My original 3 jaw is still very tight to move by hand, I¡¯ve oiled all the parts and the jaws themself and it¡¯s only reduced a little, honestly I don¡¯t have issues holding material I only get push and pull during cuts if I haven¡¯t done it up right, honestly tight jaws can be a blessing as your less likely to get slippage during operation, but to be fair that¡¯s what the tommy bars are for on the original 3 jaw.
you may also have the jaws not set correctly in position, it maybe worth rotating them out and putting back in correct position. This can help a lot, I found that¡¯s reversing the jaws for larger work the manual was no bloody help at all, and you have to insert 3 into 3 2 into 1 and 1 into 2 in that order to work...
if your problem is tapered cuts from the 3 jaw it could be a number of things like headstock isn¡¯t running true, so adjust the head, the bearings are shot ( really bad chatter during cutting with a sharp bit) or the lathe is not actually level. Believe me it¡¯s easy to correct the lvl issue!
the other tapering issues could be too long a work piece in the jaw so it flexes during cutting...
ive said all that and honestly haven¡¯t read all the posts but these have been my personal findings since owning a unimat that I¡¯ve had to overcome, but mines now running very well after addressing these issues.
