unimat 3

[Stevohdee]

Once upon a time... I owned a Unimat 3. I made all sorts of knife components, pommels, guards, threaded rods and folding knife locking devices. I even made a heavy duty cutter assembly for a small manual pantograph to cut inlays and a puzzle Cryptex for my daughter's 21st. The poor little Unimat was often thrashed beyond intended limits and a cordless drill supplied a makeshift power feed. Annoyed to change the angle on the compound by winding the slide back to access the nut as we do on most modern mini lathes I made this new compound for it. Didn't have a mill back then so the task was quite laborious with hand tools. Hard to see in the pictures but just to the right you can just make out a part of an el cheepo watchmakers screwdriver with a lever on the end. This was attached to a pinion which turned a cog underneath the compound. The other pic is a failed attempt to cut a cog via the engraving machine, the final cog had a thread and was O1 tool steel.

I sold it in 2015 after 24 years for about the same price I paid for it. Determined to get a no-nonsense sale the lathe was gib adjusted perfect and running like new. After suffering a few tyre kickers (people who winge about insignificant faults trying to get the price closer to zero) a man rang up, said "I'll pay your asking price, I'm on my way". He arrived with his enthusiastic 12 year old son, I gave him a road test, he gave me the money and left.

The joy of the sale pales at the thought that this man and his boy was going to learn to use the machine together. I often ponder what wonderous things they may have created. As parents we tend to guide our kids away from gaming, anti-social media, drugs and all the other crap this modern world has to offer. I hope it worked for them, the machine of course but most of all...the bond.

cheers Stevoh