I have a number of answers, based in several imperatives I've experienced over the past nearly 60 years. First off, back before Prepping was even a thing, my 2nd step-father was expecting Armageddon any minute now. That was 1965. He was training my little brother and I (10yo & 8.5yo) to be his own little private army. Our grandma was Mormon, and kept spare food for when times got tough, based on the teachings of her new church, (became a Mormon in 1955, the year I was born) and having been a newly-wed wife & mother during the Great Depression. We asked our SF why he wasn't storing food. He said we didn't have to, as the Mormons were storing it for us. We were being trained to take it from others, IOW. Knowing my grandpa and grandma, this just didn't seem like a really good idea. ;) We got knives, and bb guns, and training in how to use them. Also encouraged to play war games with our friends, and we watched Combat! and Sea Hunt with him on TV. With tips on how to do better, fighting. He was UDT in the navy. That was the base organization that later became Navy SEAL's. We noted that he wasn't reloading, wasn't practicing shooting firearms, and wasn't storing parts for them, either.?
Grandpa was a serious DIY guy. He bought his house in 1943, and by the time I was living there with them, at age 4, he'd tripled the size of it. Before I was in my teens, he had the very first sidewalk in the neighborhood, a two-car garage, covered patio, and paved two-car driveway. Dad was, too, but also had a 2nd family by the time I was 6. He'd spent summers at his grandparent's farm, and wanted to be a farmer, but there wasn't much call for it when his family moved to Cali, since they turned into city folk. He did shoot, reload, build and fix things, since most of the time he couldn't afford to buy them new and in good shape. Did a bit of amateur gunsmithing, too, but mostly had to buy parts to fix his guns, and automobiles. Got into CB radio, then Amateur radio. Did some Army National Guard time as a communications troop. Carrying, setting up, and operating a Model 15 teletype in the field, until they let him become a cook. He like that lots better, but still had a few Model 15 TTY's in his stash when I left his home in 1972. He also read a lot about making/repairing/fixing stuff. Had decades worth of American Rifleman and Popular Electronics magazines. I first read about the Unimats in those. Seemed a really good thing to get, but they were expensive! The Atlas and South Bend lathes and shapers looked really good, too, but were WAY more expensive, and larger, too. And I'd moved 32 times by the time I turned 18, and enlisted in the USAF. Small and portable looked really really good!
Took a machine shop class my senior year of high school. IIRC, it was only one quarter, may have been a semester, but I only had time to learn a bit about the lathe, and shaper. Fell in LOVE with those tools! South Bend, the both of them, but I'd have taken anything I could get! Except that I could not find one. Got a job after I graduated, in June 1973, making $1.25/hour at Kmart's building materials department. Wanted the Jewelry department, but they didn't have any openings at the time. Was interested in lapidary, jewelry making, and photography. One of my neighbors when I lived with my dad in Colorado was the first person to make accurate copies of the Clovis points, and had hundreds of other types and styles of knapped flint, obsidian, and other stone arrow heads, spear points, scrapers, hand axes, and such. I'd moved back to Cali in '72 to go to the high school where they had the machine shop class, but I was lucky I'd worked my tailsection off most of my senior year, or I probably wouldn't have gotten even the one short class. I screwed up biggly in freshmen year at that same HS, and flunked every class but one. Dad moved to CO, and took my brother and I with him to give me a chance to mend my attitude, and do better in school. Worked, too. I wasn't quite a s stupid as I had been when I got back, and had learned how to work for things I wanted...
