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      The big day arrived and I slipped around to MakerStore in Melbourne to pick up the Ox order. Being the impatient type I did not want to wait for the delivery, and since the MakerStore is not that far away anyway I thought I would save time and pick it up myself.

      Laid out the bits and pieces and checked off the list.

      First up I assembled all the wheels. then as I tightened them up on the front gantry plate I found they felt very rough when turning. After much head scratching, I found I had missed the spot in the video where a shim needs to be placed in between the bearings. So began the task of stripping down all the wheels and adding the shims, no easy task as the wheels need a fair bit of pressure to assemble and disassemble.

      My net step was to assembled the front gantry plate

      The next job was the cutting of the X axis beams to size. First stop, Bunnings to get a good blade for the compound radial saw. The 30 tooth wood blade would just be asking for trouble. Fitted the new blade and made test cuts on timber and set up a perfectly square cut.

      I made the cut and checked for square.

      Ahhhh!!! I ended up with the worst cut I have ever seen!! The bloody blade had come loose!! Reset the blade and carefully trimmed millimeter by millimeter and ended up with a near perfect finish, the final length being only a couple of mm smaller than I had planned, but all looking good. The new blade cut like a knife through soft butter, a good investment I would think.

      Next came a couple of hours of tapping... I had forgotten how much I hated hand tapping threads during my apprenticeship days!! But it passed the time while hiding out in the shed, away from the reach of missus and the grand kids.

      I then threaded the acme rod through the acme nut block, and mounted the Nema 17 Stepper motor. Now a new problem has reared its ugly head. The bearings will not fit onto the acme rod. They will only go on about 10mm then jam up and no amount of persuasion will allow them to go any further. The same situation exists at both ends of the rod. It is at this point I gave up for the day.

      Apart from that the first days of construction seems to have gone pretty well.

      Attached Files:

      symmas20 and Mark Carew like this.
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  • Build Details

    Build License:
    • CC - Attribution NonCommercial - No Derivs - CC BY NC ND

    Reason for this Build

    Looking for a new project to keep me out from under the bride's feet, I came across the OpenBuilds web site and was impressed with the Ox, so decided to have a go. I have been thinking about getting into CNC machining, but the cost has always been way out of my budget until now.

    Inspired by

    Mark Carew's Ox build and video
  • Attached Files:

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