Joe's 1000x600x200 steel and aluminium router started

[devmonkey]

I temporarily bolted a length of rail to the slot, it seems to mount extremely firmly and doesn't move (maybe helped by the very slight V angle it is sitting in) but must be slightly canted as discussed above. Will decide whether to face mill it tomorrow, another option is just to mill a few mm each side of the slot so the rail can sit flat, this would also preserve the 3 planar points (both corners and centre) in case I mess up.

I initially wanted to fix the rail to the centre however this does increase the moment between the Y bearing and the Z plate by 20mm which may counter the increased stiffness from the firmer rail mounting.Then again the centre of this extrusion will be stiffer than either slot as it i supported equally whereas the slots are supported on one side by the unsupported corner. No idea really.

In the mean time I spent at least an hour tapping the ends:

[Voicecoil]

another option is just to mill a few mm each side of the slot so the rail can sit flat, this would also preserve the 3 planar points (both corners and centre) in case I mess up.

That's likely not such a bad idea as it could give some lateral stabilit - Hiwin suggest sitting the rails in such a groove in the manual. However you'll need to do it accurately as it removes the option for tweaking alignment to some extent.

.Then again the centre of this extrusion will be stiffer than either slot as it i supported equally whereas the slots are supported on one side by the unsupported corner. No idea really.

Routercnc's point about using a tapped strip rather than individual floating nuts might help this.