I loved that machine shop class, but wasn't quite bright enough to understand that I'd need to take another class or two to learn it. Enlisted in the USAF, and probably could have gotten them to train me, but didn't ask. Wanted a job in electronics, and they promised me one when I enlisted. Turned out, Aircraft Maintenance was dual qualified, electrical or mechanical, and my scores in both were good enough to get in. Base score required then was 50 in either field, and I'd done much better than that. Learned to be a pretty good aircraft mechanic, but wrecked my knees the first winter I spend on the flightline at Cannon AFB, the winter of 1974/1975. Got offered to retrain into something that wouldn't be so hard on my knees. Despite having been to the base machine shop a couple of times, I didn't even think about asking to become a machinist. YDS. Young, DUMB, and STUPID! :)? Did ten years as a photographer for the USAF, documenting aircraft accidents, weapons systems development, and grip and grins. Awards photos. Made Tech Sergeant, and got chained to a desk, doing paperwork and no photography for me! Field was over in TSgt's, and they asked if I'd like to retrain again. Still pretty YDS at age 30. ;) Retrained into Satellite Communications. Did that my last 12 years in the USAF. Had enough problems with what was pretty new equipment then that I'd gotten more interested in machining, and I'd been reading everything I could lay my hands on about machining, and had been looking for a smallish lathe on and off for all that time. Missed being able to get a Emco Maximat 5 in Germany twice over the course of a decade and a half. They had them in a department store in Wiesbaden, Germany. First time, I was there for a small surgery, only a few days, and they wouldn't let me cash a check for more than $25, and the lathe was about $350, or DM1000, in 1983, then I was stationed there in December 1991, but my wife was pregnant, and needed baby stuff in 1992, and then again in 1994... The funny thing was that the lathe was still about DM1000, but that was around $1000 by then.?
Came to Oklahoma in 1996, retired in 1997, with another baby just a couple of months before I retired. Shoes, clothing, diapers, toys, furniture, books, and food! No money for machine tools. And exhibited even more YDS, at age 42, and decided to become a school teacher. Ten years, over $100K in student loans, for a 3 year teaching career. I have over 300 semester hours of college credits. A pair of associate degrees. I was 6 hours from having what would have been my 2nd AAS when I retired, and lost it. Got the actual 2nd AA in Liberal Studies, then a bachelor's in Social Studies Secondary Education, and somewhere between 1/3 & 1/2 of a master's in Special Education, when I developed undiagnosed obstructive sleep apnea in the middle of my third attempt to do a full year of supervised teaching experience. First two, didn't have the full school year, and the last one I got to where I couldn't write a lesson plan, or follow one someone else wrote for me, and didn't get the diagnosis until just a few weeks before the school year was over. Challenged the non-recommendation on the medical basis, and was given another chance, but no one would take a chance on me. Wound up going back to work as a strong-back-weak-mind person, which got me back in very good physical condition, and gave me an intro to a maintenance job for the laundry company I was working for. The apnea showed up in 2008, teaching career crashed completely in 2012.
2008 or 2009, I woke up one morning from a horrible terrible dream. Ten foot tall screaming aliens with spears attacking my friends and I and all we have three muzzle-loading rifles to fight them with, and I knew we were all going to die, and it would be my fault because I couldn't build the rifles fast enough. Anyone who's read David Drake's book "Ranks of Bronze" will recognize the situation, as it's the first chapter, except that his protagonist has much of a Roman Legion to face their enemy. That morning, I got up, dressed, and went to the new Harbor Freight store, and bough myself an HF 93212 7"x10" mini-lathe. And in late 2014, around Christmas time, I was griping that I still couldn't get it to do anything I really wanted it to do. Wife cut to the chase and said, "Bill, take another class!"? So I did. Started at Francis Tuttle Technology Center's Portland campus in February 2015, going full time, and working full time. Should have been able to finish the class in 8-9 months. BUT! I wasn't a teenager anymore. Moved to the part-time class, 2 days a week, 3 hours per class. Took me 7 years and 3 months to the day to finish it. ;) Well, at least I ain't young anymore!?
Fairly early in the class, though, I found out what the problems was, and it was not the 7x10 mini-lathe, it was the lathe operator. I could not get accurate measurements. There is a sense of touch you need to develop to get good, accurate, repeatable measurements, and if I ever had it, I'd lost it. IIRC, I'd made a tap wrench and a riveting hammer in my class in high school. All the other metalworking I'd done was not stuff that required great accuracy. The TLAR method was all I needed. That Looks About Right! Spent a class or two with my 6" dial caliper and 1" micrometer, and the school's Class A Johansen block set, and learned how to get accurate measurements! Those blocks were accurate to within 50 millionths of an inch. I just needed to get within .001", and a bit later, .0001". Which I can do now, as long as I don't get in a rush!?
