Router Build Mk 1

[hoppo]

Started construction of the Z axis front and rear plates. Armed with a hammer a center punch, a set of hss drill bits and a few counterbore bits off ebay and my trusty Clarke Bench drill this is the outcome.


Holes all marked out on the Z axis rear panel. This is the part that will attach to two ball screws and 8 bearings.


Drilling starts with earnest. Amazingly way easier than I thought it would be. I did use some cutting oil just in case and got a very good finish on the holes. Again as a newbie and not being too sure about my layout being particularly accurate I oversized the holes by 0.5mm to give me a little bit of wiggle room in case of alignment issues due to my possible dodgy setting out.


Finished drilling the holes on this plate. The larger holes are to take 10mm bolts to fit to the ballscrew block. Drilled at 11mm diameter.


The process begins again for the front plate that will hold the ball screw bearing blocks, spindle mounts and the supported rails.


More drilling.


The two plates with all the holes drilled. All look to be in the right place. I'm fairly happy with how fairly straightforward this was. It was working with aluminum that was most unsure about as I have no real experience working with it. It's just like drilling wood but smoother!


Countersinking of the holes to take the captive bolts that will hold the whole thing together.


The two finished plates, with all the holes in the right place and more importantly all the conterbores on the correct sides. There was a moment of panic when I thought I'd countersunk the larger holes on the wrong side but was relieved when checking the drawings that all was in fact correct. I did get some quite serious chatter whilst countersinking the larger holes. These are 18mm from memory and I had the bench drill on the slowest speed which is about 500rpm. I reckon it would have been better if it could have been slowed down a bit more. Anyway with plenty of cutting oil and only a little ringing in my ears afterwards I think I got away with it.

I hope I didn't 'bore' you all to death with a post that mainly 'revolves' around drilling holes. My wife thinks I'm mental having spent a day in the cellar doing nothing but drilling. Personally I loved it and am feeling quite chuffed.

I hope you found this post useful.

Cheers.