Wow, it has been about two months since I posted. Due to a number of factors, I needed to take a break from my build. However, it hasn't been all slack time.
One of my reasons (and frustrations) was that I was spending too much time trying to simplify things mechanically. I wanted to design and build better parts. To do that, I needed to step up my fabricating capabilities, so I did spend time improving those. Here's one concrete example. It's a little mobile machining cart that give me plenty of space to work, house the tooling, build up a layout area and still not be locked into a permanent location, which is hard to do as I need flexibility and the ability to reconfigure my work space.
I did a 3D design, which was based on doing something using the surplus chassis materials I had on hand, plus some minimal new materials like the castors and table tops. Here's the original design almost finished. Some final details I did not bother to integrate into the master assembly. I just built them and added them on "in the field", so to speak.
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Near-Final-3Qtr-Small.jpg
Once I got underway, I found some alternative pieces like for the lighting, and I changed those. Also, I was going to build in drawers to hold all the tooling for the two machines, but found a pretty decent Harbor Freight, 3-piece tool chest on sale for less than I'd pay for good drawer slides. Being a good Locost opportunist, I saved money, did less work, got the job done, but have a more flexible piece in the end. Here are some views of it as of yesterday.
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Machining-Cart-1.JPG
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Machining-Cart-2.JPG
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Machining-Cart-3.JPG
I took some care to place the anchor points (fastening bolt holes) in the structure to minimize sagging of the cart. It's pretty light, but has a good base and each castor can handle nearly 300 lb. These small machines don't vibrate too much and I expect it will perform quite well even though it's light.
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Machining-Cart-4.JPG
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Machining-Cart-5.JPG
To make it stable in use, but deal with the garage slab (a 2% slope for drainage) I build some adjustable levelers that give it stability when you put it into a work location and lower them down. They work very well, but I may change the feet later to a more swivel-like arrangement.
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Machining-Cart-6.JPG
The base has a lot of supporting steel in it (not shown below) and I topped that structure with 3/4" plywood to hold the tool chests, one part on each side.
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Machining-Cart-7.JPG
They fit puzzle-piece like into the structure as below.
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Machining-Cart-8.JPG
I have plenty of space to flip up the lid and plenty of space for tooling and measuring and layout instruments.
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Machining-Cart-9.JPG
The mill is mounted to balance the weight of the lathe on the opposite side plus provide for a (future) layout area on the right side.
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Machining-Cart-10.JPG
Anyway, that's part of what I've been doing. I expect to be back on the actual build next week.
Cheers,