New Free Plan - Topslide for a Unimat 3

Intended for use on the Unimat 3, it should not be difficulty to adapt the design for use on any other small lathe. Perhaps one could even make a small vertical slide using the same design principles.

www.model-engineer.co.uk/news/article/a-top-slide-for-the-unimat-3/24537

Thanks as always to Nick Farr for scanning this in.

Enjoy,

Neil

I must admit I found it impossible to understand whow the slides were made using the drawings, so I have uploaded the text as well, you will need to right click and view image to see them at a readable size.

Neil

This compound slide design appears clever but missing some vital information. There is no mention of an angle scale nor a datum point on the lathe. This looks like it would cover the datum on the tool post holder anyway.

Is there someone who please supply me with the basic sizes of an original EMCO one so that I can do my own design.

For anyone interested, I have fitted my Unimat 3 with a 24V DC reversible high torque motor. Article in Glue-it.com website under "24V DC MOTOR for UNIMAT" (for some reason I cannot paste the link here).

The base on my original Emco one is 30.8mm wide by 69mm long. It mounts by means of a single capscrew 17mm from the end, with a boss 12mm diameter that engages in the recess in the cross slide.

The scale is about 25mm diameter, but is only on the far side, eg when the compound slide is set up with the handle on the right. This gives an arc of a circle that goes to plus and minus 40 degrees. There is an extra mark on the cross slide to allow greater angles to be set, but the marks on both the cross slide and the compound are wide enough that you wouldn't be using them for anything really critical.

I'll take a couple of pictures and post them shortly.

regardsd

John

John,

Thanks for the info. I have since found someone who lives 10 mins from me who has one to copy. Don't worry about the photos.

Thanks for your time.

Having owned both a Unimat 3 and a Sieg C0, I suspect the top slides may be identical in most significant respects.

ARC and Axminster don't seem to sell them for Sieg C0 any more, but there are a couple on the Bay for £40- odd.

I have found many ads from different sellers, selling exactly the same one for a Seig and Unimat 4 which look like a clone of the Unimat unit except for the bolt on degree scale for as little as A$72 which is about 39 pounds. Some ads post the basic dimensions which are withing a couple of mm of the Unimat compound slide.Considering the turning radius and the fact they bolt on exactly the same way, you can't go wrong.

I just bought one of those Clone cross slides. Yes they are almost the same as the Unimat one except that the tool mounting surface is much higher. You will need to use 4mm or 5mm square HSS tool and the 5mm will need a lot of grinding to lower the cutting edge. The 5mm will need 1mm ground off. If you use the regular Unimat size of 6mm/1/4" way too much grinding as the top will be about 2.3mm too high. The mounting screw is 3mm too short too.Apart from that, quite good. As for the Seig which they are made for, I don't have any idea about the Seig but being bigger, probably OK.

I bought one of those interchangeable tool post units too but needed to sleeve the body 7/16" x 5/16" for the centre bolt.

Edited By Ray Dean 1 on 13/07/2023 06:55:04

Before you start building this, check the availability of the 30deg hex bar shown in fig1.

Dick