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Started to build a DIY chassis awhile back, cut the plastic nose piece out of a stock chassis but it just didn’t do it for me.

Decided what I needed was an aluminum nose piece, lol easer said than done even if you do have a spiffy supper deluxe rotary tool


After seeing the photo's of the proposed HR and 3Racing chassis I put the project on a back burner but after seeing more of them now that they are showing up I decided that I still needed to make my own, they seem overly part intensive when compared to some of the DIY’s people have made, and although pretty they don’t quite do it for me either.


One of the things I wanted was a stronger yet simple way to fasten the nose piece to the bottom plate.


Nice thing about the nose piece is that I can play around with different chassis materials and thicknesses. So once I get the shape, holes, etc, exactly the way I want it I’ll cut versions in different thicknesses of carbon fiber as well as aluminum to try out.


Started with aluminum so I could try pocketing the servo and mill a simple back lip to keep the rear swing arm pins in place.


Problem with aluminum is that it’s soft and bends, if left as is at 0.035” thick my prototype aluminum bottom plate would crumple in a collision with a cotton ball yet alone the cat. Fortunately I have a solution for that, by anodizing the surface I can magically transform the soft bendable 6600 series aluminum into something light, strong, and incredibly rigid, that can then be dyed pretty colors too.

Almost done just a few more adjustments and I’ll be ready to cut a final prototype nose piece, and move on to the anodizing and beautifying process.

After I finish the chassis I want to see if I can come up with a matching aluminum brushless motor mount.

That looks great.

I'm sure that wasn't easy with the spiffy super deluxe rotary tool, but it sure would be nice to have a spiffy super deluxe rotary tool.

Or two

but there is twice the mess to clean up.

I hate you That chassis is awesome.

Mother of God! Thats DIY on a whole new level.

is that spiffy super deluxe rotary tool on the left computer controlled?
i see the steppers on each axis and i'm like

That is so cool its making me swoon!!

Is that what that super deluxe rotary tool is really called or is there a brand name or something for it?

I think I saw one at Harbor Freight but it could have been a machineing tool and not that.

Great work I like that the Anodizing process not only will make it look nice but adds the strenght too!

Yes the Taig (blue) is a working CNC mill, the Seig X2 on the right is a CNC work in progress. Which I suppose takes a little explaining, the Taig is sort of like an Epoch version of a table top mill great and fully functional out of the box at a very reasonable price but there isn’t much that can be easily done to hop it up and to make small parts you need extreme precision which means zero backlash and that takes precision ball screws along with a very stable heavy chunk of iron that will not move or vibrate.

Enter the Chinese made Seig X2 called the Mini Mill and sold by Grizzly, Harbor Freight, and others, inexpensive and as you’d expect out of the box it’s pure slop however it’s the all time modifiable king of the table top mill world a $500 140lb chunk of iron that can with work be transformed into a hobby mill with the precision of a $50K Hass for around $3k that doesn’t mean it’s as good as a Hass just that it can be as precise if modified correctly. Funny thing when you say you want to make small parts the vast majority of the machining literature seems to think 3 inches is a small part which is frustrating because if you want to make bit size parts even though you can come up with thousands of examples of them being machined the actual abc’s of how to seems to be some sort of secrete.

I started to mod the X2 mill last year but during the learning process I discovered that the parts I that I got would not do what I really want to do, in other words I need to graduate from MRCC version of retrofitting to a higher lever of Micro Mill Mod Forum. I’ve unloaded my old parts, ordered new and am ready to start over on the X2.

X2 Mod Project
• 350oz/in true servo motors with high quality optical encoders
• Gecko G320 drivers w/ G-Rex controller
• High grade rolled ball screws (wanted precision machined ball screws but they are out of my budget and with only .001” per foot max lead error the high grade rolled screws I found are better than some lower grade machined screws)
• Dual ball nuts with grade 5 balls on the x and y axis for 0 backlash.
• Higher quality preloaded ball nut on Z axes for almost 0 backlash.
• Ball bearing blocks that support both ends of the ball screws, with high grade ball bearings.
• Custom slide modification
• Complete enclosure with a flood type coolant system for working with aluminum
• Belt drive spindle with high quality precision spindle bearings
• Computer controlled spindle motor driver
• Professional grade rotor tool attachment (actually a ball bearing rotary tool that mounts to the mill head for ultra high speed micro size bits)

Funny thing is that the overall price of modifying the X2 for true precision work on micro mini aluminum parts not just basic CNC isn’t really costing me that much more than the parts for my original plan it’s just with the right parts it will be a truly proportional modified world class racing Mini-Z mill instead of a hopped up Xmod mill.

