My micro workshop

 

My plan is coming to fruition! I managed to order the milling post for the old Unimat from the USA. Even with shipping it was 25% cheaper than I can get one here in the UK. Madness.
I bought an old (vintage) Grayson model engineers pillar drill for a song. It will almost certainly need a bit of work to get it back into shape, but I'm in no rush.
The second Unimat proved to be a real problem, but I found a Mk4 for a good price. These have a slightly underrated reputation being a far eastern (not Austrian) manufactured unit, but it's a late model and should be good for my sort of work. Also many more accessories are readily available for the Mk3 and Mk4, as opposed to the SL-1000 where parts come up infrequently.

With the compressor I already have, a small engineers vice and possibly a small bench bandsaw, I will have all the equipment for my micro workshop. I will then start looking to add all the accessories to the two lathes. One advantage of this is that the SL milling head only needs a support block to work over the Mk4 table, so a lot more work can be done.

I await delivery of all three machine parts, pictures will then follow.

I've done more work on the M114, and I now have 10 cast wheels waiting for machining. I'll use them as a test of the new Mk4 when it arrives and report back. Meanwhile here are the images for the work I've done.


Six disks make up each rear idler.


Drilled and cut ready for assembly


The two rear idlers ready for paint.


Selection of 'likely' candidates from scrap to make the pattern match for the road wheels.


The final parts selction for the pattern match.


Assembly work started.


Hub nearly complete, it will need some Milliput to finish


Assembly work completed now for the Milliput ....


The completed pattern match, now they will be cast in resin and machined.


A completed test wheel, this one was rejected since the casting has lost some edge detail on the left. It will be used for test fitting and ground clearance.