First off, big thanks to FannBlade and a few others who've inspired me to do the conversion.

I bought this 3 in 1 a few years ago on sale from Grizzly, $1500 iirc, and taught myself the basics of machining and turning. Since then read a lot of books on the subject and lurked here a fair bit.

My background is on the 3D/CAD side of things. I started working in AutoCAD and Rhino (when it was just a free beta), and moved onto media graphics and have done that professionally for a long time now.

Suffice it to say, the digital side is my strong point, machine side, have plenty of learning to do.

If you want to check out FannBlade's build, head over here:
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/genera...k_warning.html

Has a lot of pictures and some video of the machine running as well.

I needed to get a better adjustment on the saddle gibs so I made some new stainless bolts with nubs on the end. These seem to work really well as they are a much tighter fit than the stock ones, and much easier to adjust with the larger allen key.

Also purchased 2 - 3ph 1.5hp 3500rpm motors from AutomationDirect. This is the flange I designed and had waterjet for the mill motor mount: