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.

[Desertboy]

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.

Nice work, I'm shitting making the mounting plates the plan was to pay to have them made but I have considered trying to make them myself by printing to scale on A4 clear sticky plastic sheets. Then sticking the plastic onto the plates and use a drill press. You're inspiring me ;)

If I have them made I will have the mounts to the SBR made in steel and the mount for the z axis (Which will also be the z axis) from aluminium. Whatever happens I need to have the aluminium plate made as it will have 2 bearings pressure fitted fro the ballscrew so needs to be super accurate.

[hoppo]

Nice work, I'm shitting making the mounting plates the plan was to pay to have them made but I have considered trying to make them myself by printing to scale on A4 clear sticky plastic sheets. Then sticking the plastic onto the plates and use a drill press. You're inspiring me ;)

Ha, that's more or less exactly what I did. The quotes to have them made were coming in at silly money. I think one quote for the two plates was over £600. This forced my hand. I figured that two pieces of aluminium cut to size would be cheap enough. I think the postage almost doubled the price. I then printed the layout to scale on the wife's cheapo laser printer. Used parcel tape to stick it to the aluminium and centre punched through the paper. I was also shitting it about this but it was pretty straightforward looking back. I thought I had a photo somewhere of the paper stuck to the aluminium, I'll have another look see f I can find it.


The marking out process.

I reckon I could almost as easily have made them in steel if I had access to a better pillar drill and took my time with plenty of cutting oil.

Cheers

[Desertboy]

Ha, that's more or less exactly what I did. The quotes to have them made were coming in at silly money. I think one quote for the two plates was over £600. This forced my hand. I figured that two pieces of aluminium cut to size would be cheap enough. I think the postage almost doubled the price. I then printed the layout to scale on the wife's cheapo laser printer. Used parcel tape to stick it to the aluminium and centre punched through the paper. I was also shitting it about this but it was pretty straightforward looking back. I thought I had a photo somewhere of the paper stuck to the aluminium, I'll have another look see f I can find it.

I reckon I could almost as easily have made them in steel if I had access to a better pillar drill and took my time with plenty of cutting oil.

Cheers

The only reason I would have them made in steel is my mate has the equipment to do it and told me it's actually easier for him to do steel than aluminium.

£600 robbing bastards I was quoted £100 cash if I supply my material but I have less plates.

The good bit is once we get our machine working if we ever want to make another one we can make our own plates on our machines ;)