Italian classic - sander gloat

[J.R. Rutter]

This SCMI/Samco Unilev 15 arrived at my shop last week. I'll be using it with a power feeder to sand edges. I'm working on an attachment that will let me work to a final dimension with precision. This type of sander is more popular in Europe than here in the US. I haven't come across many of these, so I thought that I would share some pics.

http://www.nas.com/~harmonic/NewShop/Unilev/P1000626.jpg
http://www.nas.com/~harmonic/NewShop/Unilev/P1000609.jpg

Rather than a long platen, this has a shorter 36" platen open on one side. The other side has a jointer type offset fence and strip platen, about 1-1/2" wide. The driven drum on the end can be used for inside curves. For tighter inside curves, there is a set of spindles that mount in the drum, along with a table to raise the work. I got lucky in that this machine still had the accessory spindles and wrenches. It even has an inflatable drum type, that I mounted for the pics. The dust hood is made to position wherever it will do the most good. I find it too big and will probably get/make a few magnetic hoods for faster repositioning.

http://www.nas.com/~harmonic/NewShop/Unilev/P1000618.jpg
http://www.nas.com/~harmonic/NewShop/Unilev/P1000613.jpg

The entire belt assembly cranks up and down to use the entire belt. It is surprisingly rigid (the whole machine is 900 lbs). The strip platen is similar to a widebelt platen: It adjusts in/out and has a felt pad, steel flap platen (like a handheld belt sander), and graphite cloth wear surface. I may need to go to a harder pad for the light dimensioning work that I want to do with it. The table on this side is covered in plastic laminate and tilts up 45 degrees for bevels.

http://www.nas.com/~harmonic/NewShop/Unilev/P1000617.jpg

The control panel rotates to whatever side you are working on. It has a 2 speed motor switch, and controls for the pneumatics that tension the belt and activate the oscillation. The oscillation is limited on the bottom by an air jet. The pressure of the jet and oscillation piston controls the height and speed of motion. I'm not sure yet if this has any significant advantages over a mechanical linkage other than being less fussy with belt changes. The drive motor is 4.8HP, so there will be plenty of power . . .

[Jim Becker]

That's a beefy lookin' thang! Congratulations. Nice acquisition.

[Jeffrey Makiel]

I'm not sure what I'm even looking at...but it sure looks cool! :)

-Jeff :)

[Bruce Page]

Thanks for the pics, first time I've seen one of those.
It looks like a very nice machine.
Judging by the background, you have a bevy of nice machines!

[John Schreiber]

It's interesting to see a tool that I haven't seen before.

Would it be accurate to say that in addition to being a belt sander, it's an edge jointer? I mean, can the fences be offset from each other?

Then with the addition of a fence on the opposing side, it would effectively be an edge planer.

[Bill White]

$12.00 U.S.

Dang! Will that thing cook a meal too? What a beast.
Bill

[J.R. Rutter]

It's interesting to see a tool that I haven't seen before.

Would it be accurate to say that in addition to being a belt sander, it's an edge jointer? I mean, can the fences be offset from each other?

Then with the addition of a fence on the opposing side, it would effectively be an edge planer.

Yes, the infeed fence can be offset. It runs in a machined way along the same angle as the back side of the fence piece. You can use it like an edge jointer, but it would take a coarse grit to actually straighten like a jointer. For sanding long edges, it gives more control than trying to slide it along an open platen.

I will indeed be setting it up with an outboard fence and feeder to do my final dimensioning on drawer faces, fillers, and misc parts. A sideways abrasive planer. Similar to a shaper setup where you clamp a fence to the table and run parts against it to cut a groove and do final dimensioning at the same time.

[Steve Jenkins]

very very nice J.R.
Being able to dimension and sand edges in one pass will definately speed up the processs alot. I'll have to stop by next-time I'm in the area and check out all the shop improvements.

[J.R. Rutter]

Absolutely Steve! Hope to see you up here again. Things have progressed nicely since your last visit.

[J.R. Rutter]

My old local host for photos sold their domain name, so my original pics are gone. Here they are again.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-RX_ax48tbAE/VPNUqvCyh7I/AAAAAAAAG-A/t3QwZg7lFSg/s912/P1000624.jpg
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-5dYlpeLJ1sg/VPNUq_iS7tI/AAAAAAAAG9U/adXeu_l9WAI/s912/P1000625.jpg
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-5urfleFsorc/VPNUrXC9UrI/AAAAAAAAG98/V1YV__YrW5M/s1280/P1000626.jpg
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-tU8aszxqttg/VPNUrlpaFOI/AAAAAAAAG9g/nzgSpTJBHAU/s1280/P1000628.jpg
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-DNyBuB5MFQI/VPNUtCdRcAI/AAAAAAAAG9w/7O15oTAlykM/s1280/P1040402.jpg
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-knaohwZonrM/VPNUtIqt3oI/AAAAAAAAG94/MORfp9Te2Ls/s1280/P1040407.jpg
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-bqTj8gfOcEs/VPNUpHK1zVI/AAAAAAAAG84/3MvMp0PjI00/s1280/P1000618.jpg
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/--ooHICjmUKg/VPNUoTOaHDI/AAAAAAAAG8k/VXc6ItYxdcE/s1280/P1000616.jpg
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-XL-yiVQUpLk/VPNUoZao9_I/AAAAAAAAG8s/MFf-Z6u2JZQ/s1280/P1000614.jpg
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-HbwtTsrT9r0/VPNUlwwCMEI/AAAAAAAAG-g/998Y2JvWau0/s1280/IMG_0335.jpg

