Below are a few pictures of our first grandchild. We’ll soon be visiting him in person, so we’ll post a few more pictures once we settle in.

Welcome to the world, Rio!

When I returned home I did some research on the little machine. It was a Unimat DB200. Unimat stands for “UNIversal MAchine Tool”, as it can be configured as a lathe, a milling machine, a drill press, and many other tiny power tools. This one had a heavy base of cast iron, which makes this an earlier model. I already had a much larger Grizzly lathe, but I thought that this little Unimat could be useful for tiny work. I thought it would make for a fun restoration project, too. I watched countless videos about the Unimat to become more familiar with its operation and capabilities.

When I returned to California 6 months later, I asked about the lathe’s history, but my cousin had no recollection of it and told me to take it. I shipped the Unimat back to Michigan on September 12, and it arrived September 18. It had both a 3-jaw scroll chuck and a 4-jaw independent chuck, in addition to a face plate and clamps to hold irregular objects. It had a Jacobs chuck and a live center for the tail stock. The original tool holder still had a high-speed steel cutting tool in it. My goal for the project was to return it to as close to original condition as I could. Many hobbyists seem to replace the original motors with larger, more powerful units, but I wanted to retain the original compact size and appearance. The little 90 watt motor would suffice.

On October 10, I completely disassembled the lathe to assess what I had. There were some damaged and worn pieces, which I found replacements for on eBay. I also made a few replacement pieces on my larger lathe. At some point in this tool’s long history, somebody repainted it in a dull tan-gray primer. The cross-slide was previously molested by a drill, and an ugly block of metal was added to it for reasons unknown. The main spindle bearings and races were in surprisingly great condition, but the pair of small ball bearings for the idler pulley were frozen solid, so replacements were ordered. I don’t plan on doing much, if any, milling with this tiny tool, but I ordered a replacement milling table to replace the original that had a chipped corner. The original belt made from braided rope would certainly be replaced. Both the main and cross slide lead screws were slightly bent, so I ordered replacements for each. Every part was ultrasonically cleaned.

I wanted to repaint it using a hammered green paint that was similar to the original finish, but this color was available only in a brush-on paint. I opted for a hammered copper color spray paint instead. The layers of paint were chemically stripped away, then all painted pieces were masked and primed before the hammered copper paint was applied. I made new aluminum rivets for the faceplate.

Reassembly began on October 26 and finished the following day. The Unimat ran again for the first time in decades. I still need to use my dial indicator to ensure that the cross slide tracks true and that the head stock has minimal run-out, but otherwise, the lathe is back together. The wooden box still needs reconditioning, but that will be a project for another time.

I’m quite happy with the results of this project. For fun, I set the tiny Unimat on my Grizzly lathe for a quick picture to compare the size difference. While the Grizzly will get most of the lathe work, the Unimat will be ready for any future micro-machining needs.

While the AI-rendered images were interesting and often entertaining, AI certainly struggled with rendering corporate logos and with spelling in general. Therefore, you’ll have to look past the misspelled brand names and misshapen logos. Copilot also tended to use over-sized wheels, even for smaller vehicles, so I often had to ask it to re-render the image with smaller wheels.

With the excuses out of the way, the renderings are below.

On December 29, 2023, after several hours of detecting at the site of an old lumber town that existed in the late 1800s, I got a signal that seemed promising. Given the amount of trash I’d found below the surface, I expected this to be another piece of scrap aluminum or a shotgun shell. When a small, dirty coin emerged from the hole, I saw vertical lines on it and immediately suspected it was another Lincoln memorial cent. This one looked different, though, and I didn’t immediately see a face on the opposite side. After a moment of cleaning dirt from the coin, I saw the number ‘5’ surrounded by 13 stars and realized that it was a Shield Nickel. I reached my goal with just a few days left in the year.

I continued to lightly remove the dirt from the coin but couldn’t see a date. I took a few pictures with the phone, then zoomed in for a better look. The year 1870 was clearly visible at the bottom. This coin was 153 years old.

