3 November 2009
Some of you may know that I've been a tinkerer and a builder of stuff for a long long
time. About 50 years ago, my Dad brought home a nice, brand new, Unimat lathe. Although
it really doesn't compare to the Sherline products I use today, it was a good unit for
its time. In fact, as I understand it, Herr Sher, of Australia, who created Sherline, got
started by building replacement parts for the Unimat. Made lots and lots of very small
parts on the Unimat for various projects that family members were doing.
Around the first of November I "inherited" a longbed Sherline lathe in excellent condition
from a very fine Jewish chieftoolmaker. About the same time, someone led me to a video on
Youtube, where I stumbled upon a Brazilian machinist named Luis Ally, better known as
"Tryally", who demonstrates his use of the Sherline lathe and mill in a cnc environment.
Sr. Ally finds the cost of importing tools from the US very expensive, so makes many of his
own tools.
Sr. Ally is very kind about showiing us how he makes things, and giving us good instructions.
His videos opened my eyes to the number of things which simple can't be done on a manual lathe
or mill, but are a piece of cake on a cnc machine.
Next week I hope to have my lathe and mill both operating under cnc control, and the long,
cold, dark winter will hopefully be a lot more productive this year.