Greetings from Ashbourne, Co Meath, Ireland

Hi Folks,

New member, Nearly 60, a lot of computer experience as both an engineer and programmer, and some of that in interfacing strange equipment to it, so that's going to help. Not as much work as I used to have, and getting back into things like model aircraft, along with a good friend of mine who's an aircraft engineer on full size aircraft.

No CNC experience at all, but have a reasonable workshop with a small Myford lathe, a reasonable pillar drill, 10" table saw, De Walt Compound Mitre saw, thicknesser planer and most of the "standard" hand tools like drills, saws, angle grinders and the like.

For all sorts of reasons, planning to build an 8' x 4' Table, with sufficient overhang that the tool(s) can be run over the edge of the 8 x 4 area, or parked out of the way.

Overhead Gantry, with a view to being able to put router spindle on it initially, and as part of the initial build, to be able to use the gantry Y & Z as the X1 & Y1 for a hot wire cutter, using a demountable pillar at the other end for the X2 & Y2 for the hot wire, for things like wings etc on aircraft.

Longer term, I'd like to be able to put a plasma cutter on the other side of the gantry, and maybe when it gets easier to do, a laser on there as well, so that it becomes a multi function machine. The main side rails will probably be very large, as I can get access to scrap fork lift masts, which means I can get a long and very rigid steel section that should allow me to make the thing with enough rigidity and accuracy to be usable for milling aluminium, and maybe even some light steel work. At some stage I may also consider a rotational axis to allow complex milling of things like turbine discs, my main interest at the moment is model aircraft, and I'd like to build a turbine engine at some stage.

X & Y will probably be rack & pinion driven, and I've got some slightly unorthodox ideas for driving the long (X) that will involve using a high level cross shaft on the gantry, and belt drive each side down to the pinion drive.

The rest of it will be pretty conventional. Y axis will also be most likely rack & pinion, and then the Z will be either ball or "normal" threaded bar of an appropriate size and type.

I'm sure there will be plenty of questions before long, if for no other reason that suppliers over here seem to be very thin on the ground.

Cheers

Steve

Hi Steve and welcome to the site. Some interesting ideas there, we look forward to your build log and debating the whys and wherefores...

So, life got in the way, we had issues with a stream running through the garden causing flooding issues, and the short version is that eventually, the county council was "persuaded" that it had to be dealt with, and a scheme to pipe it into a new channel was approved at the start of 2016, with a timescale of 18 months. HA! They started near us in 2016, but didn't get started in our garden till 2019, and the supposed 18 months grew into over 5 years, so they eventually moved off site literally a couple of months ago, and for most of that time, the garage wasn't properly accessible, so my plans have been well and truly delayed, and now at last, I can start thinking about what to do.

10 years of change means that I'm now not sure what to do, I made the table, it's a very solid steel framed 8 x 4 table, but not done anything beyond that, and with how the technology is changing, I'm thinking more of an x y z table, with the option to change what's on the Z axis between things like a plasma cutter, or a router, or a laser cutter/engraver, possibly even variations on lasers, like diode and CO2, or other options, maybe even a high pressure water cutter, as it seems to me that all of these use pretty much the same movement concept, the only difference being the rigidity of the Z to resist bending, and the speed of movement, and what's under the device, and with how big the table is, I can have different areas of the table for what's needed under the "cutting" area, but it's then a case of deciding the speed and power of the stepper motors that would be needed to move the relevant parts at a suitable speed.

There's still work being done on the garage, the roof needed work, and the old up and over doors are being replaced, but to really crimp plans, as a result of a mishap with a hole saw at the weekend, I'm now not able to do much for a month, having cut a tendon in my thumb, so now, I'm in reasearch and plan mode for what to do once I can again use both hands, hence this post, I want to decide the best way forward to be able to do small scale engineering projects, the model flying side has had to be scaled back, as my friend has advanced Parkinsons, which has impacted his fine motor skills and mobility, so I'm going to be looking at things like small scale (SM32) steam garden railway, and related sorts of engineering, so nothing seriously heavy weight or size wise, and despite the passage of time, I'm still OK mobility wise, so hopefully, can achieve what I want to do.

So, a few pointers towards possible routes would help, Ireland is not great in terms of suppliers, even for basics like Aluminium extrusions, so I may have to use UK suppliers for some of the components, but I can get things delivered to family members, it's not a huge deal.

So, let's see where this goes, I'm motivated to get this moving again at last, after a huge delay with the works in the garden that massively disrupted our lives.

Thanks

Steve