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| Adventures with my Unimat(s) |
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| Stilldrillin:
Simon, Top marks for ingenuity! :thumbup: You`re on your way, and going well...... :clap: :clap: David D |
| fluxcored:
Hi Marshon, I'm as financially challenged as you and out of necessity have to make my own tooling. I also just recently made my own boring bar and was surprised that it even worked. I'm glad you shared the woodworking drill bit idea - I've got a few lying around. I branched out into forging and foundry work and although my setup's very primitive and skill limited, I'm saving tons of money forging and casting my own tools out of scrap. I have to agree with John - on my first venture into the world of tapping I bought a Chinese tap holder - triple checking, it's the correct size - darn thing just never worked as it should and I've never used it since. I'd like to see your results when you drill the hole for the tommy bar. I suck big time at drilling holes through round stock. The exit hole's always off centre. I do like the finish that you're getting. Keep on posting - I hope to learn a lot from you!! Regards, Cassidy |
| marshon:
I finished the tap guide this morning ........ and found the first SERIOUS design flaw in the Unimat SL/DB I fitted the lathe chuck to the tailstock and locked it up, then used the drill head and column to cross drill the barrel. Now, as far as I am concerned, two of the most fundamental things when vertical drilling/milling are centre and edge finding. Well Unimat have dropped a bollock on this one. The quill travel is a shade under and inch. That's fine, it's a micro machine after all and most of the time I won't be drilling through more than that distance. However, my homemade centre and edge finders are quite short, whilst my drill bits are standard sizes. So you have to drop the head down the column to find centre, then blow me if you don't have to move the head back up to fit the drill bit. This would be OK except that there's no index on the headstock, the column or the quill so no way to precisely re-align the bit to the centre you just found! The column clamp is just that .... a clamp. At some stage I will have to index mark the column and the headstock to align centre with the ways. After that it is simple to adjust the settings using the x - y travel of the carriage and cross slide. I messed about for ages getting the bloody thing to centre, I had to jury rig a longer centre finder in the end. OK for this job but hopeless for a range of bit lengths. Also, there is no fine feed graduated adjustment of the quill. Slot milling should prove interesting when trying to take a number of precise cuts. Ho hum. Isn't it always the way? The tool you are making is the tool you need to make the tool you are making? All this effort could have been avoided if the drill press was finished, but the parts I am making (including the tap guide) are to finish off the drill press! Here is the replacement jockey wheel assembly ( the wheels need to be bigger, I have materials on order). All made up on the Unimat SL with straight threads (yippee!) cut using the tap guide. |
| raynerd:
Nice work Marshon, I have a habbit of setting out with good intentions to make my own tooling and then find myself buying the bits I need when I nip to tool shops and such. However the odd time I have had to make or improvise tooling out of necessity, I`ve often been supprised with how well it works... I use to have a small Unimat 3 many years ago which was a lovely machine and would love to buy one back for myself one of these days. |
| andyf:
--- Quote from: marshon on May 24, 2010, 07:11:28 AM ---..... I finished the tap guide this morning ........ and found the first SERIOUS design flaw in the Unimat SL/DB However, my homemade centre and edge finders are quite short, whilst my drill bits are standard sizes. So you have to drop the head down the column to find centre, then blow me if you don't have to move the head back up to fit the drill bit. This would be OK except that there's no index on the headstock, the column or the quill so no way to precisely re-align the bit to the centre you just found! The column clamp is just that .... a clamp. --- End quote --- Hi Marshon, I run into similar problems on my round column mill, though I have more quill travel to play with, so I try to think ahead about relative tool lengths when (for example) starting a hole with a centre drill, then following up with a much longer regular one. One trick is to buy a cheap laser (the pound shops sell them in a housing with a spirit level bubble of dubious accuracy), and attach it to the drilling head shown in your first photo so that it shines on the furthest wall from your machine. You are making the longest pointer you can, so it might be possible to open the door and point it across the landing. Draw a vertical line on the wall, and when you have found centre, move your whole machine round so the laser dot is on the line. Then change tools without pushing the machine out of position (might be hard, with it being so light in weight) and reclamp so that the dot is again on the line. As the line is verical, your column needs to be vertical, too. Andy |
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