Tooling Up: Milling Machine & CNC

Today has been a long time in the making. As most anyone who knows me will attest, I tend to be a planner. Grant it, not always the best but I do try to keep the wheels in motion so that I least have all the parts, pieces, components and/or systems at the ready when it comes time to implement the plan. Well, today has been the culmination of a year+ journey into the realm of both machining and CNC, and the first step in making that capability a reality.

The big truck arrived today with my Precision Matthews PM-30MV Milling Machine, Stand, Vise and accessories. As you can see, it’s one big bubba. Here it is sitting in my new garage in NC.

Here’s a couple shots of the actual mill in the crate, which I’m leaving it in until I’m actually ready to install it in the workshop with it up and running.

I was also able to coordinate my purchases with Dave of ArizonaVideo fame for his work in machining the CNC Ball Screw Kit required to convert this mill into a CNC machine. I pulled the trigger on the CNC Ball Screw Kit from Dave about a month prior and both the kit and the mill arrived within a week of each other.

As you can see Dave did a great job on making this kit, and specifically machined the motor mounts on this kit to accept my Nema 34 stepper motors.

I won’t get around to sinking my teeth into the machining portion of my build for most likely another few months, but having the components on hand allows me to ensure I configure the shop appropriately to allow for cramming all this equipment into it while still having room to build the plane!

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