Hi Ramsbury

Guts on masonry always under the table with a Drip check and should be dry when you look under when the machine is in full spray.
I noticed that on the ones i looked at, am trying to avoid it, becuse of the rebuild time required if they do fail, Knowing that the rails and baering will fail, i want them accssesable without heavy lifting.

I think the V barings and design styles on stone machines are to do with the machine weight, and i think , with the right design, you can reduce the required weight substantialy, making everything else easyer to make.

With top mounted V Baerings, you need a considerable weight gantry, just to hold it on the rack. and there starts you chicken and egg game with motor sizes and rails.

Wereas, i am considering, bolting on a lenght of 160*50 by 3mm , down the X, and mounting rails both on the top and underneith, using the shearing/form strengh of the baerings and rails to act like a counter weight when the Z is pushing down. Allowing the gantry to be considerably lighter, and easy to design.

Am going a lillte under 2200mm on the X, becuase i think i need to maintain a relationship between the size of X, and the gap between to baerings on the Y width per side, to small a gap will allow to much resonence down the rails, With the Y Lenght at 1200mm, i think i need the Y width someware between 300mm and 400mm, That meens if i want a X cutting area of 2000mm i need an overhang of 200mm on each end of the X ( making the X approx 2500mm in lenght. Am working on the principal that the Y width needs to be at least 1/8th of the X lenght to counter resonance down the X Rails,

I think ( scratching my head ) that the math works out, to give the Gantry enough force to not deflect under the chip loading of the cutter, pushing through stone.

Do you get what i mean ?

I was also thinking of fixing accordion cover to the X and Y if possible, to help counter dust