Joe's 1000x600x200 steel and aluminium router started

[devmonkey]

Once I fit the gantry end plate assemblies to the gantry I wont be able to mount the Z assembly without removing one of them, therefore I think this it is time to align and tighten the Y rails to the gantry in their final location.

For this I have just machined some precise setting tools, they were machined as a pair to ensure they are identical.



Here they are attached to the gantry, they bolt into the T-slot. Plan is to snug them up, the milled faces should then act as a reference surface to match up the reference edge on the hiwin rail, they will be moved along for each rail bolt. Note that I made them long enough so they extend across two of the high points that are on the reference plane on the face of the gantry extrusion.



First gantry end assembly bolted in place, I used countersunk M8 bolts rather than cap head to reduce the amount of material removal for the counterbore, meant the countersinks had to be done on the mill as there is very little adjustment vs a cap head. As well as the 8 M8 bolts into the end of the extrusion there are also two M6 bolts bolting up through the X bearing plate into the two T-slots on the bottom of the gantry.



Bottom view showing bolts fixing up into extrusion:


Plate-plate joint using the alignment slot: