I've been paying some attention to my X and Z Axes design this week and I'm starting to question whether I have built my gantry too high. The fully extended Z Axis looks like it could be vulnerable to excessive deflection given the amount of extension from the gantry.

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What I realised is that most of the work I'll be doing will be on relatively thin material (12-40mm) so the router will be operating at full extension most of the time. I also realised that this must be a problem for a lot of machines; do most people raise the bed in order to minimise the deflection of the cutter? I would like to work material up to 100mm thick and I currently have about 120mm clear travel on my Z axis.

Rather than compromise my design to accomodate thick material do you think I would be better to design a machine to work thin material well and accept that I just won't be able to work thicker material. Being able to work thicker material was a bonus rather than a necessity.