I need to lose weight !

[cropwell]

I have a reasonable stock of short-ish lengths of steel, box section, angle and flat bar and I plan to design and build a welded and bolted machine approx 1100x850 (mm). That is the outside of the frame. I have plenty of 100x50x5 box. My calculation is that the main beam of the gantry would weigh 8.4Kg and you could probably triple that with the sides, rails, screws and motors.

I reckon I could lighten it by cutting out the sides, taking 12 60x60 triangles out of each side, but this would only reduce the weight by 1.8Kg, so no real gain there.

I have also enough 50x50x3 box to make the whole machine, but I would prefer a beefier gantry.

So is a 25Kg gantry stupidly heavy ? I would like to make a really sturdy machine after my experience with my current wibbly wobbly A4 MD butter cutter.

Comments please, so I can start the design off properly. I have attached a dwg file of the cut outs I envisage on the gantry sides.

Thanks,

Rob

Gantry.dwg This is an AutoCAD R14 file, but it will open with most 2D drawing programs.