Emco Unimat 3 Lathe

Can anyone tell me if it is possible to adjust the cross play of the tailstock on these lathes. When I put two identical slot drills in the chuck and tailstock the tips do not quite touch each other when you bring them together. Where only talking about .3mm. Maybe that is acceptable for the lathe and I'm being too fussy. Thank you.

Hi Thomas,

I don't have a Unimat 3 (just the SL) and as far as I know you can't adjust the tail stock sideways. Well unless you scrape it.

Thor

No there is no adjustment. But your method of testing is not ideal, really you need to set up a test piece between centres and turn each end then measure to see what the difference in diameter is, this will eliminate any runout in the chucks.

Have a look at Mechmans recent post part way down the page in this thread about how to do it

J

Thomas, put a centre in the head and tail stock, and bring them together, pinch a 6" steel rule or similar between the two points, turn the rule horizontal, it should be at right angles to the bed if the centres are in line.

Ian S C

Both headstock and tailstock are located/clamped onto the v bed.

Hence if there is a mis-alignment it might be bad news. However I cannot imagine it is possible for the unimat to abuse it self to this extent, so short of dropping on to a hard surface not likely.

I would not think that the error described is normal and would cause difficulty (unimat3's were made in a proper factory! and when I bought mine over thirty years ago were quite pricey)

The sockets on the unimat are (more or less parallel) and my experience was that they did loosen after a lot of use and I made fractionally larger replacements.

I think other respondents are right in that it is the holding arrangments at either end that are to blame, and as Ian says use pointy bits to make a judgment.

John