Joe's 1000x600x200 steel and aluminium router started

[devmonkey]

Yes probably seen gantry I've shown built from plate and few others used it or adapted to there machines. It makes for a very stiff gantry,

However, it needs a lot more work compared to HD profile. I've used all methods of constructing gantry's and HD profile is by far simpler with more than enough strength for any Router cutting materials up to Aluminium.

Hi Jazz,

Thanks for the advice. Do you have any pictures or wise words on how a 'stiff' gantry was made with plate? From the calculations I did a simple channel from 16mm plate is not sufficiently stiff in torsion at 1/10th that of 160x80 profile.

I'm trying to reuse a set of HGR15 rails left over from another project on the Y. These were originally purchased to replace rails on a much larger machine that had rusted badly, since then that machine has been written off.

15mm rails are too narrow to go over an 8mm slot, this means they will need to be drilled and tapped into the centre flat section between two slots or another plate milled to bridge the slots and then mounted to that. If the latter then it isn't much more work to mill up a front plate as well.

If I already had 20mm rails for Y then the profile would be a no brainer as the rails could be bolted straight into the slot.