Project Frankenmill – Part 19, Life is Not Linear

Wow. It’s been almost a decade since my last update on this project. Not long after I grafted the Tormach 770 head onto my X3, I ended…

Project Frankenmill – Part 18, Shimming

Tried a little shimming of the head this morning, and I think I managed to correct the fore-aft error. Before fixing it was out 0.004 to 0.005″…

Project Frankenmill – Part 17, Tram

Tonight I did some very preliminary measuring for tramming the head and column. Mostly just practice to start wrapping my head around it. I started with the…

Project Frankenmill – Part 16, Predator Vision

In my talking with Tormach, I asked about a spindle break-in procedure. They told me it should have already been done, but it wouldn’t harm anything to…

Project Frankenmill – Part 15, Chips Ahoy

So, let’s get this thing mounted and reassembled. I re-installed the spindle, put on the belt drive sub-plate, and wired up the motor to the VFD. But,…

Project Frankenmill – Part 14, The Bob Ross Special

Applying filler and sanding over the last couple days. After finishing the filler and sanding, I cleaned everything up and masked off the machined surfaces. I set…

Project Frankenmill – Part 13, Casting About

I had a little time late in the day today to get some more cosmetic cleanup done. I dialed in the center of the bore and cleaned…

Project Frankenmill – Part 12, Carry That Weight

Just a little bit of progress tonight. A couple of the filler plugs were slightly proud, so the washers backing up the socket head cap screws weren’t…

Project Frankenmill – Part 11, Heady Topics

And now, the moment probably nobody but me had been waiting for… The test fit! Looking down into the top of the casting, you can see the…

Project Frankenmill – Part 10, Boss Hawg

Back at it on Sunday morning. My first order of business was to work out how to capture that 35mm round boss that protrudes out of the…

Project Frankenmill – Part 9, Plug and Chug

Started out Saturday morning taking the X3 head off to take a look. Comparatively impressed at the quality of the machining here, makes the Tormach head look…

Project Frankenmill – 2-4-6… part 8!

So my 2-4-6 blocks showed up today. This is my first time seeing them in person, they’re serious chunks of metal – upwards of 10lbs each. I…

Project Frankenmill – Part 7, Candy

I caught the nasty cold going around the office, but I’m trying not to let it totally kill my productivity. So, I forced myself to get a…

Project Frankenmill – Part 6, The Rethink

After some thinking, it may make more sense to modify the Tormach casting rather than the Z slide on the X3. I took some measurements and did…

Project Frankenmill – Part 5, Turn Turn Turn

My VFD showed up today, so I got it up and running with the Tormach motor. No real mystery to wiring up the basics: 120VAC single phase…