In the foreground you can see my CNC mill. This fantastic tool can cut in 3 axis (X,Y,Z) under computer control, so I can program it to cut intricate mechanism and jewelry. In the background is the vintage lathe I'm restoring.

This is an example of the fine work that can be done on my CNC mill. It's the casing which houses the electronics board that drives my mill.

When I was making the locking collar I did the prototype in brass. The mill is at work cutting out the design here.

Since the mill can only cut down from the top, I had to have a good repeatable way of milling the double-sided lock. Here I am precision milling the mounting bolt holes which will allow me to achieve this.

Once the holes were cut, the brass stock is tightened down to the table (you can see the black bolt heads) and the milling of the top begins.

The inside of the buckle is milled out, then the outer shape of the buckle is cut 3MM deep. We still need to flip the piece, but since our cutting tool isn't as long as the stock, we need to munch a bit either side so that when the same exterior is traced from the other side the piece falls away free.

Swarf is A) the name of a band and B) that powderey metal stuff which collects as a result of a cut. You get an amazingly large amount of it for even the lightest cuts.

With the back of the buckle cut, the bolts are undone, the stock is turned over and then we start on the other side. You can see the features of the buckle face appearing here.

With the front of the buckle now complete, we trace the exterior now. When we get down to the other tracing below there will be no metal holding the work to the stock anymore, and it'll come free.

We can also mill PCB's (Printed Circuit Board), but I don't think they can be called that when they're machined. Maybe MCB's?

.. and more MCB'ing.

.. The finished collar. You can see how the buckle really comes nicely together. It's a very elegant design, but far from simple when you know what's inside.

.. But I think in the next design, I will use some kind of curved back plate, since I really don't like the harsh flat one here. :/

Brass really is nice and shiny.. pity it's goldish. I really much prefer silver to gold. Sometime in the future I want to make all of my creations from silver.

A nice crisp, clear picture of the collar. You can get a pretty good idea of how accurate the work is..

When I first got the lathe it was a complete mess. Years of negligence had left it really mucky. The thing that saved it from rusting away however was all the grease. Good thing for the lathe, but not nice to touch.

The lathe assembled. It took about another 2 months of on/off cleaning to get it looking and turning nicely.

Here I am hard at work building my auto-aim laser turret. Designs on paper, a Microcontroller on the table. Hmm.. I really have to finish that sometime.

So.. one servo turns it left and right.. and the other up and down. Cool, huh?

.. and the microcontroller which controls the servos plugs into the serial port of a PC. A killer app would be a webcam program which targetted movement with the laser. Drunken party games for all!

These little goodies go inside of the locking buckle collar. The piece of plastic in the background just looks cool (it was under the top of the casing when I cut the fan-holes)

And here's my CNC mill hard at work. 3 Powerful stepper motors control each of the indepenant axis, meaning the table can be moved on the X and Y, while the rotating cutter can be lowered and raised. The cutting tool is a bit like a drill, except that it can cut from the side as well.

And here you can see the old Text-mode DOS program which controls the mill. Because of the high-rate at which the mill needs to be commanded, a real-time operating system is just not a good option, so we revert to DOS for this.

Here's the new casing for the mill electronics, this was before I painted it black.

You can see the fantastic work I did at milling out the holes for the fan.

A rotary table is a rotating cylinder to which work can be clamped. Since this one is also under computer control I can precisely control it to do cutting and engraving on round objects - like rings.

Here you can see the rotary table from the front. Note also the 90 degrees mounting plate which I made for it.

If you know what it is, then cool. If not, then a spreader bar is used for er.. spreading things. Yes.

I wish I had a shed, or true workshop. As you can see here, I share the space with my entertainment and TV room. Bizarre.