Unimat milling table damage

Hello:

New member, thank you for having me. 8^)

Earlier this week I was able to make a long time with come true: I managed to purchase a small lathe.

Not what I really wanted albeit much better than no lathe at all.

It is an Austrian made Unimat 3 in (apparently) very good shape for which I paid a bit more than I would have wanted to.

On one hand because I could not afford anything else and on the other because it included quite a few hard to find attachments and extras.

The main extra was Unimat x-y milling table, apparently rarer than hen's teeth and quite expensive if found in good shape.

I have taken it apart and managed to clean up most of what ammounted to decades of caked grase and grime (work in progress) but the poor thing has a horrible scar, the product of a severe misshap or idle hands/devil's work.

This is what it looks like from above:

And this is a close up:

Fortunately, the damage is circumscribed/limited to just one section of the surface and does not extend past the border.

And allthough I expect that it does not affect how the table works, it is way past horrible.

I was wondering if the any of the members of the forum has come across this type of repair job and could offer some advise.

Thanks in advance.

Best regards,

JHM

The best thing to do is to just use a flat sharpening stone to remove any high spots and stop at that. You could make things worse by trying anything beyond this.

Martin C

Julius,

That looks like an over-run scar of a milling cutter on break through into work clamped to the table without clearance below. Despite the appearance it is really only superficial, once any raised burrs on the side of the damage have been dressed off. Trying to fill it to hide it will be ineffectual.

A clean fine cut file laid flat on the table surface will remove any raised material without harm to the rest of the table. Try to use the file to cut across the narrow dimension; depending on the length of the file you may have to stroke at an angle. When the raised material is removed satisfactorily, you should be able to slide a flat piece of steel across it without catching at any point

Regards Brian

OK, it looks bad, but fortunately will have little practical effect on your milling. When the museum inherited the Tom Senior light vertical mill, the table was covered in scars much worse than that. I milled off 1.5mm from the surface and we then spent months rubbing it on the surface table to remove the milling marks. The surface table was covered with 120 wet and dry paper held on with double sided tape. I knew from experiance of using this method on aircraft parts which were then checked for flatness by the inspection department that 0.0005" or 0.012mm was easy to achieve. The mill bed has now only 5% of the damage showing. If the damage was similar to yours, I wouldn't have bothered.

Welcome to the forum, by the way.

Are these photographs actually of the same thing?

There seems no damage evident in the first pic and the second pic seems to show a much shorter table with no feed handle.

(Sorry to be obsessive but these things tend to bug me).

This can happen if a cutter pulls out of the collet, I have had that!

Welcome to the party ! I can't see it in the first picture so I wouldn't worry about it. Just remove any high spots and carry on. Best wishes Noel.

Hello:

Thanks you so very much to all who answered so promptly. 8^D

Seeing that you all share the same opinion on this matter, I'll reply to all of you in one post so as to avoid generating extra traffic:

Martin C:

Yes, that was the first thing I thought of: a good sharp/very flat stone, I've used that before.

And yes, I agree that the possibilities are against me.

I'm sure there probably some milling table Dr. who could TIG up the scars and then level it all but I fear the price, given the amount of work involved, would surely be hefty, to say the least.

---

Brian W.:

Yes, I agree that it would be just for keeping it tidy, so to speak.

Nothing much besides that and my being excessively meticulous.

It's just damn ugly but should I decide (given it's value) to part with it, a talking point to consider.

I'll have to find a nice flat file, preferably long.

Or maybe 200+300+400 W&D paper on a piece of plate glass?

I've used that method once to recover a heavily battered but high quality kitchen knife without the aid of a proper belt sander.

---

Old Mart:

Yes, I agree with the general consensus: once the burrs are taken care of, it's of no practical effect.

Stuff will get in there but the gouging is shallow.

---

Peter G.:

I understand the confusion, there are three photos.

One (the first photo) is of what was usually sold to the public ie: the complete milling machine setup.

The other two (second and third photos) are just of the damaged surface on my table: from above and another closer up.

This old Minolta thingy I take photos with has a focus issue but it gets the idea across.

Obsessive? Nah!

You don't know me in obsessive mode. 8^°

---

Clive H.:

Yes.

Reflecting upon what could have happened to the previous owner, I realised that I've also had unbelievable things happen to me, fortunately costing me $$$, embarrasment or both.

