Making a Craftsman 101.21400 Lathe/Mill into a CNC?

Projects
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I was looking around my dads basement and he had this Craftsman 101.21400 6" Hobby Lathe (also known as an Atlas 618?) with a milling attachment. I asked about it and he let me take it home! So now I have plans to clean it up, repaint it, and get it going.

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So my question is, could I put stepper motors on the X,Y, and Z of the this Lathe/Mill and use the X-Controller to make a CNC mill? I would like to lathe/mill aluminum, brass, delrin, wood.

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Yes. This should be doable. Mill / Lathe conversions are pretty commonplace.

List of them, some w/ plans at: Reddit - Dive into anything

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The only problem I see is the same as I have with my Atlas 618 it becomes a 4 axis and my problem is how do you forw and rev the chuck, I have a table top mill and that is doable because it is 3 axis machine

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It came with a bunch of end mills and the milling attachment. With those accessories it makes the lathe into a 3 axis milling machine. The cutting bit goes into the spinning collet. The cutter is stationary, and the part is moved with an X, Y, and Z axis steppers (up-down, left-right, and in-out). I don’t need or want 4th axis. That’s why I was wondering if the X-Controller would be able to work.