AndyUK's Build - 1.2x1.0m Gantry

They look really good [emoji122]

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Congrats on the baby and those cubes look excellent...:triumphant::toot::thumsup:

Awesome inlay work,I hope to use that technique on my guitar building projects.
Congratulations for the new family member!!!

Love the blocks! You can never start too early in developing a mature, discriminating aesthetic sense in the young.

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Originally Posted by Clive S

Andy Welcome to the forum and a merry Xmas.

You have certainly done some good research with the design. I use dual motors and home them independently with no problem.
The usual advise on here is to advise not to order any electronics (or kits of electronic)s as thing often change in the design. I don't think you will need the dual screws to be full length as you can move the nut mounting a bit further back on the gantry side and save about 200 mm of screw length.

I would also consider for the gantry HD ally profile say 90 x 45 two pieces one horizontal and the other on top vertical the slots in them are correct for BK12 bearing mount etc. so make it very simple.

Anyway just two sleeps for Xmas:beer:

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Sorry to quote such an old post but isn't the hole spacing for BK12 46mm? Does it just work with the 45mm spacing on the extrusions? Definitely would save some work if so.

Evening Folks.

One of my original aims for this machine had been to help with the other half's glass work. We've made jigs, and aluminium bead making tools, but until now haven't touched glass itself.

I kinda expected to need a water cooling trough, and to use a diamond burr to grind the glass away. Recently though, we stumbled on some people using a scoring wheel without any of that faff and thought we'd give it a try. Wheel cost us a couple of quid and is a drag style.

I first probed the surface because it's not spring loaded yet, so you'll hear the machine doing some funky Z adjustments as it goes.

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https://youtu.be/YuUrgRtUUt0

Anyhow, she's delighted with the results, mainly because the CNC maintains a perfect perpendicular to the score line, so the pieces break out really nicely in comparison to amateurs cutting manually!!

Here's our first test piece where we cut a large hexagon and lots of small diamonds before a brief trip to the kiln:

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All float glass so far, we'll start using the good quality stuff next for a real project :)

Whilst I'm doing project updates... One of our other time sinks is being on the water. I'm currently rewiring our boat and thought it would be nice to give it a custom control panel. I've blanked out the identification area, but it was great fun to design and make this exactly how I wanted it.

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Being a sailor also comes with a drinking habit, so you also need a nice drinks table for the cockpit. We grabbed some appropriate plastic tumblers and used the CNC to carve perfectly fitting cupholders, and nicely inlay the hinges into some Sapele. The hardest part of this project was the varnish :/

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Finally, the tender needed some love too, so along with steam bending new gunwales I also CNCed a new transom for it. Don't ask my why we've called our tender floss - I'm not even sure I know myself.

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And last, but by no means least, my Daughter's Christmas present. I took a few months over this one, which probably says more about how little free time we get these days!

I saw the solid oak toy boxes from makemesomethingspecial - and was utterly obsessed. I had to make one, and now I have an excuse to have a toy box around... So off I went to find some appropriate oak, and into CAD I went. Here is the result - although again I've removed her name which is carved in the front through the wonder of Google's magic eraser (hasn't it done an amazing job matching the grain?!) - Complete with the box's owner playing peak-a-boo inside. Don't worry for her hands, the hinges are rockler's torsion spring hinges, so the lid stays exactly where its left.

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One of the features I really love are the finger joints. Because I lack manual woodworking skills, I decided they had to be fully CNCed. So I chose the round the edges of the fingers to match the cutters radius on the internal corners. This meant not only rounding them in the profile cut, but also using a matched round over bit on the back face of each piece.

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And then of course the lid needed some inlays. I couldn't think of anything better than the Disney Winnie the pooh quote, so I went with that alongside some purple-heart purple hearts. Corny? Yeah. But cute, too.

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Hi Andy
Amazing use for your cnc router - never thought about cutting plate glass using CNC. I have a big slab of 10mm float glass that I use for tramming the spindle on my machine because it is relatively flat. My machine is currently in its transport cradle since December 2021 when I moved house. Getting the garage sorted out now and just need 4 burly guys to help me lift it into position...

Great build!

Not sure if I missed it, but did you do any stress relieved given that you welded? If not, i assume residual stress would affect the structure overtime. I ve been asking this question on DIY facebook groups but havent received a good answer. Given that you are a physicist by trade I would love to hear your opinion on the matter.

Thank you!