As long as you learn from it, embarrasment can be dealt with.

And money, as we all know at our age, both comes and goes.

---

Noel S.:

Yes, the first is of another milling table, not the damaged one.

Sorry for the confusion.    8^/

---

Once again, thanks to all.

Best,

JHM

Edited By Julius Henry Marx on 06/06/2022 19:08:04

Edited By Julius Henry Marx on 06/06/2022 19:10:21

I agree the scrape is 'only' a cosmetic problem. I wouldn't care but I'm an untidy oik! If the gouge annoys JHM, could it be disguised by filling and smoothing over with JB Weld loaded with cast-iron filings to improve the colour match?

Dave

Seems rather odd to go to the trouble of finding, and downloading, a generic picture of the overall table when it would have taken a couple of seconds to step back and take a general picture of the unit while photographing the damage.

It doesn't look like the normal sort of damage one normally sees on a mill table; it's rather uneven?

Andrew

You could mill that damage out. A shallow cut in the Y direction just over the damage would look as if it's part of the design.

It's only a small table so you could have it reground.

Martin.

Hello:

I was supposed to have made reference to why this table is so rare and posted a video.

But after reading my original post again, I see that (for whatever reason) the following part of the post went missing.

ie: the text is after good shape and before I have taken:

---

It is so rare that there is practically no information about it of the web, just silly money prices listing ones that were swept up in a minute.

Probably because it was generally sold along with the Unimat 3 vertical milling attachment and motor as a stand alone milling machine which may be the reason I have not found a part number for it.

Here's a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tpcZXH-0Jg

Fortunately, among the extras included in my purchase were the vertical line feed (151110), fly cutter (150100), milling arbor (151070), dividing attachment w/plates (150320) and four slotting tools, but no vise.

---

For some reason the clipboard pasted a previous version of the text.

Distraction? Hurry? Lack of coffee? Sorry about the confusion.

Fixed it now, makes sense and is more complete, thanks for pointing that out.

I agree, it doesn't look like the normal sort of damage you'd see on a mill table.

But I've also done dumb things a few times, so I chose not to ask the seller.

---

Engine Builder / blowlamp:

Yes, I could have it milled out.

I have not measured how deep the gouging is, my guess is at least 0.5mm at the deeper parts.

Just for fun I could ask and see what I get as a quote.

Thanks to all who took the time to write.

Best,

JHM

Edited By Julius Henry Marx on 06/06/2022 21:21:24

I would say that if the first pic is a manufacturer pic, they should likely be ashamed.

The Jacobs type chuck key, if it belongs to the milling table easily gives the impression that the Jacobs style chucks are suitable for milling purposes. But they most certainly are not! If it is for a special type of chuck, or the text gives an instruction/warning, fair enough.

Hello:

No, it is not an OEM provided photo.

Actually, I have not been able to find any OEM (Emco/Unimat) information on this tool.

Check the video link in my third post.

The video is by a chap who was (?) apparently at one time selling a complete Unimat 3 Milling machine, of which I have the just x-t table along with a Unimat 3.

Best,

JHM

If you mean a marketing pic published by the manufacturer, pretty obviously not I would say, judging by the copious level of cosmetic damage. And to be fair JHM never said it was.

I would not mill it or rub the table on emery paper on flat glass. Too likely to do more damage than good.

Stick with a quick rub with a flat stone or fine flat file just enough to remove any raised burr around the very edge of the gouge mark.

You don't want to turn aesthetic damage into dimensional damage.

If you were going to mount a vice on the table most of the time, the vice could sit centrally and just avoid the scar. In this case, the scar being there would be no practical problem whatsoever.

It's hard to tell how damage like that would have happened. It looks at this distance like someone was milling a slot with a blunted drill bit whilst moving notionally in the Y direction but with small deviations in X and Z.

And if the aesthetics really bother you, after filing/stoning the burr off it, you could fill the gouge with epoxy casting repair compound such as JB Weld and then very carefully file that back down flat, without filing down the surrounding area. Personally though, I would stop at filing or stoning off the burr. Once its all covered in swarf you won;'t notice it. Or as Bill says, bolt your vice over it!

I find that scratches often look worse when they reveal a different lighter colour underneath. After you have stoned the burr off rub a little cold gun blue cream into the scratch to brown/blacken the silver and it will make it much less visible. 🙂