Thanks guys!
Thanks for the input! Good catch. I'm hanging onto the pan from the Griz base
For the first couple of months we'll be machining renshape pretty much exclusively. We've got about 12 master designs we need to crank out for a show in August. We may do a bit of brass/alum sheet...very very thin stuff. So I hadn't put much thought into possibly using the Griz pan short-term.
I was thinking to wait until we CNC it (maybe in a year or two) to do a more full blown pan. Now, I'll go ahead and put the Griz pan in, in later this week before we tram it...the memory of lifting that thing, even a couple of inches, needs to fade just a little bit ;-) That way, just in case we do something where cutting lub is needed we'll have something in place. I'm also going to bend a piece of styrene over the front edge to avoid splinters
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Powered it up briefly yesterday, it and the DRO are alive. Will clean it up and burn it in over the next couple of days. Tramming accessories should all get here by the end of this week. So by next weekend should be up and running. In the meantime I've got the manuals for bedtime entertainment.
Speaking of lathes:
That's the next project. Don't laugh, but looking at the Sherline 4400. Keep in mind, we're doing miniatures and need something for drilling and tapering brass stock, gun barrels, antenna, etc. Need something that'll work out of the box day one and capable of producing a nice surface finish. Space is also an issue...you don't see the rest of my two car garage, but its taken up with 30" table saw, 8" jointer, bandsaw, drill press, large delta sanding station, mortiser, spindle sander...and the requisite garage sundries
I've looked a long time at lathes and from what I've seen in our price range and objectives the 4400 appears to be a good choice.
Having said that...I'm very open to hearing input!
I'm planning to pull the trigger end of next week, so if there's a better value (roughly same size/price and precision) I'm all ears...
Jesse/Jon-Luc