Feb 2023 - The next part in my engineering in Hi-Fi journey

So we decided that if we were really going to take this idea forward we would need some kind of CNC machine, ideally a mill and a lathe but there has to be some kind of compromise because there is only a finite amount of space in our very small workshop.

We started to design a CNC milling machine conversion with enclosure using a Warco WM16B manual milling machine.

The machine took around 3 years to complete mostly working on it at the weekends.

A model of the design for the enclosure including the electronics control enclosure.

Once we decided that we would be using the WM16B for the conversion we promptly ordered one up from Warco,

It arrived on a pallet and as soon as we had it open it was time to strip it down to its bare castings for a complete overall before we could make use of it in the CNC conversion.

After closely inspecting all the castings we decided that the dovetails on every axis apart from the X axis table would need to be hand scraped this took months to complete.

Hand scraping is a traditional technique in which a metal surface is levelled by hand using a carbide scraper. It's a very manual and slow process that is still used today because it can produce a very accurately flat surface that most surface grinders cant reproduce, this will help us achieve the best posable accuracy when the machine is being used.


Here it is all stripped down to its castings

Checking how parallel the spindle is to the head.

Here is the base frame completed with some parts fitted.

Here is some fabrication of the  base.

The chip tray assembly.

The chip tray complete.

Here we are testing the machine assembly before we start on the main enclosure.

That's it for the time being next time I will show the machine fully complete in its enclosure and I may even post a video.