The X axis was a bit more involved in that it was harder to get access to even with the mill unbolted from the bench.

First job I found that the slots in the mounting plate were a bit tight for the M5 screws so I opened the slots with the mill.

I also milled the second slot to have vertical as well as horizontal movement as it’s important to have the scales both level horizontally and parallel to the travel of the table for the highest accuracy. As they come one slot is vertical and the other horizontal but being aluminium they are easy to modify with the mill.

After bluing up the rear face of the table I was lucky in that I had recently bought a couple basic C clamps to use for clamping one of my vices and my rivet press temporarily to the workbench when I need to. These fit quite nicely edge on in the T slot so I was able to clamp the mounting plate in position allowing me to move the table to either side of the column so that I could mark it up without removing the table at this stage.

Again, it was a bit of a squeeze but I was able to drill and tap the table without removing it.

The next task was working out how best to mount the reader but I will cover that in another post.