The sows ear, a Clarke Metalworker Mill / Lathe conversion to cnc

[Robin Hewitt]

Backlash is approx .016mm on the X and Y axes and about 1 mm on the Z (and it wobbles) but that should be sorted soon. The worm gear from the existing fine feed will never provide great accuracy though so I may need to go to an external leadscrew.

Hi Mark

Nothing wrong with a bit of turd polishing :naughty:

Just a thought but you might be able to improve it a lot by changing one spring. A temporary fix perhaps so you can use it to remake the parts properly.

Usually the quill return acts on the pinion rather than on the quill.

If you put a plate on the bottom of the quill then replaced the quill return spring with a snogging great extension spring pulling up, well off centre on the plate that would have two effects...

1: The gear train would be in tension and more able to resist the tool pulling it down.

2: it would apply a twist to the quill and reduce the wobble.

If you have a sloppy quill, thick grease is your friend.

Happy polishing

Robin