Builder's Spotlight: Jim S.

September 19, 2007
Finally back in town after a conference in New York (for my day job). My youngest apprentice, Nicco had his first birthday yesterday. Chuck E. Cheese is quite eventless on a weekday night, I found.

I would like to exhibit another build being completed by a dedicated viewer of this website. Jim S. emailed me in the infancy of this website and said he was interested in building the CNC. We have been emailing back and forth on various topics, which in turn gave me a good source of information for the website. Jim S.'s machine is looking really nice. He is currently up to the wiring of his stepper motors to his driver.

He actually sent me these pictures a while back, and I think he put the structure together in as little as two or three weeks. He is using many of the components found on this website, such as the cross dowels, couplers (not shown yet), and bearings. He also demonstrates an interesting way to fasten the rails to the board using zip-ties (I think that's what they're called).

I'm assuming that he used a miter box saw like I did. I feel for you Jim. I saw the sales box on the right of the picture.

He looks well equiped for this type of construction with the vice in the lower left hand corner of the image, the bare masonry walls, the necessary envorons to run this puppy.

The construction of this CNC looks very clean and ready for action. As in my machine, the tiny crack in the z-back support piece is evident. This will probably happen, but I havent had any problems to date with this. There is also the possibility to fasten the nut against the edge of this piece. This way, other types of screws can work using the same piece. I will demonstrate this in a later post.

I will periodically add more information to these builds as I receive it. Great going to all of the builders and keep tuned to see revisions and posts.