excuse me, but i think there may be a lathe in your dumpster (images involved, might want to view on big screen)

[chris witt]

well, it's not a real lathe. and there is one crucial piece missing.
nonetheless i was a bit taken aback when i peered into a dark dumpster
and spotted these pieces. (see BEFORE image, DropBox link below)

i've never seen one in person before, as far as i can remember, but i
dimly recalled seeing ads for it in the back of some boyhood magazine
(not Playboy, that's for sure) and it took me only a few seconds to put
the mosaic tiles together in my head.

quickly realizing that i might have a classic something-or-other on my
hands, i yanked every single bit that looked like it might be affiliated.

when i got it all home i looked around on the web for reference
material. see below for some links.

i then assembled it as much as practicable given the parts i had in hand
(see AFTER image in DropBox)

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/t62d3uis9qbe4zc/AABf_ewDc_ucxnKMC-V2wWsSa?dl=0

that's when i realized the standard factory headstock spindle and
bearing set were missing. :(
should be where orange ribbon is in the AFTER image.
i can only conjecture that someone tore it down to R&R the bearing set,
then got distracted and failed to finish the job, then somehow the
spindle got dissociated from the rest of the parts (or, most horrible
thought, got buried beyond my reach in the dumpster, which was tipped
within the following 12 hours)

there is however, the auxiliary watchmakers' (factory designated WW i
think) headstock spindle. see just to the left of main bed in AFTER
image. for scale, the wooden ruler at the bottom of the image is 24",
and the main bed is appx. 14" long.

i poked around on Ebay and while there are various parts available for
this machine, i did not see anyone offering a replacement spindle. yes,
production of this machine ceased *decades* ago.

in exploring the web i found this site, which while interesting and
helpful, does not offer to sell me a spindle:

http://unimat.homestead.com/index.html

and this catalog reproduction will tell you something about the
components you are seeing in the images:

http://unimat.homestead.com/refference.html

there is also a Yahoo discussion group on this device, which is easy to
access if you are already a Yahoo accountholder (and who isn't. not that
i use my account for anything but occasional access to discussion groups)

what's my point? i'm giving this away to some welcoming home. who wants
to adopt it? if more than one of you raises his/her hand, we'll settle
it with rock, paper, scissors; a duel at dawn; or some other appropriate
mechanism.

points to be aware of:

like i said, no standard headstock spindle (but the pulley is included,
and the WW spindle)

2 of the pulleys have small chips missing out of the rims (this is
mentioned in discussion group chatter as being a not totally unknown
phenomenon); don't know if it affects operation

it needs a set of belts. ("Homestead" above is selling them i think $12
a set)

motor does run unloaded. don't know how it behaves under load.

"homestead" warns against running this machine with contaminated or
aged, dried-out grease in bearings. will need to PM bearings before
startup. including live center.

the whole shebang in a cardboard box weighs 29 lb. on my cheap digital
bathroom scale.

if none of you wants it i'm putting it up on FreeCycle. if it doesn't
sell there it'll go on CL. if no one bites on CL i'll put it on Ebay for
the cost of shipping, or on the Yahoo list.

cw

[Steve Berl]

Sounds like a fun project. If we can figure out the dimensions, we could make a spindle on my big lathe. 

Steve

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