John's Alu Profile build

[Evengravy]

Not sure if anyone's still following along, but I'll pop stuff in here regardless for sake of completion.

Concrete top has been poured. All in all it wasn't very difficult with the help of my brother in law and a cement mixer. I ended up pouring just over 500KG of my initial glass fibre mix scaled up. I was a bit nervous that the mould wouldn't hold up to the pressure/weight, but it seems to be okay (touch wood).

Just for reference, the mixer held:

50KG of sand
50KG cement
to this I added:
150g of super plasticiser
1.5KG of glass fibre
circa 8L of water, added gradually to play the mix by ear a little.

I ended up with five of these mixes in total in this top section. I don't envy the person that has to remove this, and hope that it isn't me....



I've covered this in plastic sheet (not shown) to prevent it from drying out too quickly so that it can cure properly and I'm going to have to give this a mould at least a week before touching it. What I'll likely do is leave the mould sides in place and cast the epoxy top before removing the sides. I do need to do some careful figuring out to maximise the use of my z travel though. There may be a case where I'll have to increase the height of the Y rails to this top to give me sufficient clearance to fit my vice etc. but that is to be determined and most likely unnecessary.

[Kitwn]

I don't envy the person that has to remove this, and hope that it isn't me....

Don't worry. The next owners of the house can turn it into a poole table

Looking forward to seeing the final machine and how you make the gantry to match the base.

[Evengravy]

Don't worry. The next owners of the house can turn it into a poole table

Looking forward to seeing the final machine and how you make the gantry to match the base.

That's a good point! Next up epoxy layer, I'm still looking around for materials atm. If anyone has any heads up on a low viscosity resin I'd appreciate it. I used one years ago on the Momus CNC base but completely forget the manufacturers name. I'm sure I'll find something though.

[Clive S]

That's a good point! Next up epoxy layer, I'm still looking around for materials atm. If anyone has any heads up on a low viscosity resin I'd appreciate it. I used one years ago on the Momus CNC base but completely forget the manufacturers name. I'm sure I'll find something though.

Wests system https://www.westsystem.com/the-105-s...ins-hardeners/