Small progress

The original task to 'just remove a bit of lash' from the table mill has grown. A little. Just slightly.

So after adding the extra linear bearing, and noticing that the table structs needed fixing, which resulted in noticing that the drill holes in the original brackets weren't accurately aligned and basically tearing down the full X axis to do these things, I was on track to re-assemble.

Except that the side project of enclosing the mill (to contain dust and reduce noise) reared it's head and pointed out that it's much easier to add that while the mill is mostly disassembled.

Which led to noticing that the enclosure would shade the ethernet and power points on that side of the bench. So off to add extension leads to all power points and longer ethernet cables to ensure I wouldn't need to regularly get to them. Which led to relocating the PC to free up the desk space. And moving the monitor/keyboard. Which led to re-doing the power cabling to tidy it up a bit.

And so this evening I finally put two sides of the enclosure is on. I just used some angle aluminium to make brackets, and screwed the plywood on. Yay! Progress!

Except that in doing that and moving the X carriage around, I noticed that the nut wasn't quite aligned with the threaded rod...

On the bright side, it was an opportunity to use one of the most brutal tools I own: A 26mm , high helix milling bit. When you want to make a big hole in a hurry, and you're not too fussed about the accuracy, that's the way to do it!

A 26mm hole in 12mm aluminium, 8 seconds. Done! Sometimes, using a bigger hammer is just plain fun.