DIY Epoxy composite gantry frame milling machine

[pippin88]

John, looks like a great build.

If you don't mind sharing, where in Aus are you? I'm in Melbourne.

I'm in the early design stages of a DIY mill. Manual conversions are troublesome, and true CNC machines are either tiny or very large and not feasible in the home shop / garage.

I'm planning a steel weldment, stress relieved and machined +/- ground. This is partly because I've struggled to find clear recipes for epoxy granite and don't really want to spend months experimenting. I may use epoxy granite to fill voids and add mass.
I'm looking at doing a planer style mill - double columns, with the gantry moving up and down on the columns. This avoids the long lever arm Z axis, but is a bit more complex to align.

I have a couple of comments and questions about your build:

I really like the rail alignment cams - did you make these or buy them? They are going to be great for both alignment and increasing mounting strength of the rails.

The Z axis travel seems a bit short compared to your other travels. What sort of spindle / tool holder are you going to use?

What was the cost of the laser cut steel? Do they cost it per cm cutting length or similar? I'm interesting in getting a milling head and gantry beam laser cut. I'll probably use square hollow section for the base however.