Welcome to the
CNC Machining community, Stan. That is quite a journey from cubicles to clockwork and now CNC tinkering. Sounds like you already have the curiosity and patience that make this hobby a lot of fun. What machine are you running these days out on Gwynn’s Island?
It's been a weird path. I never gave up my love of electronics and model engineering. We formed a metal working group in the DC area back around 1998 known as CAMS, we all got together via the old rec.crafts.metalworking newsgroup. One of the central figures is Steve Stallings, who along with folks like Ron Ginger were at the forefront of hobbyist friendly machine conversion for CNC. Given that environment the make it move on it's own bug was easily caught.
My first usable CNC machine was a Sherline mill converted to 4 axis. I needed to stand it up quickly to make parts for the clock business. The first time you make a 96 tooth gear using conventional methods it's pretty darn exciting. The tenth time not so much. I ran this one on Linuxcnc for a several years, eventually moved over to Mach4 as I'm lazy and like Wizards for quick and dirty stuff. This was more of a bolt it up using commercial stuff like the Sherline stepper mounts rather than a real build. Maybe a two day build, configure, and start making parts sort of deal. Seems sorting out the charge pump config in linuxcnc took longer than mounting the steppers... A while later start making parts without crashing or breaking bits. Being self taught CAM was a new arena for me. When used with Mach4 one of Steve's PMDX410(?) dongles is used as the step generator. It's still a good machine after all these years. While small and light, it's really quite nice being able to replace any part inexpensively and having parts readily available. I think I'm on my third replacement set of lead screws and nuts, but at around $50 to replace X and Y the fact it's a conventional lead screw machine doesn't bother me at all. It's not like I need 300 IPM rapids or HSM for the size of work that fits the machine. The only upgrades made after the initial build was to convert to an ER16 spindle and the 10K RPM pulley set. When dojng brass an air blast is used to clear chips.
One oddity of old clock gears is that the tooth profiles and tooth/space ratios are all over the place. Gearotic let me create these profiles and profile mill the gears. The other option would be to make a custom cutter to match the space to be cut and then so the manual gear cutting or 4 axis CNC milling. As the brass is thin, super gluing the brass stock to a fly cut sacrificial aluminum work surface and profile milling avoids needing backing disks and makes a part that needs very little deburring or finish work other than a slight breaking of the spoke and inner rim corners. While gearotic is great for this, the gcode it spit out never quite seemed to play nicely for me, so a DXF was tossed into Vectric VCarve for the CAM part of the deal.
Over time I added in 3D printing - first machine was a delta built from a pile of parts around 2015. Added a G0704 after shoulder surgery when I HAD to keep going but could not reach up to the top of my larger manual mill and there was a backlog of larger clock movement work to be done. I bought it with the intention of converting it to CNC once my shoulder healed, knowing the first two (manual) jobs in queue would cover the purchase price. Built the controller for it as a 4 axis machine with one of Steve Stallings (PMDX) step generators for Mach4 built in. I'd used one of Steve's 340 model 4 axis driver boxes with the Sherline and liked not doing the hobbyist mess in a tupperware box controller thing. For a while there CNC converted G0704's were all over the place, sort of like Epiphone guitars on college campuses in the 1970's.
Add in an extended rail diode laser (work area now 16" X 34") and Lightburn software, one of the el-cheapo PRC CO2 lasers, more 3D printers, and a small very stiff CNC router built to the C-Beam design from openbuilds. Also have a larger router that has about a 42" X 42" work area. The routers and diode lasers are all gRbl based machines.
For fun and games there is an old Emco CNC5 lathe that has been gutted and the slanted rear panel/chassis removed that used to old very early weird electronics. New hybrid steppers are mounted up. Still sitting, one of these days I'll get a wild hair and go bull through wrapping up the KBIC pwm install and config for the motor, hook the steppers to some drivers, and get it done. Not sure why I wanted a CNC lathe other than it seemed cool and at one time I was thinking about turning out lanyard beads and other similar stuff and doing the etsy thing as I was getting burned out on the clock thing. The plan was to see how it went then upgrade o a slant bed and bar feeder IF the cash flow justified the capital investment, When we found our retirement place which needed work that became my "retired guy" massive undertaking as there were several years of work including jacking buildings and replacing rotten sills / repairing or replacing foundation piers. Took the place of manufacturing titanium doodads and learning to do multicolor anodizing . Another fine plan overcome by events. The tech world is littered with OBE projects it seems.
Now I use all these wonderful toys just to play and mostly to make some HO scale stuff and boat model parts. There is the required collection of casting kits aging nicely in the machine shop, along with the obligatory 80% complete Quorn. Hopefully I'll have a few engines done in time for next years show in Auburn IN.
Cheers,
Stan
