My Build - I blame you lot for this....!

[HiltonSteve]

Been drilling the 360 holes in the bed plate tonight, centre drilled them first then drilled them blind down to 19mm depth with a 6.8 drill ready for tapping.

Had to shuffle the plate along the bed so the machine could get to some of the holes, still need to shuffle it back to get to the remaining 60 that are left but should have it done for the end of the week.

Took a while so I did a video while I was waiting for it to finish, bit like watching paint dry but i thought i would share it with you...

[John S]

Don't bother centre drilling, centre drills are a throw back to when you used dead centres in a lathe and the pip is to hold white lead as a lubricant.

Unless you actually need a centre hole for a lathe, use spotting drills then the size drill or even better is to buy a few good quality stub drills and just use these to start and finish the holes, saves hours of time and being short and stubby they are hard to break

[HiltonSteve]

Only used centre drill to pre-chamfer the holes before drilling and tapping, just happen to have one next to the machine that was the right size.

Seemed like a good idea at the time!

[John S]

Get one of these.

[HiltonSteve]

Get one of these.

Smart arse....

[Lee Roberts]

Get one of these.

What is one of these John?

Bed plate looks very nice Steve, will be emailing you later on with some parts to be cut :).

[HiltonSteve]

Bed plate looks very nice Steve, will be emailing you later on with some parts to be cut :).

Thought that you was ignoring me....!

Still got those ballscrews and ballnuts of yours, let me know what you want doing with them and I will get them sorted for you.

[Lee Roberts]

Na mate just been busy serving the Masses, i have been thinking of you tho :whistling:

Its the x side plates next, done the drawing just need to mark it up for you and email it.

Have you been trying to get hold of me or somthing ?

[HiltonSteve]

Lee, not been trying to get hold of you, just not heard from you for a while. Send me the drawings and I will see what I can do.

[HiltonSteve]

Found a kress spindle mount tonight that I had made a while ago so decided to get it mounted on my machine.

Now have my new 1 HP DC spindle which covers 0-7000rpm and the Kress which does 10,000 to 30,000rpm. The kress will only be mounted when I need it for engraving etc but only takes a few seconds to mount, now got the best of both worlds...