DIY Epoxy composite gantry frame milling machine

**Lee Roberts** · 19-03-2019

This is looking fantastic John well done,

Example of how the rails will be aligned by Laser cut Then countersunk by me later cams Held by 30mm x M8 CSK machine screws, screwed into the pre turned drilled and tapped inserts glued into the lapped mounting bars. (Prior to drilling and tapping the M6 holes to mount the liner rails). This will be done after the casting has been made, small errors in placement prior to casting is easily corrected here. The cams will also make a very rigid mount for the rails.

I like the idea you've used for rail positioning with the disks/cams, what are the smaller holes in each disk for?

Looking forward to seeing how the rollers come into play!

**mekanik** · 19-03-2019

Hi Lee
Would imagine for a peg spanner to align the cams prior to locking.
Regards
Mike

**John McNamara** · 03-08-2019

Hi All

Its been a while since I posted on my machine build, alas not enough time.

At last I have mounted the rails.
I am extremely pleased with the results. the method I designed works as planned.

I was able to position and drill the rails to within +- 0.001mm parallelism and straightness compared to my straight edge. When the machine is finally set up maybe this can be improved upon.

Yes I know that temperature effects etc will mean the the final accuracy of the machine will not be as good as this. However today the dial indicator only moved +- one 0.001mm division.

You can see the blog here:

https://www.model-engineer.co.uk/for...?th=139042&p=4

Regards
John