I have had a few request for information about how I built my homemade milling machine. So I took a stab at writing it down. Writing is not my strong suit. I might try writing a book on the subject and get rich and famous like Dave Gingery. I will try to draw some pictures in my cad program which my explain things since I am sure I left out a bunch of stuff. I have been told by more than one person that I think backwards or opposite of most people. I used cold rolled steel for the milling machine except for the table which I purchased from Enco. The table is ok but I am thinking about building my own. I can't imagine building anything worse. For now the table will have to work. The vertical column is made from 1"x4" and is 30" tall. The column is welded into a "T" if you veiwed it from above. I took two pieces of 1"x4"x30" and made this "T" with what would be the top of the "T" facing the operator. I used the top of the "T" as a The "T" column is welded to another piece of 1"x4"x8" and make sure this is at a right angle or you will be cutting at a angle all of the time. I than used some 2"x2" tubing with .125" wall this serves as a base for the whole machine. I welded the column to the base making sure to get it as square with the base in all directions. Good prep work early in the project pays off here. For the head I used some 1"x4"x10" for the sides of the head and drilled and tapped 4x 3/8-16 on the 1" side to secure the top and bottom plates. I keep the holes in the first (closest to the operator) 5" of the head this allowed the 1"x4" to be clamped t I used some 1/2"x6" for the top and bottom of the head. I used a 3" hole saw to cut a circle groove for the spindle housing, do not drill all the way through the steel, all that is needed is 1/8" groove to locate the spindle housing and keep it from movin The top and bottom piece will clamp the spindle in place. The spindle fits into the groove that was made by the 3" hole saw. The spindle had a R8 taper but since my lathe is small and I didn't have a steady rest at the time. I couldn't get the taper concentric with the O.D. I made another spindle and drilled and reamed a 3/8" hole in the center with a set screw to hold the endm I used tapered roller bearing on the spindle. The first bearing is a 1.5" id x 2.5625" od and the second is 1.375" id x 2.5625 od. I used a 3" piece of heavy wall pipe for the spindle housing which I bored out on my lathe and than pressed the bearing cups(races) into the pipe(spindle housing). I am using a treadmill motor I purchased from The Surplus Center to power the mill it is working great. I use cogged belt and pulleys. They are expensive but with a fairly lite machine the cogged belt doesn't need to be tighten as much as a v-belt. Just the column alone weights 68 lbs. 1"x4"x60"/1728x489.6 = 68lbs. The table weights, according to enco, 56 lbs, and I am guess that the head weights 25 lbs without motor and the 2"x2" tubing base would weight 25lbs. The complete machine weights a little over 200 lbs. The base is 18" width and 22" in depth the machine is very solid and makes nice clean cuts without chatter. A import mill/drill will weight about 600 to 800 lbs and it could do things that my mill can't but I enjoyed building and using the machine. I estimate that my mill cost about $300.00. $150.00 for the 1x4 steel which I have some left over and $40.00 for the motor and another 100 for the table. I used a lot of scrap which was just laying around. The bearings might have cost $30.00 for both bearthis approach worked out better than casting and the steel has got to be better than aluminum. The sound the machine makes when taken a cut is similar to that of a Bridgeport so I know the machine is solid. I have taken cuts up to .100" in cold rolled but Michael Tucker