Yes having the brake seperate to the motor is a good feature. Had a crushed encoder cable on the Beaver Partsmaster when I got it. I was able to  unplug the power cable to the  brake so it didn't release when I powered the machine up. Meant I could have the motor on the bench and check it was all ok with the new cable before I remounted it knowing the head wouldn't come crashing down into the bed!
John

Well I wasnt going to bother painting but I am getting some doors for the front, they will be mainly toughened/laminated glass with lower part stainless,  so I thought I better tart it up a bit to match.  The doors will be sliding in a similar fashion to the originals, they  are getting made by a friend who works with toughened glass and he is also getting me some vinyl stickers to finish things off. I drew up a dxf for them as close to the original as I could and I think they will be fine. The FZ12 part of the original was smaller but I decided to keep them all the same size.


The painting.
  I have lots of 2 pack green so decided to use it, it also matches in fairly well with the big lathe and the wee lathe is already painted that shade. I have got some of it painted but a fair bit to do yet but I am pleased with the results so far.
I also got some white 2 pack paint today so I will do the inside with that, hopefully that will help keep things bright inside once the side panels go on. There is one fluorescent light inside but there should be two so I will see if I can source another, may end up just getting two new ones.

I also got a servo drive that will do for the spindle and the emergency stop module arrived today so I should manage to get on with the wiring in the next while.
Hood

Got the spindle drive and motor fitted and wired today, dont have all the I/O for it hooked up yet but was able to run the spindle from the netbook to see what it sounded like. The motor is only a 3800rpm motor and I would like to make some form of increaser to get the spindle to 6000rpm as per original but that will have to wait. I started the spindle at 100rpm and it was silent so went to 1000 and again fine so cranked it up to the 3800rpm and it was still relatively quiet. I let it run for a good hour at 3800rpm and the spindle housing only got slightly warm so looks like things are fine there
 I changed tools whilst the spindle was running at 100rpm and 200rpm and that went well, the spindle is meant to be turning so that the spring loaded dog drops into the holder and 200rpm seemed slightly better than the 100 so may have that as my tool change rpm.
 Some of the bearings on the holders are knackered and a few noisy, they are non standard bearings and likely wont be cheap but Mark had already replaced one with a thinner (standard) bearing and just made up a spacer out of nylon to take up the 2mm or so difference, I will do the same but will likely use bronze as I have some left over from a job that is about the correct OD

The cabinet now has all of the components in it so its just all got to be wired up now, that will take a while I suppose but should hopefully let the paint harden a bit. I got a bit more painted today but I think I will concentrate on the inside next so that it gets the longest time to cure before I am ready to run the machine.

Hood

Ha, what was that about not bothering to paint it?

Looking good though!

Nope, wasnt going to until I thought how it would look with new doors and the old paintwork.
I hate painting normally, spraying is fine but with a brush its a nightmare for me. Decided to try a roller though and it makes a nice job and nothing like the mess that spraying does
Hood

Nice work Hood..I have a lathe to paint might try the roller method..what type of roller works best? Where can I get that green two pack its just what I need.

John.

Just the 100 or 110mm rollers from B&Q or any other place like that, they are the foam ones for gloss.
Dont really know where you would get the paint, I got it from the Boatyard as they bought a load from a place that was closing down.
The stuff I have is made by International and is Intergard 740 and the shade is Reseda Green, RAL is 6011.


Hood

Excellent and extremely neat wiring job Hood. 

( I used to visit Portsmouth quite frequently and always wondered why most of the house's had grey painted fences, gates and garage doors etc. - then it dawned on me - the Dockyard's and 'Battleship Grey'  ).

Tweakie.

Big Mean Green Machine!   

Brett

Any decent paint supplier will get/mix the paint for you. Try a search for local Auto/Bodyshop Paint Suppliers. They'll also have lots of paint chips for whatever brand(s) they supply, so you can choose whatever colour you want.