Rob Pulham
Western Thunderer
Further to my question in talk, this thread will cover my Improvements/modifications to my recently acquired Sieg SX3 mini lathe.
I have posted the photos and some of the text in this post before in the what's on your workbench thread, but include them again here for completeness.
The photos will also outline (I hope) why, as well as financial considerations, I couldn't keep both my Unimat III and the Sieg.
Besides the Sieg being bigger and more powerful than the Unimat III another consideration in the purchase, is that it has Digital Read outs fitted to both the cross and compound slides. Although so far I have only made a few small items, the DRO's along with a carriage stop (which I planned to make for the Unimat but you can buy for the C3/SC3 off the shelf for £13) make repeatability a doddle on this lathe.
This is my workbench, covered in lathe chucks which I was in the process of stripping down, cleaning and deburring. I decided to do this after seeing a few YouTube video reviews of Chinese lathe chucks. Which are basically sound, but to keep the price down there is no post machining work done of them. So when they arrive many are full of grinding grit and very little has been deburred.
I bought the lathe used, and it came with two 3 jaw and one 4 jaw chucks. The 4 jaw chuck had so many burrs inside that one of the jaws wouldn't actually close properly. On the basis of this I suspect that it's had little or no use.
To the left of the workbench sit's the lathe
Then the milling machine
And finally the Warco Mini Formit combination guillotine/roller/bending brake.
The top cupboard to the right in the first photo, houses my spray booth which has an extractor fitted into a chimney and below all the worktops are storage cupboards for the kit mountain. Moving along from that is a small worktop which has my Ultrasonic cleaner on it and then a sink with a drainer.
This is all housed in an underfloor heated room within the house (part of the former Integral garage, the rest is my office/library space) so no excuses for putting lathes on the dining table etc. but I do have a limited amount of space and a 7 x 14 lathe is the biggest that I can fit in.
I sincerely hope that it's the last lathe that I buy.
I have posted the photos and some of the text in this post before in the what's on your workbench thread, but include them again here for completeness.
The photos will also outline (I hope) why, as well as financial considerations, I couldn't keep both my Unimat III and the Sieg.
Besides the Sieg being bigger and more powerful than the Unimat III another consideration in the purchase, is that it has Digital Read outs fitted to both the cross and compound slides. Although so far I have only made a few small items, the DRO's along with a carriage stop (which I planned to make for the Unimat but you can buy for the C3/SC3 off the shelf for £13) make repeatability a doddle on this lathe.
This is my workbench, covered in lathe chucks which I was in the process of stripping down, cleaning and deburring. I decided to do this after seeing a few YouTube video reviews of Chinese lathe chucks. Which are basically sound, but to keep the price down there is no post machining work done of them. So when they arrive many are full of grinding grit and very little has been deburred.
I bought the lathe used, and it came with two 3 jaw and one 4 jaw chucks. The 4 jaw chuck had so many burrs inside that one of the jaws wouldn't actually close properly. On the basis of this I suspect that it's had little or no use.
To the left of the workbench sit's the lathe
Then the milling machine
And finally the Warco Mini Formit combination guillotine/roller/bending brake.
The top cupboard to the right in the first photo, houses my spray booth which has an extractor fitted into a chimney and below all the worktops are storage cupboards for the kit mountain. Moving along from that is a small worktop which has my Ultrasonic cleaner on it and then a sink with a drainer.
This is all housed in an underfloor heated room within the house (part of the former Integral garage, the rest is my office/library space) so no excuses for putting lathes on the dining table etc. but I do have a limited amount of space and a 7 x 14 lathe is the biggest that I can fit in.
I sincerely hope that it's the last lathe that I buy.