Hey, day late and a dollar short, but I just finished converting my Dore Westbury Mk I to a CNC. You can use Kcam or Mach 3 for backlash compensation. I haven't cut anything yet, still calibrating, but I can see the Y axis will likely pose some issues. Currently there's only a spring holding tension in the Y axis which doesn't seem sufficient to prevent unwanted movement. With my flexible LoveJoy coupling, I can still manually move the tool up and down a fair bit. Might consider switching to a more firm coupling, or adding pneumatics or something for more rigidity.
Using a Rockcliff Machine 4 axis board and 3 Keling 282 ozin motors... Seems to do the job alright. Have a 25:1 reducing gearbox on the Y, and am going to mill up some reducing pulleys (with the CNC) as soon as I can to help get a bit more torque, especially on the Z axis, where the 282 ozin doesn't seem to be quite sufficient.
Gratuitous nut kick!
