MadModder

Well...  It's one step forward and two steps back time again.  I got the machine mostly disassembled, the Y rail extrusions have been removed, marked, drilled, and bolted back together into a single truss.  (Had to run out and get some longer bolts, the bolts I had were too short, or too long.)  I also added the grease zerks to the Y axis linear bearings, two straight zerks on the two top bearing blocks, and two 90 degree zerks on the bottom blocks to make greasing them easier. 

I had taken one of the X axis rails off and as long as I has the kit of zerks fittings out I figured that I'd add the zerks to those bearing blocks as well.  All of the set screws in the Y axis bearing blocks were black oxide, the set screws in the X axis blocks were SS.   I didn't pay too much attention to that at the time.  Not, until I discovered that the Allen wrench that fit the black oxide screws would not fit the SS screws - too big.  That's when I discovered that the black oxide screws were M6 - which I knew, but the SS screws were M5.  I ain't got no stinkin' M5 grease zerks, M6, M8, M10, 1/8" BSP, and 1/4" BSP I've got - but no M5's.  They are now on order.  The X rail that is out has been marked and drilled, tomorrow I'll remove the other rail and get it marked and drilled too.  I center punched the mounting hole location that was closest to the edge of the base, when I used a transfer punch to mark the other mounting hole in that rail it was about 10mm off from my layout.  I remember that when I added the mounting holes to the base, one of the mounting holes at the RH end of the machine was 10mm off - so I corrected it on the base.  I then made the 2D drawing of the base that I used to lay out the mounting hole locations on the base.  I think I moved the wrong hole in the model, so that's why the RH mounting hole locations were wrong.  Good thing I decided to do a sanity check before drilling the holes in the base.

Congratulations - had to go back a few years to catch up. Are you still using Forth? Must be the last person to use it. Look up Jupiter Ace from 1981 - the only computer made with Forth rather than Basic as its native language.

Hi beeshed, thanks kindly! 

Yup still using FORTH. For me it's particularly well suited as a control language in an embedded system -- which is how it started out, controlling radio telescopes. Invented by Charles Moore. As far as I know, I'm not the only one still using it:

https://www.forth.com/resources/forth-apps/

But if I am, I'm glad to be keeping it alive! 

My mind just works that way for programming. I like the fact that FORTH let's you make up your own language, and I like the fact that it is very compact and very fast (necessary for this application), and I like the fact that it is both an interpreter and compiler, making debugging and trying changes super easy. And I like the fact that you can write in assembler in it if you really need fast and compact operations.

I wouldn't want to write a word processor in it, or a video editor, but for control programs, I can't think of anything that I'd rather use. Arduino's native Wiring language, was hundreds of times slower -- in fact impractical for this usage.

Viva FORTH!

Congratulations - had to go back a few years to catch up. Are you still using Forth? Must be the last person to use it. Look up Jupiter Ace from 1981 - the only computer made with Forth rather than Basic as its native language.

On the top of the list is to make an electric coil winder. I want to make several coils for another project down the road and it will need several cols of possibly hundreds of turns and produce reasonably consistent magnetic results. That project will possibly require other nano projects to be determined as I go along. 
As another hobby is 3D printing, it allows me to go off into the weeds of possibilities and who knows where I will end up?
Anything to keep my mind active as the body can't do what we used to 40-50 years ago.

Thanks Art!

What kind of projects do you have in mind?