A new toy has entered my life which has entailed some changes to the workshop. When I was a working man I procured a couple of Denford CNC machines (Novamill and Novaturn) for making metallurgical test specimens. I've been on the lookout for a Denford machine for myself and this little Micromill, based on the Sherline mill turned up on ebay at the right price and close enough to pick up in the car. It runs the proprietry Denford software, with which I am familiar, and will import DXF files for 2 1/2D milling. It should also be able to cope with full 3D from Fusion 360 since they have a Denford post processor. The Denford mill seems to run from a laptop OK via a USB to serial convertor but full testing remains to be done. I have an old XP desktop with a proper serial interface if I need to fall back on this.
Of course, the problem is that I don't actually have room for this new toy so have had to re-jig the workshop a bit.
I've lost some cupboards which held much of the lathe and mill tooling as well as some bench space so I've been busy making some drawers for my mobile bench from various bits of left over plywood. These drawers are mounted on simple kitchen type drawer runners.
I've also replaced the drawers in the base of the Sharp milling machine so that they run on ball bearing slides. They carry a heavy load and are much more usable than they were
Right, back to boiler making...
Cheers,
Rod