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I had been drooling over the Unimats in the back of Popular Mechanics, as well as the Atlas & South Bend lathes since my middle teens. Took a high school machine shop class my senior year, just before the end of the year, and wasn't smart enough to take another class, despite having loved that one. Got to use a South Bend 9" lathe and shaper, and wanted one of each really bad.Originally Posted by mklotz
Read everything I could lay hands on from then until late in 2008, when I went out and bought the only lathe I'd been able to find at the same time I had the ability to purchase it. HF 93212 7x10 Mini-Lathe. Had troubles with it, couldn't get anything useful out of it, and griped about for years. Late in 2014, SWMBO said I should quit griping and take a class again.
So I did. Started in February 2015. Been attending very part time ever since. Learned to mill and lathe, and figured out what my problem was with the mini-lathe. Wasn't the lathe. Was my inability to get accurate measurements with the dial caliper and micrometers we use. I had a Helios vernier caliper that I couldn't figure out how to read, and a 1" mike that I picked up for $1 when I was a teenager, when I got the 7x10. Started using their mikes and my new dial caliper, and their Grade A Johannsen block set to measure stuff that I knew was accurate. Eventually learned the feel necessary to get it right. Took about 1-1/2 class periods.
Since them I've also picked up some odds and sods of measuring equipment, like one of each of everything they taught us to use in the class. Most of my measuring stuff is imports, but I've been checking it against the gauge block set and so far it's all more accurate than I am.I've also acquired a usable Atlas TH42, and a restoration project SB Heavy 10L toolroom lathe, both 1940's vintage. Also a Lewis Shaper, an Atlas MF horizontal mill, a couple of drill presses, chop saw, couple of bandsaws, and a Smithy CB1220XL that my brother bought for me. I think it's a hint he wants me to make some stuff for him.
It's in the process of being restored, since it was in much better shape than the 10L.
The Smithy has only been sitting for 24 years or so, in a climate controlled building. The 10L spent five years in a leaky barn before my friend who bought it to restore realized he wouldn't live long enough to do it. I'm not sure I will, either, but about a third of has had the rust stripped off it, and I have the tank to do the bed built, but not sealed or set on it's cart yet. Winter got here a bit too soon for me. One of the Unimats is also undergoing restoration. I traded the 7x10 to the guy who had it, and since it was rusty, and I had a 5-gallon bucket of EvapoRust just sitting here, in it went. He was happy enough with the 7x10 and the accessories that went with it that he also gave me enough cash to buy another one that was all there, and running, but not in best of shape, though it did have the original box. I've bought a 4-jaw India-made chuck for it, and will be modifying an ER25 collet holder to become a collet chuck. The first one is going to be a milling machine. I've started making the face plates, and milling tables (one will be t-slotted, the other drilled and tapped like a fixture plate) centers, and some small stuff. Still need to rebuild the spindle, but have the bearings and such needed, and all new belts for both machines. And been collecting photos from Ebay. I know the lathe doesn't NEED a lantern tool post, but I want it to have one. There are things a QCTP can do that a lantern post can't, and vise versa. I will have both. And the little milling vise is SO CUTE!
I think I should be able to stay busy until they nail the box shut on me. They may need to whack me with a hammer to get me to lay down....
Bill (AKA Bill in OKC on the Yahoo and former Yahoo groups now on groups.io)
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