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March 2023 — The enclosure comes together
March 2023 — The enclosure comes together
By this point the CNC machine itself was mechanically complete, but without a proper enclosure it was unusable — coolant and metal chips would have gone everywhere. All the enclosure design work had already been done in Fusion 360, so the sheet metal parts were sent off to Luffman Engineering to be laser cut and bent, then brought back to the workshop for cleaning, welding, and painting.
Rear pannel being assembled before epoxy top coat
Rollers on the doors worked out well.
More pre paint assembly work.
Working on the doors and handles
Everything got two coats — epoxy primer followed by epoxy top coat, chosen specifically for its resistance to cutting oil and coolant. We don't want to be repainting this in five years. All paints came from Regal Paints in the UK.
Once the enclosure was done, attention turned to the coolant system. We started with a full flood coolant setup using neat cutting oil, which worked well but turned out to be extraordinarily messy and expensive — around £130 for 25 litres, and everything in the workshop coated in a fine mist of it within weeks. We switched to a water-based semi-synthetic coolant, Qualichem Xtreme Cut 250C, and haven't looked back.
The first real machined part from the CNC machine.
O rings fitted for a water tight seal.
Coolant drains.
Underside of the coolant drains.
Getting coolant to the cutting tool cleanly required a custom coolant ring machined to fit around the spindle, with Lockline pipes to direct the flow exactly where it's needed. It was also the first real part we cut on the new CNC machine — a satisfying milestone after months of building infrastructure.
One shot oiler for the way oil.
Lubrication feed.
Lubrication feeds going in to the main castings.
The lubrication system for the machine's own slideways was another significant undertaking, with custom fittings machined to feed oil directly into the main castings. These are the details that separate a machine that lasts from one that wears out.
By the end of March, the machine was almost ready. Almost.
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