I was over at Industrial Metal Supply yesterday and couldn't help notice the beefy square and rectangular steel pipes sitting on the remnant piles. Some of these have 1/2 inch walls and are around 12 inches by 6 inches. There are square and rectangular variants 3 to 4 feet long.

So, I thought about the idea of ditching the round column and building a whole new head for the RF30 based on one of these pipes for a square/rectangular column. I could have a 1/2 inch plate welded to the bottom for mounting and have one surface and the bottom ground flat and perpendicular. I'd use proper ball slides for the carriage, ball screws, etc.

Any thoughts on this idea? Has someone done something like this? It'd be nice to replace the belted head with a continuously variable motor/spindle in the process.

At some point it might make more sense to finish my CNC conversion, use the mill for a while, sell it and move up to something bigger with a square column.


-Martin