[Kent A Bathurst]

Thanks for reposting - I missed that first time around.

Curious: What is the belt speed for the edge sanding operation, and what is the feeder's feed rate? WOndering what the effective ground speed is for the wood crossing the sanding point.

[Kent A Bathurst]

JR - just went thru you website. Very nice - the graphics, the description of what you do - the whole thing.

One questions - going thru the Shop section - I didn't see anything for the M&T joints - what process do you use for those?

[Bruce Page]

JR, why not post them directly to the Creek rather than using a picture hosting service?

[J.R. Rutter]

JR - just went thru you website. Very nice - the graphics, the description of what you do - the whole thing.

One questions - going thru the Shop section - I didn't see anything for the M&T joints - what process do you use for those?


JR, why not post them directly to the Creek rather than using a picture hosting service?

Thanks Kent. I would need to look up the belt speed. It has a 2-speed motor and I just use the faster speed. The fence and feed speed is set to remove 0.008" to 0.012" reliably. That way finished parts are sized within tolerance.

For the cope and stick, I use a big shaper that is customized with a linear guide/clamp on the back side and a feeder and adjustable outboard fence for the sticking. So basically, I removed the fence and had a machine shop build a new center fixture that runs the length of the shaper table. There is a stop for registering the copes to remove 0.012 from each end as it cuts the stub tenon. The clamp is a RITTER R-10 TESA bolted to the SCM guide that came with the shaper. The other side has spring loaded pressure bars on each side of the cutter to help control the short parts for running the groove. The feeder has the Western Roller belt conversion. The outboard fence is bolted to a dovetail way in the table of the shaper (SCM uses this instead of rings for support in front of different sized cutters) and has a digital gauge that gives me the finished width after ~1/16" gets removed during the cut. Tooling is mounted on the SCM Class pneumatic ISO40 quick change spindles with copes spaced above the sticking so that it all registers correctly with no adjustments needed (the cope sled is higher). I have 6 spindles that are kept loaded with profiles, and a couple of the heads are universals and I can swap the inserts if needed. I had the heads made for me years ago, and the cope uses pairs up up/down shear cutters that are 1. clean cutting and 2. allow shimming of inserts to fine tune the fit of the tenon. Because it is so central to doing this efficiently, I don't like to post pics in public.

Bruce - Habit I guess! I will look into doing that next time. I also like seeing images in the body of the message rather than in a gallery.

[Kent A Bathurst]

Thanks for the reply JR.

The details on the same speed aren't critical - you basically answered by saying you have it running with the pedal to the metal. Good enough for my purposes.

On the second part - you are gluing the cope-and stick joinery without any mortises or tenons, then. Did I get that right?

Thanks again

Kent

[J.R. Rutter]

Right - no additional mortise/tenon. The wood breaks before the joint does if we have to bang one apart. The m&t would be stronger, but for cabinet doors is overkill, at least for my market.

[Kent A Bathurst]

Right - no additional mortise/tenon. The wood breaks before the joint does if we have to bang one apart. The m&t would be stronger, but for cabinet doors is overkill, at least for my market.


Gotcha, JR. I'm not a pro like you, obviously. Always want to learn from the guys that are smarter than me..............

Much appreciated.

Kent

[Brian W Smith]

Thanks for posting the pictures,it was quite the "brain jog".Have had parts for another edge sander laying on/under a bench for a few years.......there's a cpl features on yours that will be expanded on,borrowed,stolen,whatever.

[Jim Andrew]

Thanks for posting the pics, have never seen a similar sander. Kindof like a edge sander on steroids.

[Paul Incognito]

Kent's comment led to me checking out your web site, J.R. Very Impressive. I particularly like the win-win description on the philosophy page.
PI

[ian maybury]

That's one really solid machine JR. Makes me jealous, and illustrates how some of the possibilities we were discussing last night get delivered in a professional environment. Thanks for the input there by the way. Impressive looking business too.

One angle that has surprised me a little is the way that these more precise machines may be used to finish and size assemblies as in e.g. an entire drawer side. Very useful, in that it presumably reduces the risk of damage caused by tearout as might be the case when planing to if not zero then at least an absolute minimum.

