Hello everyone - wanted to take this opportunity to introduce myself.

Hello everyone - wanted to take this opportunity to introduce myself.
I’m USA based and built my first CNC mill roughly 10 years ago. I’d seen some pictures of home-built CNC mills on the Internet at the time, and decided to build one of my own. I did not use any plans or drawings so the first generation machine was a learning experience for me.
This one had a 30x30x5 (all in inches) workable space if the feed rate was turned down. Since I had built most of it using hand tools, some holes were slightly off and I had a taper on the horizontal for the Y axis. This caused pressure to be exhibited on the bearings as the Y axis table traversed to the back and if the feed rate was too high some steps would get lost.
I’ve since torn this machine apart when I was moving to a new house and am currently in the process of rebuilding it using 1" Thomson shafts (upgraded from the 1/2" Thomson shafts in the picture), 240oz steppers (upgraded from the 60oz steppers in the picture), and replacing the Ryobi spindle with a 1/3HP variable speed DC motor with a gear driven R8 taper.
I currently have a stand for it to sit on built and the Y axis assembly complete. Trying to find time to work on the uprights for the X axis and hope to have those done in the next few weeks.
While I am not a professional machinist, I did have 3 generations of machinists in the family - two of which are still around. It would be a disservice if I did not say that I ask my father (who is still a machinist after 38 years) for some advice or help with G-Code from time to time.

Glad to be a part of the community, and joined right at the new year!