A thought, as I watch this cleaning. I worked fora newspaper printing Company, and its necessary to end the Printing, before the Roll of paper ends, so they have very small rolls, to "dispose of". I used to buy them, when needed, and use them for a Bench Covering, which can then be quickly discarded, & replaced! By the way,I am also a Proxxon Lathe & Mill owner, and have followed your channel nearly from day one! A GREAT JOB! Thank You.
Oh this is perfect timing! I recently acquired one of these micro-lathes and haven't had the time to get it into operation yet. I'm sure I'll learn a lot, can't wait for the video to go live!
Cool! I hope this helps. Make sure you check out smallathe and The Knackler's Workshop for more videos on how to clean and restore these lathes. Links in the description.
I learned the hard way don't use break cleaner on the painted parts, it removes the paint and gunk right now. Thank you for taking time to film, edit and post this video.
My favourite ultrasonic cleaning solution is No Nonsense Degreaser from Screwfix. It's £10 for 5L and it's meant to be diluted, but in my experience it's amazingly good neat, cleans approx 100 parts before it needs replacing and doesn't need to be heated to be effective. It's water soluble so I use washing up liquid and water to clean up and then either use WD40 or an air compressor to dry them.
Heating the solution isn't just to make the solution work better. It also helps the ultrasonic cleaner make more cavitation, and softens the grime on the parts, so it helps the whole process.
I have a brush like that tucked away somewhere which I got in my teens. I think the bore is too small to be of that much use here though, but it's worth digging it out. Thanks for the suggestion.
I bought a Unimat SL 1 kit about fifty years ago. It was used but gently. It has the vertical post for turning it into a mill/drill. The previous owner made a guitar shaped bracket that fixes to a threaded hole in the top end of the milling post. There's a 0.5mm pitch threaded bar that runs parallel to the post and attached to the collar supporting the headstock. By rotating this feed screw it's possible to adjust the headstock up or down by known amounts like a mill. In order to try and prevent rotation of the headstock on the pillar a 3mm wide keyway was machined into the pillar and also the collar. This works after a fashion but needs refinement to be really effective. I mounted my machine to a sturdy plywood base and extended it about 75 mm in front of the machine base and to that I secured a 50mm wide strip of 2 mm thick galvanized steel to provide a surface for mag mounts on dial indicators. I also machined a 25 mm aluminium riser that fits between the headstock base and the machine base to give a bit more radius for cutting. The tool holder also has a riser. I just use it for facing material and have not raised the tailstock. On the drive side I made a new banjo with an extra pulley position that now gives me a few lower speed positions for drilling etc.
Great job. For those tricky nooks and crannies I often find those bamboo skewers for barbecues very useful for dislodging stubborn dirt. They can also be shaped and sharpened to suit. Looking forward to the next episode.
Paint thinners works wonders on dry old oil. 😉 Also I'd replace the toolpost screws with dog-point screws. The smaller diameter ends will still be easy to remove even if they mushroom over again.
I was just watching your new video on the Unimat SL screw cutting attachment. Nice work! Dog point screws sounds like an easy effective solution; I'll give it a try.
I think any solution that improves "Whetting" works in an ultrasonic cleaner, I have used alcohol for metallurgical samples, but , this is rarely needed for general cleaning. Rust flashing is an issue on ferrous materials as you state. They do look lovely lathes. Thanks for sharing.
Nicely done! You may want to have a few white or grey Scotch-Brite pads on hand for painted surfaces, as these have finer abrasives. Looking forward to the next!
Excellent work performed with painstaking patience, Considering that you talked about buying the WD40 in a can without aerosol, in the same way you can use nitrocellulose paint thinner, for all the unpainted parts and synthetic paint thinner for all those more painted parts: a nice dip of a few hours (only for the most stubborn cases) in a large tub and with an old brush most of the sludge would have come off It would probably be cheaper, considering the WD40's prices. It would be a little more smelly, especially for the nitro thinner, but if you do it in the lab and with the doors open it's the top, the pieces come out clean and dry as freshly made, rust aside, ready to be oiled as you want. . It was the same technique I used to clean the engine of my moped when the oil from the sputtered mixture from the carburetor made it a mask of road dust, mud and various other junk. Hello and to the next videos, I'm curious to see it in operation, I can't imagine what its working limits are, I hope to be pleasantly surprised. BTW nice trick the glass jar in the ultrasonic pot!
@@AdventureswithaVerySmallLathe BC-90 Brake and Clutch Cleaner 1951 500ml Aerosol . I am using this one it's good for old grease and caked parts it cleans perfectly old residues of grease mixes .
I service and clean rifle actions and parts, I find that soaking in kerosene and scrubbing with the likes of a tooth brush is very effective, then I blow the parts off with compressed air for a great result.
Do you think each part should go in separately? I know watch cleaning machines have several separate baskets in the same jar to keep parts apart, but I though that was most to avoid mixing stuff up rather than because it makes the ultrasonic more effective.
It's the original Unimat finish, and as most of the parts are Zamak there is no issue with chipped paint leading to rust. I'd rather keep that classic look than make extra work for myself that doesn't really improve the lathe.
Hi, do you think gunk engine degreaser would be usable in the ultrasonic cleaner? I’m not sure what it would do to the paint but should be reusable if it was run through a coffee filter to remove larger debris. Great video as always
I've honestly never come across it, and never tried anything not water-based in the ultrasonic cleaner. I'm honestly not sure how well it would work. Perhaps it would affect cavitation? Probably worth giving it a try to find out, but use a container like the jar to avoid the fluid contaminating the machine's tank.
Undiluted it's unlikely to work because it's too thick. You need something close to the viscosity of water ideally. A good rule of thumb is that you should only ever put clean water in the ultrasonic cleaner itself, and maintain it to the fill line. Anything else risks damage, possibly even fire depending on what it is, and makes cleanup much harder. The glass jar trick as shown in this video is the way forward! You can even run multiple jars with different solvents at the same time.
@@cooperised hi was initially thinking of keeping the gunk in a jar and gunk is a brand name of an engine degreaser. You buy it in a can as a liquid and brush it on a hot engine to dissolve grease, dirt, oil almost anything. So was thinking gunk hot and in a ultrasonic cleaner would work brilliantly. It is all metal safe and only slightly thicker than water not as think as wd40. Would it work? And thank you for the answer 👍
@@richardlingham9400 Ah ok, I knew it was a brand name but have only used a brush-on variant that was quite thick. Yes I would certainly think it's worth a go!
The cleaner was on eBay from a seller who rebottles industrial products for smaller shops. It's unbranded, and just says "Ultrasonic Cleaner for Carburettors & Machine Parts". It's pretty effective and aggressive, as it melts paint and etches some plastics.
Here in the great south land evaporites costs as much as the best French champagne. Vinegar is about $1 a litre and works just as well. I am a cheapskate. ,!!!!!! Stavros
