Sent lathe back

Hi all

Well the Warco I purchased has gone back, I thought I would buy direct from Warco (used) because the website said that the second hand lathes were fully serviced and come with a six month warranty.
Well the lathe turned up 350’ backlash on cross feed, quite a bit of backlash on line feed, cable flange broken so cable was rubbing on metal, they said it must have serviced as it had a new circuit board.
Anyway they sent out a recon cross feed and I fitted it also fitted a new cable flange because I was not plugging it in without, fired it up all seemed ok until I started to turn a bit of bright mild steel it lasted 7 or 8 minutes then a clunk motor still running but not chuck,I had had enough told them to collect it and refund my money.
It took two weeks to get my money back but I got it.
As I still needed a small lathe and as I am only mainly going to be making small parts in brass I did a lot of research and started looking at EMCO Unimat but like most thing’s reviews were good and bad but what I did find out was that Unimat gradually got worse quality with each upgrade so although parts are a bit of a problem I have plumped for a very early EMCO Unimat SL complete with powered mill.

Not good that you've had to send it back but at least Warco customer service has sorted out a refund for you. Cant you fit in something a bit bigger like a Colchester Bantam size?

Derek, seems you had a bad experience with the lathe from Warco but they did do the right thing by refunding your money.

Not sure you will have a much better experience with an Emcomat SL lathe, they are pretty lightly built so prone to flexing if not treating them with a lot of care.
They are very capable tools but only for fairly light work IMO, I do own and use one, it has loads of attachments that don't get used often.

Emgee

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Hi

Have you considered a Hobbymat if you are looking at a small machine, never used one but I know someone who has been using ( and abusing) his since the80's, mainly on projects I would consider far too big and heavy for it with seemingly no problems or harm.

So they must be tough little things, not sure if they are still made, but there should be a few about secondhand, there's one on the lathes.co.uk website at the moment.

Dave

Perhaps someone in their workshop was not doing what they should have done. They obviously tried to resolve the problem and they did the honorable thing and took it back and refunded you.

Thanks for the replies

Yes I can’t fault Warco for refunding my money but took lots of phone calls to get sorted, I have already purchased the Emco Unimat SL although I have yet to receive it and as I am mostly only going to be making very small brass clock parts it should be okay, only time will tell.

i have seen about the motor shortcomings and the one I have purchased has two motors one on the lathe and one on the mill so maybe they have had an easier life but we will see.

Dell

Sounds like a good choice to me, Dell

MichaelG.

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One problem with the early Unimats is that they used a different spindle thread, M12 x 1 IIRC, whereas the later ones and the C0 style lathes use M14 x 1. So it may be harder to find new accessories.

Hi Dell,

As a long time Emco user I am confused. On the Unimat SL that I once owned the headstock was also the milling head. It was not until the introduction of the U3 that there was a separate milling head. Unless your machine has two headstocks, but I cannot see the point in that. As on the SL the headstock has to be removed to insert the pillar to set up for milling.

Of the two machines the U3 was the better machine, I turned out some very good work on this machine.

Do you have a photograph of your purchase?

Regards

Gray,

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I have an SL and I like it a lot. For small work it is very handy to be able to pull it out of the shelf where it is stored, plonk it on the desk, plug in and go. I've even taken it out and about on occasions.

I fitted mine with an ER16 collet holder which gets used for almost every job on the lathe. The M12 x 1mm spindle thread does indeed make it tricky to source attachments - I used an ARC Euro holder but needed to resort to using another lathe to make a backplate.

There is a set of pictures on Flickr from a chap who made an ER16 holder almost entirely on the Unimat with a very neat trick for cutting the threads.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/65657096@N00/albums/72157632104757918

Or one can be had from these folks... but that loses the advantage of machining the holder on the spindle where it will eventually be used.

https://www.rcm-machines.com/en/chuck-er/collet-chuck-er16-with-m12-x-1-inside-thread/rcm12er16

Good luck with your Unimat!

Regards, Andy

Hi all

Pictures as requested advert said Unimat SL

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In case people do not know Yahoo groups is being shut down by Verizon, Yahoo's new owners.

The Unimat site is being transferred to Unimat. Not a member so not sure of the state of play at this time.

It seems many of the Yahoo groups are transferring to www.groups.io and there is a bit of a backlog at the minute.

regards

Hi Dell,

As I suspected the milling facility is not as Emco intended. In some ways not a bad thing as the motors were an Achilles heel.

Regards

Gray,

Looks like a nice unit that has been extensively improved. The milling/drilling column doesnt seem to owe much to Emco.

I hope you are very happy together.

I was in the Yahoo group and my account was moved across automatically. As far as I can tell it's all up and running on groups.io

.

+1 from me

The column looks familiar ... possibly originally from a photographic enlarger

Is it, perchance, 1_1/4” inches diameter ?

MichaelG.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 12/01/2020 11:43:42