School me on the best machine for big hardwood

[Clive S]

To press on with my design I now really need to commit to either a moving gantry or a fixed gantry. I originally went with a fixed gantry based on what I saw this Maltese luthier doing (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MCyIZIcg48). Its a bit rough and ready looking, but my mechanical intuition is telling me it is a good way forward. Certainly moving 2kg of wood seems like a much easier job than an entire gantry holding a 2.2kw ER20 spindle. Then I saw the thread of Wal's machine and I liked the simplicity and elegance of it - so I went down that route. Now I'm dithering again between the two (can you guess I'm a ditherer yet, hahaha?)

Fixed gantry will take up more floor space and moving gantry. if you are comparing that with the one Wal built then there is no comparison between the two. I pointed you to Joe's machine not for the way it is built but the methods he used with the hand held router. Also he has on his site a very good vid on building the power supply. There are only three components in it.

I forgot but go for 20mm square rails if you can. all this can be got from Fred at BST in China along with the ball screws and bk bf bearings etc.

Also noted the need for substantial motoring to move the gantry.

nemas 23 will be more than enough with the correct drives.

Re the CAD it is always a good idea to do a design first. I don't think Wal's machine is anything like 100Kg