My Living Room Shop

[nevadablue]

I'm recuperating from back surgery and won't be able to get out to my real shop much till spring, so I've taken some steps to make sure I don't finish going crazy. 

I made this little cabinet years ago for my daughter in law and got it back when they moved. It will work great for a 'shop' I think.



And here it is set up in the living room in front of my chair.



I recently acquired a Unimat to replace the one I let get away several decades ago. It was so much fun I decided to get another. So, one will be a dedicated Micro Mill and one will be a lathe. The mill will be a stand alone unit, and also be able to reach the carriage on the lathe for more versatility.
The first machine I got is one of the Zamak casting units. It became the milling machine. I managed to snag a complete cast iron Unimat bed and carriage assembly off ebay and this became the lathe. I found a vendor (tomstoolstore.com) who is VERY helpful and has everything to do with Unimats, plus some.   I managed to get a like new cast iron headstock with cast iron raising block, completely rebuilt, like new. I also got the slow speed attachment for the lathe.

Here's the mill, showing my custom built motor mount. The motors for these critters are spendy and I decided to try a sewing machine motor as a test. So far I've only milled some plastic, but it seems that it will be just fine. We will see.



This is the milling head I ended up with.



Custom motor mount made from a bit of rectangular tubing. I got a large box of drops from a fab shop for free. Good stuff.



It looks good, I think, and seems to work well.



One of the shortcomings of the Unimat Milling setup is that there's nothing to hold the head in place while adjusting it vertically. I added a locking lever to the mount and a split collar below it to prevent dropping the head while adjusting. I will build a vertical feed screw later. I have parts ordered for that. I'll be using a standard Unimat feed screw for it.

[nevadablue]

And here is the lathe as it sits right now. It can be used, but I still have work to do on it. Unfortunately the motor needs repair, one that I'm afraid to do before I get another. The bearings were loose, so I researched the subject and found that there is a perfect sealed ball bearing replacement for the normal bronze bushings. I got the bearings, and yesterday opened the motor. Seems that someone did a repair previously, and installed ball bearings. The drive end of the shaft was worn, so they installed a bronze spacer bushing and this made the shaft worse.
I've ordered a replacement motor, a DC variable speed unit. When it gets here, I'll install it and then try to do a permanent repair on this motor. I'll have to use some bearing mount compound to take up the slack between the motor shaft and the bearing ID. If it works, great, I have a spare motor.



Here's that pretty headstock assembly, with a Sherline lathe chuck on it. Seems that Sherline makes chucks with the Unimat M12 thread, and I have one. It is slightly more compact than the standard Unimat chuck, which gives me a tiny bit more center to center space. That is good for the tiny Unimat.



I found a QCTP on eBay and it is a beautiful unit. It came with 5 tool holders: 2 for regular tooling, 1 cutoff holder, one boring bar holder and a holder for a standard Dremel tool. Pretty neat...



The cast iron base unit needed some cleaning and rust removal and cleaned up great. I used an India stone to clean up the ways on the bed and carriage and cleaned and polished the whole thing before assembly. It runs smooth as silk now.

[Jo]

Nice to see you using these old SL lathes. I had one many years ago

My friend Les Parker has extensively modified his. including making raising blocks and a division wheel for the spindle. Such a small lathe and he manages to do  so much on it.

Jo

[Zephyrin]

I made a similar device for the same reasons a few years ago.   The SL is really lovely, once you replace the motor, a real junk.
I'm very glad to still have it, useful when the weather is just too cold to stay in the garage. I have replaced the SL by a Toyo,  maybe I should not have done that.
I do not see any place to put the knees, are you sure you can sit in front?.
There should be a little room to work on the workbench for hand machining, fitting and assembly, otherwise a lot of time will be spent on all fours to search the small parts fell to the ground, no great for low back pain...

[AussieJimG]

I have never forgotten a build article I read in Model Engineer many years ago written by a bloke who apologised for the small size of the engine he had designed, build and was describing.

He explained that he had been moved into an old folks home but had built a workshop in a cabinet that looked like the sewing machine cabinets that ladies were allowed to have in their rooms.

From memory, he had something like a Sherline mill and lathe and drawers to hold the tooling and materials and was able to work away happily while the TV in the lounge area masked the sound of the machining.

I don't recall his name but the sneaky old b....r remains one of my heroes. I hope I can copy his example when (and if) the time comes.

