MDF and alu sandwich router

[Tom]

OK, a bit more progress this week... And the result is a rolling X axis!! wooo hoooo!!

My Y gantry was ready to go, so this week I drilled the X rails (8mm dia), clamped them to the router bed and adjusted to get things roughly symmetrical. When happy, I put 8mm holes through the router bed itself.

Next I removed the rails and opened the holes out to 12mm dia - this is part of my 'cunning plan' to allow things to be set up just right when it comes to final assembly. The oversize holes allow up to 2mm adjustment in each direction (there's a similar arrangement in the carriages, but only 1mm each way).

I also had to do a bit of 'fine tuning' with a newly ordered 16mm dia bit to counterbore for the hex screwheads. I thought modelling the fasteners in sketchup would be going a bit too far - I was wrong!!

Getting it all fitted up and adjusted was a little fiddly, but not as bad as it could have been! :clap:

And it rolls fairly smoothly.... A bit of a relief!



Pics:
1) Fitting the first X rail
2) Counterbore for screwhead clearance (oops)
3) Looking along one of the rails
4) The whole machine, with Y rails drilled ready to do the whole thing all over again on another 2 axes

Right, I'm off camping for the weekend,
Tom