Aluminum or Steel for 4th Axis?

Have you thought about using one of the lathe head stocks from Little Machine shop? They can be bought pretty cheap and have the spindle and bearings already sorted out. Make a mount for a stepper, figure out your drive belt/chain and away you go. Nice price and replacement parts are cheap and plentiful.

Chris
 
Wow, there are many ideas here - all good. I already have some of the parts. All that is left is the housing. Iron, steel and aluminum seem like they would all work well. The main use for this accessory would be to cut gears, and such. I never thought I could push it to do much more than that. I guess I should think about everything I might use it for and decide which material, with the tradeoff being I would have to probably purchase something already built very sturdy for any big jobs.
 
I have decided to go with aluminum block, bored to fit the spindle and bearings. My decision became easy when I realized I won't be doing any really heavy work with this accessory, so over-designing it would not benefit me, whatsoever.

Thank you all for helping me along.

On to the build!

Jim
 
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