Home Made Mill/Lathe/Press (With Pics)

**Hawkeye** · 11-24-2003, 03:08 PM

I have been with CNCzone for only a little while. I was first interested in making a CNC router for my ever increasing model boat habit. Then I stumbled onto this guys site:

http://www.pathcom.com/~vhchan/cnc/cnc.html

and after looking...Low and Behold....CNCzone had some guys with simular interest. (BTW Great looking machines).

I have a controller board that I built from some plans off the E-net, I hust hadn't had a chance to fire it up yet. I'll probably go ahead and purchase one of the prebuit Controller boards after I am done with the prototype mill and use my home-built controller board for my cnc wood router.

Here is what I've gotten from E-bay So Far:
1 - 2 Table Top Drill Presses (with S/H they still came out to less than $50.00 ea).
2 - Mill Table (roughly $70.00 with S/H)
3 - 3 stepper motors. 4.5v 1.8 deg (about $6.00 ea)
4 - 3" 3 jaw chuck (for my lathe (other drill press))

I have a 3/8" chuck that I salvaged from a Drill I was about to throw away. I plan on using it for a live center on my lathe.
I had several pieces of various metal stock lying around that I am using in the manufacturing of both lathe and mill.
My plan is to use the second drill press to aid me in building my mill, then use the mill to assist in converting the second drill press into a lathe (In Theory, anyway).

I have been taking pictures as I go and hope to be able to start a web site like the above link to help anybody else in their journey.

George
(aka Hawkeye)

Similar Threads:

**InventIt** · 11-24-2003, 05:04 PM

That's a cool idea. Go for it

**Mr.Chips** · 11-24-2003, 06:20 PM

Good job on that Drill press Mill conversion. Very well documented.
Where did you find the exact dia bearings used to fill the head? Seems like this would be difficult to find the exact size.
Hager

**BIG AL** · 11-24-2003, 06:37 PM

LOVE IT. Keep up the good work!

**HomeCNC** · 11-25-2003, 11:34 AM

Hawkeye did not build that mill. That was a link to someones site!

**Hawkeye** · 11-25-2003, 03:36 PM

HomeCNC is correct (Thank You), This is a guys site who inspired me (V. Chan). I will be posting pics of mine as soon as I re-format them.

Thanks,
George

**Hawkeye** · 11-25-2003, 04:16 PM

Ok
Here is the start of my process.

Here is the Mill Table.

**Hawkeye** · 11-25-2003, 04:18 PM

One of the drill presses in the box.

**Hawkeye** · 11-25-2003, 04:20 PM

Here is the 3" 3 jaw chuck.

**Hawkeye** · 11-25-2003, 04:24 PM

The 3 Axis Controller Board I built.

**Hawkeye** · 11-25-2003, 04:26 PM

This is the Drill Press completely Dis-assembled.

**Hawkeye** · 11-25-2003, 04:27 PM

Here is the Housing, original drive shaft, Drive Pulley Collar, and one of the bearings.
Notice how thin the drive shaft is and that the pully collar is hollow. The new shaft will be about half the diameter bigger with the pully collar mounted flush to the end, eliminating any hollow areas, therefore strengthening the whole design.

**Hawkeye** · 11-25-2003, 04:30 PM

With the link above, all the guy had to do was remove a stop pin to allow the housing to travel up and down the support shaft. I wasn't that lucky. If you look closely you can see that there is a lip in the housing that stops the support shaft. All I did was use a 1 3/4 " hole saw and carfully reamed it off.

**Hawkeye** · 11-25-2003, 04:33 PM

After using my dremel to smooth the surface of the lip that was ground off, I had a free traveling housing with very little play. I have to state how important it is that you don't over ream the lip or scar up the throat of the housing that the support pole goes through. Over doing it may lead into excessive play.

**Hawkeye** · 11-25-2003, 04:37 PM

Most of the next photo's are of the housing with peices that are no longer needed. Being retired from the military with 24+ years, I have become very anal about how things should look....LOL
I figure that even though this is a proto-type, I want it to look as good as possible.
The red circles are the "extra" peices that I removed.

Before - Right Side

**Hawkeye** · 11-25-2003, 04:38 PM

Before - Left Side

**Hawkeye** · 11-25-2003, 04:39 PM

Here is the bottom view where you can get an idea of all of the areas that I want to remove.

Before - Bottom

**Hawkeye** · 11-25-2003, 04:43 PM

I used my angle grinder with a cut-off blade to remove the material. Be sure to wear a dust mask, this will kick out alot of metal shavings.
BTW - if you do this in the house, expect a lot of scourn looks if not comments from the wife when she cleans it up...BELIEVE ME I KNOW.

After - Right Side

**Hawkeye** · 11-25-2003, 04:48 PM

After - Left Side

**Hawkeye** · 11-25-2003, 04:50 PM

Here is a before and after view of the bottom.
I went ahead and painted the areas right after I ground them down to stop any rusting.

Here You can also see the "Lip" I had to remove for the support shaft a little better.
You can also see a hole I drilled with plans of using it for my Z axis drive screw. I have since re-thought that idea because it will cut out to much of my X axis travel. I am now going to use the hole as a mount for a small work light that will be wired to the switch inside the housing. I will also be replacing the switch with a bigger "Push Stop" switch for safety reasons.