Hello there,

I'm Charles, from Ramsbottom. :-) My interests are to ultimately build a CNC router, 4'x8' bed, plywood work, with small scale aluminium capability. I have an engineering background, mainly design/stress analysis/machine performance optimisaiton, but some (non hands on machine) shopfloor experience from my days at David Brown (Huddersfield), so I've seen how it's done but without the practical experience myself - no electrics experience though. I can weld - good enough to make a frame and gantry, am interested in the 'vertical' JAZZ orientation for space saving (but would like to build in horizontal plane!, :-)). My interests in terms of usage are potentially cutting out speaker cabinet parts, plywood boat parts (stitch and glue), foil profiles (i.e. centre boards /rudders), and possibly machining high efficiency (long and narrow with high pitch) aluminium propellers for human powered boat type craft, ...and I'm sure the list will grow. I'm not sure how much Z-axis I want because the option to 3D mill blocks of foam for hulls might be useful - this could be kept to a minimum since the hull could be sliced up and layered (in Z), and stuck together afterwards, and 8ft long is a slight limitation anyway, ...but 400mm Z will probably be an acceptable compromise - I'm wondering if this can be achieved by a bed that can be removed/lowered (a head in hands moment), so the gantry doesn't have to be high up for the majority of (panel) work or the Z working at the bottom of the stroke - is it possibly for the bed to be in the middle???, so the split is 200mm above the table, plus another 200mm below when table is removed. Timescale - nothing required quickly - this is a longer term project - just need to determine design spec and typical equipment BOM & costs, spending the money ideally needs to be spread out over time if possible - budget will be whatever is required to sensibly meet the spec. - I need to avoid fixing spec and obsolesence kicking in for parts that I haven't obtained yet. I'd initially like to connect up with some other local people to go and see what they're doing - may try and contact a few. Thanks for a great forum.

Best regards,

Charles