yes he was an electrical engineer a machinist among other things and a great fiddle player and friend for over 50 yrs i also was canadian champion 8 times of course when i was much younger , sorry i got side tracked ,i a waiting for some wire and i will probably get it figured out . i just thought that somebody out there that was working at that sort of thing would be quicker thats all ,thank you all very much for your intrest bye to oldThe TS has already said its an AC motor which is an unusual choice, but then the original owner was looking for traversal not positioning. It does sound like the original owner was a seat-of-the-pants engineer who could make anything work with whatever he had lying around (so kudos to him).
Not a CNC machine user then MrB? Stepper motors are the most common form of motive force for axis motion in small to medium size-machines. My CNC mill and lathe both use steppers. They are relatively cheap yet powerful, easy to drive and position. A typical stepper steps 200 to 400 steps per rev and with the right controller can microstep 8 or 10 steps between the major ones, giving 4000 step/rev or more. Coupled with a suitable leadscrew or toothed belt drive resolutions of 10um are not uncommon and as low as 0.5um are possible. You won't see tool marks...