I alligned the stock using a square off the left end of the table. This isn't critical and gauging from the way the cutter tracked the scribed lines, it worked out well.
Between the mill table and the stock there is a piece of pressboard so I don't screw up the table.
I used Home Depot 2" x 1/8" aluminum stock and the original tables as a pattern, scribed them onto the stock, set them up on the mill and had at :-).
After this I cleaned up the piece with a file and de-burring tool.
These are not perfect, I'm still gaining experience. You can see some dings where I turned the handwheels the wrong way from where I wanted to go.
Lesson learned: Check the slot for mounting bolt clearance before you take it off the mill. Scribe lines were somewhat inside the bolt clearance dimension, took a little bit of file work to make up for that - much easier to do on the mill :-).
1/8" sure sounds trivial until you start trying to make 90 degree bends in short pieces of it.
I picked up the brake from Harbor Freight because of the price :-) but had not considered it as it is only good to 16 gauge steel.
Out of frustration I decided to give it a try anyway, not expecting anything. Using a C clamp on top of the piece I wanted to bend didn't work out but the vice grips did.
With what I wanted to bend pretty much up against the side it worked! Quite surprised and please!
Sitting on top of the retainer bar you can see one that I tried to bend manually and then stuffed in the brake to see what happened. Straightening it out was more trouble than it was worth and being test pieces of scrap they had served thier purpose.
Set both to about 10 degrees for grinding tool bits for the lathe.