Dust collection must become quite challenging with large scale sanding. Cyclones for examples don't it seems drop out fine dust of that sort - not to any great dgree anyway. Meaning that filter blinding could become an issue. It seems that many in that situation instead exhaust outside, but that can bring issue too with loss of heated air etc in winter...

[Larry Edgerton]

JR, you are that kid on the block that always has the cool toys.......;)

I want one.

[J.R. Rutter]

Thanks for the reply JR.

The details on the same speed aren't critical - you basically answered by saying you have it running with the pedal to the metal. Good enough for my purposes.

Apologies - I misremembered. We run the edge sander on low speed, which is 10m/s.

[Gabe Morrison]

Hey JR,

i just joined sawmillcreek so I could reach out to you. I recently bought this exact Scmi unilev 15 sander and I need to give it a good clean up and might have to replace a part or two. Hopefully one day will be pretty like yours. Do you have a manual for the unilev? Also- any idea where I could get some spindles for it? You still use the sander? How’s it been over the years?

[Martin Wasner]

Hey JR,

i just joined sawmillcreek so I could reach out to you. I recently bought this exact Scmi unilev 15 sander and I need to give it a good clean up and might have to replace a part or two. Hopefully one day will be pretty like yours. Do you have a manual for the unilev? Also- any idea where I could get some spindles for it? You still use the sander? How’s it been over the years?

Parts pronto should have everything you'll need

[Mike King]

I bought a used Unilev 15 last fall and have the manual for it. If you pm me your email address I can send it to you. Mine doesn’t have the pneumatic tracking, does yours? SCMI can get you parts but they are really expensive.

[J.R. Rutter]

Hey JR,

i just joined sawmillcreek so I could reach out to you. I recently bought this exact Scmi unilev 15 sander and I need to give it a good clean up and might have to replace a part or two. Hopefully one day will be pretty like yours. Do you have a manual for the unilev? Also- any idea where I could get some spindles for it? You still use the sander? How’s it been over the years?

I would not bother with spindles because they don't oscillate and are metric sized so sleeves are difficult/impossible to get. I sold my set of spindles a few years ago. The sander gets used every day, and still works well, though I did have to bypass the overload breaker and main on/off part of the pneumatic circuit (just did a valve on the incoming air line).

[Gabe Morrison]

Very good to know. Thanks. I won’t even bother with the spindles. Guess I’ll just need to get a good spindle sander then :)
glad to hear the machine is still running and being used.

[Gabe Morrison]

Thank you!

[Gabe Morrison]

Hey Mike,

that at would be a amazing. I do have the pneumatic tracking, but not sure how well it works. I have searched how to send a PM but can’t seem to find it that window. I’m obviously a newbie. I’ll just put it here and edit it out later.

[Matt Day]

If you’re using a mobile browser, sending a PM is very clunky. Switch to the “full site” (bottom middle) and PM’s are easier - tap on the person’s name and an option to PM them comes up.

[Jim Becker]

Hey Mike,

that at would be a amazing. I do have the pneumatic tracking, but not sure how well it works. I have searched how to send a PM but can’t seem to find it that window. I’m obviously a newbie. I’ll just put it here and edit it out later.

PM's require Contributor status. Please read the announcements at the top of the forum.

Jim
Forum Moderator

[Mike King]

Gabe, JR has the manual you need. Mine is for the non-pneumatic version. You can also get a copy by calling SCMI parts.

[Matt Day]

PM's require Contributor status. Please read the announcements at the top of the forum.

Jim
Forum Moderator

Clearly I missed that change!

[J.R. Rutter]

Dust collection must become quite challenging with large scale sanding. Cyclones for examples don't it seems drop out fine dust of that sort - not to any great dgree anyway. Meaning that filter blinding could become an issue. It seems that many in that situation instead exhaust outside, but that can bring issue too with loss of heated air etc in winter...

I realized that I had forgotten about this thread, and since it has popped up again: I did away with cartridge filters after blowing a few up due to back pressure from a non-optimal cyclone allowing blow-by. The collector unit that I have now has a pretty high inlet velocity and an oversized baghouse. A lot of the sanding dust spins out in the cyclone. The filter fabric is Beane (R). It has loop fabric inside and smooth outsides, and the filtration and cake release are very good. The collector dedicated to my widebelt also has this type of filter fabric. I use a Dylos particle counter and the air quality with the collectors in use is good.

[Gabe Morrison]

Good to know. Thanks. And thanks all for being so helpful. This just forum is such a wealth of knowledge.

[Albert Lee]

Bought mine recently for about $750 USD.. one small problem. it doesnt have the fence!!

Its an older model, an Unilev 15m, but I am guessing its the same part as the newer Unilev 150????

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