Jim

[zeeprogrammer]

Cool ideas!

Something I'll need to remember when/if I downsize.
'remember' being the key word.

[b.lindsey]

That certainly looks workable to me and should keep you busy all Winter without worry of the outside temperature

Bill

[nevadablue]

I hope this is as close to a nursing home that I get.  But, this cabinet should do if that ever happens. I have enough knee room when the door is open and both ends are open to get knees under. The wing supports for the drop leaves work perfectly for that. Here's the inside now. I managed to make room for the milling machine without disassembling it. I notched one corner of the bottom shelf and drop the head all the way down and it is perfect. I'm still tuning the storage boxes. I have places for hardware, parts, and tools. I need to make sure I have space in there for the current project too.

[nevadablue]

A couple of notes...

For those of you who may get one of these little toys some day, the $33 2" three jaw chuck from Harbor Freight fits the Unimat perfectly. I had one already, bought for a wood lathe project. The threads are M12x1, Unimat size. Cheap, well made little chuck.

And, for those who worry about the through-headstock hole size, this lathe has almost a quarter inch hole!      The brass stock in the pic goes all the way through. And, yes, those are brass chips... I had to test the slow speed attachment. Works great.



Also, a tip I picked up watching a youtube video. If you need protective tubes for reamers, PVC pipe and caps make quick and easy and last-forever tubes to keep those precious reamers safe. Just cut to length and write the size info on the outside with a sharpie.

[nevadablue]

I was cleaning some parts today (and the drill chuck in the background) and decided to take a pic of the planned indexer for the mill. This should work out well. I'll have to bring the tailstock assembly up to the same height as the indexer and drill a couple of rows of holes in the base plate for the indexer to bolt to. I may as well make the base plate into a fixture plate while I'm at it.

[nevadablue]

The Brown Truck came today and brought some goodies...

I thought long and hard about the next two modifications I'm making. I like the Unimat a lot for it's unique features, but some of the basics like tool holder, tailstock and accessories have their drawbacks. One of the biggest drawbacks is cost of accessories; there are lots of 'collectors' it seems. So, I decided to make or buy something that isn't Unimat for the bits I need.
I found that the Taig drilling tailstock is a perfect addition to the Unimat, as I hoped. I'll need to make the adapter to fit the base of it to the Unimat round ways, but this seems to be a very simple change. The center of the tailstock is adjustable horizontally and making the adapter for the ways will address the height nicely. That ability to offset the tailstock is the main reason for this addition; turning tapers in a conventional manner. This will work!



Unimat steady rests are rather fragile (several I've seen for sale are cracked) and very expensive generally. So, a search and study turned up the Sherline steady rest. Nicely made and cheap. It too will be easy to adapt. If I can find the little ball bearings I have, I'll add rollers to one end of the brass bars on this one.

[nevadablue]

The weather is just absolutely gorgeous here today so I HAD to go out to the shop and work a bit. (I ran the tractor all day yesterday... yes, the Doc said OK. It really is not much different than sitting in my chair inside) I loaded up a box of small projects and took them out. I got one of them partially completed so I guess that's progress. I got the 1/2" carbide ball end mill in the mail today, so I started on making the tailstock raising block for the standard Unimat tailstock. I need to perfect this process since several of the accessories I'm building depend on duplicating the shape and spacing of the Unimat round ways.
For this one, I cut a chunk of aluminum in the bandsaw, squared it up to suit and milled the channels for the round stock. Two pieces of 1/2" O1 made the 'ways'. I'll have to turn the stock down for the next project, the 1/2" stuff is just a tad too big to work right.
Here's the start... (done on the big mill and saw in the shop, I'm still working on chip control for inside the house)

[Meldonmech]

Hi blue,
                    Your disability seems to be leading you into some very interesting projects, you will enjoy modifying the Sherline accessories. I find this type of project very rewarding.  When I was a boy I had bench in my bedroom and a folding model railway layout that fitted on top of the bed.
                                                   Good Luck
                                                                     David

[Tennessee Whiskey]

Blue, looks like you are getting on with it. I'm betting you ain't gonna need that living room shop for long. A tractor seat or the backside of a horse will cure a lotta things

Whiskey

[nevadablue]

So, for today's update, here's the incubator I'm working on so I can make chips inside the house. I'm working on the design of the 'door' on the front, but this should work.



And... TADA!!! The new variable speed motor got here today! Pretty cool. Hope it works as well as it looks.