dnalot
Project of the Month Winner !!!
About 20 years ago I built a homemade router table. I mostly did wood projects at the time for my boat shop. I used a Porter Cable 3.5 HP router that could rip through a lot of lumber without any protest. Over the years I replaced the bearings three times and the brushes twice. It is on the bench now for bearings and brushes.
Today I mostly do metal work and I wanted a spindle that turned slower than the routers 10 to 30 thousand RPMs. I found that the Little Machine shop sells the complete R8 spindle assembly with motor and controls for the Sieg x2 mini-mill for $385. About the same price as a large router.
So I ordered it and spent the past few days re-configuring it and mounting it to my CNC router table. I mounted it backwards from the original orientation on the Sieg mill to place the spindle as close as possible to the beam that carries the Z axis. The mount provides adjustments for tramming.
Now this is no milling machine but it works on aluminum and brass very well as long as you take small cuts with small end mills. And the spindle turning at 2000 RPM cuts wood very well without the burning the high speed router often did.
Table 24" by 48" 8 inches of Z. 4 axis.
Right now I can't use my shop because of the thick smoke (US West Coast Fires). My wife and I are hold up in a back room of the house with a Hepa air filter doing its best to keep the air clear. Going to use up all my internet data watching Netflix this month.
I will be using the new setup to make the distributor parts for the Holt 75 project I'm working on and will post some photos here when I do.
Mark T
Today I mostly do metal work and I wanted a spindle that turned slower than the routers 10 to 30 thousand RPMs. I found that the Little Machine shop sells the complete R8 spindle assembly with motor and controls for the Sieg x2 mini-mill for $385. About the same price as a large router.
So I ordered it and spent the past few days re-configuring it and mounting it to my CNC router table. I mounted it backwards from the original orientation on the Sieg mill to place the spindle as close as possible to the beam that carries the Z axis. The mount provides adjustments for tramming.
Now this is no milling machine but it works on aluminum and brass very well as long as you take small cuts with small end mills. And the spindle turning at 2000 RPM cuts wood very well without the burning the high speed router often did.
Table 24" by 48" 8 inches of Z. 4 axis.
Right now I can't use my shop because of the thick smoke (US West Coast Fires). My wife and I are hold up in a back room of the house with a Hepa air filter doing its best to keep the air clear. Going to use up all my internet data watching Netflix this month.
I will be using the new setup to make the distributor parts for the Holt 75 project I'm working on and will post some photos here when I do.
Mark T
