tight fit but kind of work, the autofeed is a nice option.

Got this radius/ball turning tool from an eBay seller in the US ... given that the Unimat SL is a machine tool that's been out of production for decades I wasn't expecting the same sort of finish you get with large production runs, and due to the tiny size you've got to expect some compromises ... but I've got to say the extent to which it appears to be ill-conceived & badly executed is really quite surprising:

- Imperial thread/fastener sizes, on a lathe where everything else is metric. I have a 5/32" key I can use on one, but I'll have to borrow a set of keys so I can work out what size the two I need to buy need to be;

- pivot point hole on the base has been drilled off centre, as has the corresponding hole on the arm (though not in a complementary way, unfortunately) ... which is also oversize, as is the countersink, which is also the wrong profile. It's also a boneheaded design, as the screw needs to be torqued down to stop it rotating & falling out (and take out all the slop), but do that & you can't pivot the arm ... I'm thinking decrease & threadlock will fix it, but it's a kludge ;

- hole for the cutting tool is way oversize & will need extensive packing pieces made to stop the tool moving, loosening the screw & falling out, these will need to be assymetric to get the tool in alignment with the off-centre pivot point. The thread also feels like it's been badly cut (though that might just be crud on the grubscrew);

- countersink for the crossslide attachment point is undersized & the wrong profile.


Once I've fettled & fixed all that, I can then think about some sort of graduate marking to set it for specific size radii, then see if it'll actually produce anything useful (max size looks to be 1" - 25mm - diameter).



Overall I'm a bit disappointed with it - for 50 USD (30 GBP) I'd really expected a proper design, accurately if not prettily made. At least I dodged any sort of Import Duties & Fees

RTFM, well after 40 to 50 years someone did.

tried to use the Sl as a drill stand but somehow the point of the drill wasnt going where I wanted.

problem, wrongly attached flange



the bit on the right has to be the other way around and has to be turned first on the lathe to sit right. So has been wrong since it came out of the box.