Quote Originally Posted by Smiler View Post
If you just box in the sides with ply, that will do the trick Irving. It will also give you a rather nice enclosed cabinet for your tooling too. Bookshelves get a very large part of their strength from the usually very thin back panel and they can be loaded well in excess of 300kg :) If I was back at work I could run it through Solidworks FEA package for you but knowing you, you have done your sums on it :)

Regards, Jeff.
I did do a certain amount of analysis including checking the Euler buckling load for the legs - there's a 100% safety margin there... :D

Anyway as of this evening my son helped me put the head on (he's a foot taller than me and works out so he was able to lift it up while I stood on a ladder and manoeuvred it into place), its all levelled, motor is installed and the whole thing runs silently.... all I need now is some tooling!