Timing belts

Another step toward finishing the CNC of the big mill arrived today. These are timing belts and pulleys. The largest one is ~300mm in diameter. I'll use this to run the Z-axis (aka the knee) on the mill, and the smaller ones to run a 2:1 reduction for the X and Y axis.

Like most solutions, they come with a problem. The holes are just guide holes, I'll need to bore them out to size. That's easy. The hard bit is cutting a keyway in each one. I don't have a keyway broach, and don't feel like spending ~ $200 just for this. I'll probably try and grind out out of a bit of high speed steel. We'll see how well that works....

I'm making slow progress on putting the table for the table router back together, but I've gotten mildly distracted by cleaning up the workshop.

The need to put a dust case around the table router has stirred up areas of the workbench that haven't been touched in months. So now I'm moving the PC under the bench, re-running the ethernet and power cables, tidying up and putting away, and generally making ~ 2 meters of bench space useable again. The long slow cycle continues!