unimat 3

[WmRMeyers]

I enjoyed the account of your Unimat 3. I have the very same model that I inherited from my dad. I recall the day we both "bit the bullet" and went to downtown New Orleans to get some equipment to finally get busy making things. This was back in about 1976.

We each spent over a month's pay on tools. He bought just about everything he could afford to make the Unimat 3 a usable addition and I bought nearly every other tool (in its miniaturized version, of course) which included a Dremel drill press, scroll saw, table saw, drill, vise and many other tools and accessories - tools that I STILL use to this day - though I save those tools for projects more suited to their limitations.

I have always bit my tongue when people trash these tools! If you have nothing but a hammer, dull hand saw and a small set of screwdrivers, wrenches, re-claimed screws, nuts and maybe a box full of re-straightened nails (No sockets, mind you!) then you scored well beyond belief with these tools. With these you can do things, otherwise, not practical or at least very awkward. For example, I actually cut a top for a workbench inside my apartment at the time from a full sheet of 3/8" plywood - one long 8' cut and another 4' cut on that tiny Dremel table saw!! I could only see the blade, my marked line and the surrounding floor during that cut while slowly feeding the sheet.

I have only recently thought of selling that machine to get tools I need now, but I always stop short after recalling the memories associated with those tools!

I've never managed to lay hands on a Unimat of any sort, and for much of what I want a lathe for, they're much too small, but you can do things on a small lathe that are much more difficult on a bigger lathe, too. Over the past 13 years, I've been accumulating machine tools, and learning to use them. I'm up to 4 lathe, with 3 of them functional. One is a restoration project, and another probably should be, but I settled for rewiring it. It still isn't finished, because I've had to tear the shop apart several times since then, to fit more stuff in. I'm hoping that once I have the 3-tetris puzzle that is my shop together, I can get the kids to come visit and learn to play with me. Didn't get to do much of that before. I have decided that I was a crappy dad.