When this coin was minted in Philadelphia, Ulysses S. Grant was president. There was no electricity, natural gas or telephone service in the homes. Blacks gained freedom just 10 years earlier but could still not vote. There were no cars – travel was by carriage, steamboat, or railway. Schools were of the one-room variety.

The Shield Nickel was minted from an alloy of 75% copper and 25% nickel – the first US 5-cent piece to use the metal that gave the “nickel” its name. Copper coins tend to degrade in the soil, and this coin has certainly seen some decay, although the sandy soil likely helped to minimize this.

I look forward to Spring, when I’ll return to this site for additiional exploration and digging. Wish me luck!

We have not yet toured the area, so I don’t have a lot of pictures to post yet. These pictures were taken during our short walk this morning. More to come, so check back soon.

The ceremony and receiption were held on their farm in Hubbard, Oregon. In the words of Anthony’s mom Bari, everything went off without a hitch.

I’ll let the pictures tell the story. Congratulations to Anthony and Nicole on their wedding day. May they have many wonderful years.

(The full set of wedding photos are here)

The replacement of the seat wood was long overdue. The planks were quite simple, so no fancy cutting was necessary. Fortunately, I had a surplus of 16-foot cedar 1x6s in the barn. I grabbed a can of spar varnish from the local hardware store to seal the wood against the elements, then set out to replace the planks.

Using the original planks as a template, I cut the cedar into 3 sections as needed. The new planks were sanded, then coated with the marine spar varnish. I had new stainless steel screws in the barn, which were an exact match to the original screws.

This tiny bit of maintenance should help keep the paddleboat operational for the near future. The paddle crank bushings and chain were lubricated, and my initial test ride with Enzo went well. Next, I may look into a bimini top for this fun little boat.

I didn’t realize it then, but this was during the rise of the “minicomputer”. Minicomputers were smaller than the room-sized mainframes and cost much less, but were still the size of a refrigerator or two. Minicomputers were made by several companies including IBM, Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), Prime, Wang, Data General, and many more. Corporate departments, mid-sized companies, and universities all found uses for the cost-effective minicomputers. In 1983, my employer’s financial systems ran on a DEC PDP11. I programmed using the DIBOL language to create sales or financial reports.

Fast-forward to modern times, when I stumbled upon information on the internet about a fellow in Switzerland who sells 6:10 scale reproduction kits of the Digital PDP-11/70 front panel, complete with a row of 1970s-era red and magenta switches and the requisite “blinkenlights” flashing away. The kit runs hardware emulation on an embedded Raspberry Pi computer. This was perfect, since I had an unused Raspberry PI in my stock of spare parts. The kits are built to order, so I ordered one. The kit arrived a few weeks later.

The parts came in several bags, one with switches and the other with everything else. An acrylic panel faithfully replicates the colors and logo of the PDP11/70, along with a display case and rear panel to house the electronics and any interfaces the builder opts to include. Since the Pi includes WiFI, I’ll likely let this computer connect wirelessly, but I still included an RJ-45 ethernet port on the back to allow for a hard-wired network connection.

The kit took about 6 hours to assemble. Included were 30 switches of various types, 64 LEDs, 37 diodes, 2 rotary encoders, 18 resistors, and an 8-channel logic driver integrated circuit. I was pleased that everything worked when I powered up the circuit board the first time. After the PDP11 replica was assembled, I added it to my network and logged in.

I booted into BSD 2.11, an early UNIX variant, and explored the file systems. Under the /usr/games directory were programs called trek and hangman, both of which I used almost 50 years ago. I typed ./trek to start the program and instantly remembered the game’s commands and strategy. It all came back to me – surprising, since I usually can’t remember what I had for breakfast on any given day. The main difference was that I was using a terminal emulator, which instantly displays the text output where the older teletype would take forever to type each character at a blazing 110 baud communication speed, adding to the sense of anticipation.

This PDP11 replica is mainly a novelty, but I’ve enjoyed logging onto it, booting various operating systems, compiling old software, and navigating the file system using commands from the very origins of the UNIX operating system. What a great way to revisit childhood memories from a time when computers were not yet in our homes.