Ready Steady Eddy

[Wobblycogs]

Have you managed to bolt those two pieces of box section together inside (middle picture in power #180)? I'd love to know how you managed that if you have. I seriously considered trying that but there was no way I could think to get my arm in the box section and tools would be hellishly fiddly.

[EddyCurrent]

Have you managed to bolt those two pieces of box section together inside (middle picture in power #180)? I'd love to know how you managed that if you have. I seriously considered trying that but there was no way I could think to get my arm in the box section and tools would be hellishly fiddly.

The rails on the gantry are 800mm long, they have 15 bolt holes. When I drilled the holes in the gantry to mount the bottom rail I made every other one 6.5mm, the others were 3.2mm tapping size. The 6.5mm holes, all 7 of them, were drilled right through both box sections to take 6mm hex bolts and that's what you can see in the photo. To get the bolts in the holes I used a magnet on a telescopic rod (Aldi's best), to get the nuts on I used a long thin piece of wood with double sided tape on one end. To the tape I stuck a nut, put some Loctite in it and 'stuck' a spring washer to it also with Loctite, this was lowered into the box section and using a long allen key on the head of the hex bolts (through the 6.5mm hole) I managed to attach both washer and nut. The other end of the thin stick had a taper or wedge cut out of it and this was used to stop the nut turning by wedging the stick between it and the inside face of the box section, the bolt was then tightened.
I glued a piece of 6x30 mild steel flat bar inside the box section then drilled and tapped all 15 holes for the rail thus making all 15 holes 3.2mm tapping size.

6x30mm flat bar glued inside to provide tapped holes for bottom gantry rail mounting.



Stick, telescopic magnet