Fingers crossed it'll cut ally

[Jonathan]

Ah, im with you on the speed issue, i think i get you with the large motor to,, im guessing you would be fitting a rotory encoder for position feedback if you use the large DC motor ? (im no expert with these)

Err I hadn't really thought about feedback. I was thinking something along the lines of using a stepper motor and the big brushless motor and switching between the two. For instance start by using the big motor for CNC lathe then switch to stepper motor to perform any milling on the part.
It would be good to switch back and forth between the big motor and the stepper but that of course requires the motors to engage at precisely the same point. Maybe get the brushless motor to stop at a set position (doable) and have another solenoid push a pin in the shaft to engage the stepper (tricky) ... the best would be to just use a servo but that's very very expensive to get anywhere near the power of this brushless motor.

for the brake i would be looking at a motorcyle cluch plate maybe, im not sure youll get the force with electric solenoids to lock it for milling though but thats my guesstimation... id be tempted to consider an actual disk brake and caliper... the caliper would have to be beautfully fitted and have oposing pistons

I'm not sure about the solenoids either, hence how I've milled spaces for several of them.
Clutch plate... that looks promising.

An actual brake disk and calliper would be very nice. Sounds expensive though. I don't know much about them - what would be required to actuate/use it? Are they available with small enough disks since the biggest disk I would want to use is realistically 6".