Wow, I was looking at the harbor frieght multi-purpose machine, I was thinkig of learning to make steam engines and eventualy I would like to make a small scale V8 gas engine. The plans are available but I'm sure it takes much experiance to even begin to do something like that. So, have you had any experiance with this machine? Is it complete crap or is there potential. I'm not even thinking about trying to convert any machine itno a cnc, I'm just thinking basics.

I went into the machining thing stone cold ignorant, I would strongly recommend considering going the CNC route ether way the learning curve is pretty much the same, but the bottom line is that a computer controlled mill can do more with less accessories, and those accessories can end up costing more than the computer hardware and software. Besides the learning curve is extreme either way you go, and quality manual machining is apparently a lost art, shoot the guy who bought Apex showed a friend (ok lodge brother) who is a master machinest and owns a machine shop down in CA one of the Epoch motor mounts I made on a manual mill and he offered me a job. It’s not that anything is particularly complicated it’s just that for me at least without someone to show me what are probably stupid rudimentary steps any first month apprentice floor sweeper in a machine shop knows just by seeing it done “like how do you hold a part shaped like this so you can turn it over and do the other side” made/makes my poor head hurt.

The Harbor Freight Mini Mill is a Seig X2 exactly like the green one in the photo from Grizzly only red. Although the one in the photo already has a few mods like the belt drive. As I said above it works but has an incredible amount of slop especially on the Z (up and down) axis, but it is eminently upgradeable, in fact you don’t even have to go CNC for around $200 you can easily add standard ball screws to the x and y axis, it’s precision on the Z that’s hard to do without computer control but still possible. The main problem with any manual mill is that anything other than 90 degree angles (up, down, left, and right) can be extremely difficult.

For accuracy out of the box on a smaller scale manual table top hobby mill checkout www.sherline.com. You also might want to look into a horizontal mill or a lathe with a milling attachment which could be a better choice for making small steam engines and such. What I recommend is trying to attend something like this Cabin Fever Modeling Expo and simply ask “what sort of tools would be best for building that?”

What I wish is that one of the local community colleges had some sort of basic machining 101 type course I could enroll in, a few nights a week for a semester or two would be well worth the time and a whole lot less effort, FMPoV.

LBRC wrote:I went into the machining thing stone cold ignorant, I would strongly recommend considering going the CNC route ether way the learning curve is pretty much the same, but the bottom line is that a computer controlled mill can do more with less accessories, and those accessories can end up costing more than the computer hardware and software. Besides the learning curve is extreme either way you go, and quality manual machining is apparently a lost art, shoot the guy who bought Apex showed a friend (ok lodge brother) who is a master machinest and owns a machine shop down in CA one of the Epoch motor mounts I made on a manual mill and he offered me a job. It’s not that anything is particularly complicated it’s just that for me at least without someone to show me what are probably stupid rudimentary steps any first month apprentice floor sweeper in a machine shop knows just by seeing it done “like how do you hold a part shaped like this so you can turn it over and do the other side” made/makes my poor head hurt.

The Harbor Freight Mini Mill is a Seig X2 exactly like the green one in the photo from Grizzly only red. Although the one in the photo already has a few mods like the belt drive. As I said above it works but has an incredible amount of slop especially on the Z (up and down) axis, but it is eminently upgradeable, in fact you don’t even have to go CNC for around $200 you can easily add standard ball screws to the x and y axis, it’s precision on the Z that’s hard to do without computer control but still possible. The main problem with any manual mill is that anything other than 90 degree angles (up, down, left, and right) can be extremely difficult.

For accuracy out of the box on a smaller scale manual table top hobby mill checkout www.sherline.com. You also might want to look into a horizontal mill or a lathe with a milling attachment which could be a better choice for making small steam engines and such. What I recommend is trying to attend something like this Cabin Fever Modeling Expo and simply ask “what sort of tools would be best for building that?”

What I wish is that one of the local community colleges had some sort of basic machining 101 type course I could enroll in, a few nights a week for a semester or two would be well worth the time and a whole lot less effort, FMPoV.

have you ever been to the website "the internet craftsmanship musuem"? I have it favorited on my computer @ home, I'll post a link tonight but its all kinds on mini machining stuff , like that modelling expo, its the wicked thing I've ever seen

Thanks for all the info, and that link to the modeling expo was beyond belifef! My friend Dave has a small machine shop...with big, big mills. I am hoping that he will let me help around the shop and teach me the basics. I think he could use a couple hours a week free labor and I know I would benifit more from learning from a person than books or videos. Dae has made some small titanuim pieces before for me but I'd love to be able to do it myself. Anyways, great info--thanks!