[thefeve]

Hey All,

New guy here on the forum, but wanted to chime in and post my progress for others to see, and to give a huge shout out to Hoss for all of his help both on previous posts and personal email responses. It's so incredibly helpful, and much appreciated!

Purchased my G0704 last month from the Bellingham warehouse. I'm only about an hour away so it made a lot of sense. I wasn't planning on doing the CNC conversion so soon, but some other side projects have pushed it forward as it will allow me to make some tools I would have otherwise had to have paid someone to make. As a side note - I'm pursuing building mountain bike frames and I purchased the mill to support that end goal - making tools, mitering tubes, and custom small parts.

So far I've just done some basic mods: Tramming aids on the head, and DRO's added to X,Y, and Z axis - but still need a display mount.

I purchased Hoss's plans for CNC conversion and planning on just doing the phase one update to get going the cheapest way I can, as I have some "immediate" needs for a few tools that I'd like to make. I plan on adding the phase 2 ball screws eventually, likely next year sometime.

So far I just have the stock cut to size and the X axis mount plate is completed. I got a boring bar so it was my first attempt using that and I think it turned out pretty well! I'm a little unsure about procedure for doing a counterbore with it (needed on the Y-axis spacer) but that'll come next.

I'll keep updating this thread as I make progress and have any issues or questions. As I get time I'd like to also summarize some of the "newbie" questions I asked Hoss via email that he was so kind to respond to, so that other newbie's might find it as well.

[tomdchi]

If things go as planned, I should be in almost the exact same position as you in about a month, so I'm looking forward to seeing how things go!