Lurker coming up to say Hi.

[boana]

Hi People,

Just posting a quick message to say that I have been lurking and reading (like many others it seems) and enjoying what you guys have been up to.

I am in the process now of starting the building of a cnc multi axis lathe from an existing 280mm x 750mm bench lathe, finally, after taking me over a year to accumulate the components. BTW my five children will be going through this experience with me, at least 2 of my elder children will be hands on with the project, they being 13 and 15 years old.

My plan is to make some use of the end of the Lathe bed to double as a Mill by removing the tail stock and installing a Vertical Slide Mill Attachment that I can also use on the cross slide after some mods and having the saddle and cross slide act as the mill table. Also the main lathe spindle will have an attachment for a stepper motor to act as a rotary axis when in Cross-slide Mill mode and even a trunnion table between the spindle and tail stock.

I am designing the Vertical Slide Mill Attachment at the moment getting my head around what it needs to function well, as well as being rigid.

I will post some 3D models to get some feed back and share what I am up to.

I hope you guys can send some help when you see a fault or design problem or a better way of doing what I am doing.


Regards

[craigjh]

G'day Boana,

sounds like an interesting project, and hopefully extra rewarding having the kids involved. Although my build is totally different, and I may have no valuable input for you, I'll follow yours with interest. Good luck mate.

[boana]

Thanks Craig,

for your interest in our endeavor I hope I and the kids are as successful as you with our project.

I just went through your build thread, I find it amazing that it is built of what amounts to wood. Then again once you bolt glue all components together it will have no choice but to be rigid. Very cool.

[boana]

Hi Guys,

Here are some pics of the milling attachment.

My main concern at the moment is in the mounting of the column to the base plate to maintain rigidity I prefer not to weld as this can cause warping.
I had thought of either using an internal snug fitting Boss bolted via all four sides and then internally bolting down on to the base mounting plate.

Alternatively using the outside keyhole shaped holes, again bolted to the base plate but this time outside the square column.

I am currently leaning toward the internal boss method.

PS I added a picture of the lathe HF AL54B 280x750 or 11"x30"