Nice fab work as always.

JH

My ball screws turned up the short one 350mm is only 15.2mm not the described 16mm so the nut that i ground for the x slide don't fit

Nothing quite like waiting 4 weeks for a part that don't fit.

Ive had a hard couple of days at work so haven't had time to work on the lathe, hoping to get more time on Thursday.

That's bad news, maybe a smaller nut will fit better in the confined space you're working with.

I got my Nine9 Engraving tool in the mail about a week back, my mill has been out of auction so i havnt had the change to have a play.

Here is the tool:



My first time engraving so ran it real slow and easy:

F100 X&Y F50 Z



got sick of waiting for it, F200 X&Y F100 Z



lessons learned:
Work must be perfectly flat, not easy on super thin material, any lifting causes the cutter to got a little to deep and the lines get thick fast.
Must use lube! i just gave this a blast with CRC it really helped.

Problems:
The carbide has chipped (red arrows) ( $50US per insert) and i don't know why, there are wear marks on the shaft (white) and i dont know why. i watched the entire job and the shaft and cutter never cam in contact with anything, its got me puzzled.

Double sided tape works well to keep it flat.

I have one of the nine9 engraving cutters, mine is the 45 degree one, yours looks like the 60.
I havent had any problems with it chipping up the side like yours so not sure whats happening there, presume you are spinning it fast enough for the feed?
Hood

4000RPM is max for my machine, according to the documentation 0.02-0.08 (mm/rev) is does suggest a S speed of between 5000-20000 RPM, what do you run yours at?

My max spindle is 3800 and I think 200mm/min is what I usually run at, so just a bit over 0.05mm/rev

Hood

Got the draw fronts folded up today, isnt this project really starting to come along?
Why is the middle one missing, was just to tight, need to spend a bit more time making it fit.

Coming along nicely! Time to get it painted...

Dan