Quote Originally Posted by Clive S View Post
Francis I take it you just jumped in and bought the plans without doing any research or reading the build logs in this forum.
I believe that you wanted to do intricate work I don't think you will achieve what you want to do with this machine.

Contact Wal and he will give you some good advise on what is needed to use 0.5mm end mills. The machine has to be rock solid to do this.
Thanks Clive, Yes I bought the 'plans' (detailed descriptions really) - $39 for all 5. And I've contacted Wal. I'm also looking at build threads in MYCNCUK too. I'm not anywhere near ready to start building yet (I'm way to green ATM) just trying to soak up info from different sources on different machine configs.
I'm beginning to look for different things as the research progress', I'm definitely still looking for something that will give me the small scale detail for the inlays and their housings (15 x 15 cm work area approx), but also looking at larger scale (for me) where something in the 60 x 45 cm size would be ideal but not require the same degree of accuracy.
I have a Myford speed 10 lathe and quite confident in my ability to make up smaller turned parts in non ferrous metals, even using it for some basic milling ops. Given the range of ali extrusions available a solid framework for a smaller cnc 'should' be fairly straight forward. The devil is going to be in the detail to remove backlash and provide smooth, controlled traverses along all three axles.
The more I'm looking at machine designs here the less inclined I am to just buy a ready to go jobbie.

Many thanks for the replies - all noted. Francis