I'm currently in the process of rather tediously scraping the ways on my micro mill.
It's quite likely this is an early sign of dementia as there is clearly a limit to what can be done with these tiny machines and I'm quite sure that the improvement won't be worth the manpower I'm putting into it!
However, I've started so I'll finish – and better to ruin this learning the ropes than something of more value … I'm kind of enjoying the learning process too,
I'm getting there (I think) with the flat surfaces, but soon have to tackle the dovetails. I seem to need two things for the dovetails, an angled straight edge and some way of measuring them. I've got some precision ground bar (from a scanner) which will do nicely for the dowels, but I haven't worked out how to measure them. My measuring tools have a precision of 0.01mm (a bit less for the DTI which is analog). WIll this suffice?
More difficult is a straight edge to get into the dovetails. I can't find one to buy which I can afford and I can't find any 45 degree cast iron bar which I could lap or scrape into something suitably flat.
I have thought about using some angle iron and scraping that, but I doubt it would have even the meagre accuracy I need.
Bear in mind that my mill is currently in bits and would be troubling to use to make a 45 degree on a bar of suitable size (a bit under 12 inches)…
I'd welcome any suggestions or recommendations.
Thanks
Iain