I've also spent much of those years looking for machine tools. And mostly not finding them. My dad gave me the Craftsman 15" drill press that used to have pride of place in his workshop. My next-to-youngest brother, who's a 6'8" 300lb gorilla, bent the quill on it. After I got the 7x10, I tried to fix it. Knew I couldn't straighten it out. (Might well have been wrong about that, too!) so cut the bent part down, and threaded it. With a die, since I wasn't doing all that well at measuring. ;) Very rough thread, too. Was going put a new piece of threaded material on there, cut to match the rest of the shank, and then tapered to take the drill chuck. Then? friend found a Lewis shaper like his own at a mutual friend's estate sale. He bought it, and sold it to me. Packed up the drill press, and started working on the shaper. Once it's working, I will make an entire new quill for it. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it!? This was all before I got to take the class. Since the clas started, I've found an Atlas TH42, 10"x24" in the system used to specify the mini-lathe. Posted on one of the metalworking groups that I'd been looking for a South Bend lathe and Shaper, since I'd used them in my class, and the same friend, Bill Hinkle, told me he might be able to make part of my dream come true. He had a South Bend Heavy 10L toolroom lathe that he'd decided he wasn't going to live long enough to restore. At which point my wife interrupted our conversation, and told him I couldn't buy it. Naturally my heart sank! Then she said she wanted to buy it for me, for Christmas! YAY!!! It's about maybe a third of the way through being stripped of all the rust and grunge five years in a leaky barn can cause. TMS!? Just before the COVID-19 shutdowns, my closest brother bought a Smithy CB-1220XL 3-in-1 machine, lathe/mill/drill, from a friend of his, who bought it new in 1997, and had barely started to set it up when he got too busy, and it had never even been cleaned or plugged in. And brought it to me. I think it's a hint! All the oil and grease have turned to varnish, so it's also being refurbed. The lathe portion has been stripped, needs the new bearing installed, and put back together. TMS, again!
All these machines have about one thing in common, and that is they weigh quite a bit more than the Unimat DB/SL machines. The Atlas is 267lbs. The SB is 1067lbs. The Smithy is only 400lbs, and my 7x10 was about 100lbs. A few months over a year ago, I'd mentioned on another metalworking board that I'd be willing to trade my 7x10 for a Unimat. A gentleman had one that needed some restoration work, and was interested in my 7x10. I had enough goodies for it that he paid me well enough to buy another Unimat that also needed some work, but that I was well qualified to deal with. Made three people happy in that deal! First one is almost done, but got interrupted by my youngest child moving back in. Second on came in the box, and it, with the accessories that came with it, weighs right at 25lbs. I've got to work on my wife's "new" wheelchair lift van, and once it's done, and the bench behind me gets cleared off, the two Unimats will be next in the refurbishment queue. They are both getting 24vdc 150W motors, variable speed controllers with regulated power supplies, and a 24vdc battery pack so they can be operated under "austere" conditions.?
I'll be able to use them even if I can't use the larger machines, to make bearings, bushings, small shafts, pins, screws, nuts, bolts and such...? Gun parts, molds, jets, maybe even some small motors. And Mert Baker showed me that a guy could even make a barrel for a 9mm Lugar pistol on a Unimat... Wish I hadn't lost the photo in the hard drive crash years ago. It looked like it was a factory part! Yes, they're very small. Makes them pretty portable! No, you can't hog off an eighth of an inch of metal on one. Not all at once. But you and can take it off a few thousandths of an inch at a time, and get that 1/8" off if you'll have a little patience. Within certain limits, it's easier to do small parts on small machines, and leave the larger parts to larger machines. But starting with a Unimat, you could, if you last long enough bootstrap yourself up to a larger lathe. A lot of the bits and pieces for a Gingery lathe, for example, could be turned on a Unimat. Then that could make larger parts, and so on, ad infinitem!?
If you only have one, you can convert it into a milling machine, again, a small one, but as I have two, one will be an mill, and one a lathe. Both configurations are better for some things than others, and you can very well use both! Even if you must change back and forth.?
Bill in OKC
