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Yesterday I bolted the tubes together and today I welded them. A granite surface plate was used to make the top surfaces of the tubes line up. This thing is about 300 pounds now in weight.

I hope...

More progress made today. The tubes for the base are now bolted together. I took my drill press and put it on the floor to drill the holes in the tubes. I also tested my polymer concrete samples...

I have more progress to report on my mill. I have been testing various mixtures of polymer concrete to find what I like best. I went to Lowes and bought play sand, general purpose sand, and gravel. I...

After a long break I am back. I have slowly been working on progress for this machine over the last month or so. As with most projects of mine, I fall into and out of interest in them from time to...

I have attached a DXF of two parts I need machined. The parts each have three sides that need to be machined flat. I would like you to use a fly cutter or face/shell mill to machine these surfaces....

Here is most of the structure. There will be a fair amount of processing to do on the material that was flame cut as the edges are a bit wavy looking.

I have to take the structure to a machine...

I ordered the material for this mill today. Here is a rendering of what it will look like minus the round spindle housing.

Here is my second try at the spindle housing. I polished the inside of the bearing recesses with 600 grit sand paper. I also polished the outside of the housing with 600 grit.

I measured 0.0003...

What kind of seals do you plan on using to protect the spindle bearings? What kind of spindle bearings did you use? Do you recall how much clearance you have around the spindle bearings in the...

I attempted to measure the backlash in the THK ballscrews and I was not able to find any. I may try again with a more rigid setup and see if I can apply more force. It looks like the THK 20mm screws...

Here are the ballscrews I have bought for this project so far. I have two of each screw (four screws total). These will be for the Y and Z axes.

The top screw is a 25mm diameter NSK ground screw...

Perhaps I didn't do too bad then? I bored the 72mm AC recess to 72.05mm so I suppose I am at just about 0.002 inches of clearance. I expected to have to get this much tighter for some reason.

I...

Well... here is my first attempt. I suspect it will need to be remade as I cut the 72mm recess to 72.05mm. I also suspect the bung method does not work very well as the hole in the chuck had about 1...

I bought two of this ballscrew on ebay. I will machine the ends to accept angular contact bearings and I will machine the blocks to house those bearings. These screws will be used for the Y and Z. I...

I went with the spacer method. Over the last few days I have been in the machine shop at the school making parts.

I first used some 600 grit sandpaper to polish the bearing journals on the...

Ok, I think I prefer the idea of leaving the spline that is already on the spindle in place and clamping a pulley to it. I Believe I will be using a poly V belt to drive the spindle. I plan to cut my...

I think maybe I used the wrong word? I suppose I should have said thou. I mean to say that the chuck had 0.015" of runout.

Is mil the correct term for 0.001"?

JohnZ: Yes this is the SX3 spindle. I hope it doesn't have much runout and is not bent!

I have some new findings to share.

I went to the school last night with the intent to start machining the...

Here are pictures of what I have for this build so far. A drawing of the spindle is here.

The bearings I have are nachi brand and are all C3 rated. The ACs are 40 degree contact angle. For preload...

Here is a drawing of the spindle I intend to build.

Thanks for the input. I now understand why a bung is needed. It will however be hard to get it to fit tightly inside the hole in the cluck. I suppose I only really get one shot at it. If I have the...

Perhaps you can point out what is wrong with this method?

1. Square the block on the mill.
2. Put block in four jaw chuck on lathe.
3. Bore 1.75" diameter hole all the way through to the other...

For anyone following along, this project is not dead. I have been in the process of moving into a larger apartment with a basement garage. I have a cheap inverter welder on order and accessories.
...

I intend for my table to be a 1.5" thick slab of aluminum with 3/8-16 holes taped on 1" centers. If it gets scratched or messed up, I will just mill a couple thou off the top!

I have a set of 1m long HSR25 rails I bought on ebay. I also bought a set of 600mm long HSR30 rails. I need to find one more set for the Y axis. I have not seen the HSR30's yet but the HSR25 rails...

Is it advisable to fill things with concrete in a design like this? It seems like concrete could do a lot to prevent a hollow tube from bending. What kind of concrete is recommended?

I really am considering the idea of welding rods from corner to corner as you suggest.

Perhaps for the head I should use another piece of steel tube so that I do not need to weld a complex...

Here is my next revision of the design. I copied the idea of a VMC. I hope to have a mini VMC when I am done with this project. Travels should be about 24" X, 12" Y and 14" Z.

The column is 8x8...

"BTW, the square tubing with rounded corners is not the ideal section to be working with, and the added welded sections to make the corners square is bad design."

How would you suggest building...

Here is my latest design. The rails are 7" apart. X travel is 22", Y travel is 12", and the Z travel is 12". The column and base are 8 x 6 x 1/2 inch rectangle tube with rectangle bars added for rail...