Small rigid router - Design advise needed

[mitchejc]

Some progress photos. The base was done a while back. I figured its a good place to start to learning welding.

Started with a flat work area and made a jig to get the legs square





welded lower frame



welded upper frame




lower and uper frame done


spot welded legs into place using the jig




welded in braces after the top and bottom frames were welded to the legs.




basically done apart for some diagonals

[mitchejc]

Building the x sides with I-Beam and laser cut parts.

Cutting the i-beam. Thought this was going to be a huge issue because the beam I got is much larger than my cut-off saws capacity but it was done a few minutes later using two cuts and the angle grinder for the remaining bit in the middle.




I got all the holes lasered way oversize and made alu inserts for them. Just figured its a lot easier to ream alu bushes should I need some adjustment later to align things


welded in ball skrew mounts



welded in motor mount


some test fitting just to see how these parts goes together



I think using i-beam for the sides were a good plan and really easy to assemble and I can recommend this kind of approach for other newbies.

[mitchejc]

More work on the x sides. Drilling large dia holes by hand in the thick I-beam turned out to be a mission so I made two mdf boxes and drilled it on my small bench drill.




For basic alignment of the x-sides I used the centres of by ball skrew mounts

Once aligned I welded in tabs to make re-alignment easy


Used steel epoxy putty as per Jazz's suggestion for shimming. Worked like a dream. I can't imaging doing a steel home build without this stuff as there's just no way a beginner is going to weld something of this scale together and end up with perfectly square mated surfaces.






x sides almost done.

[GEOFFREY]

Looking great, and your "shed" is to die for. G.

[Boyan Silyavski]

Looking great, and your "shed" is to die for. G.

I noticed that too. Lucky man. Great development!

[mitchejc]

Thanks gents. The shed was actually build years ago as sort of an entertainment area which I started using as a workshop as there's just no space left in my garage. The tiled floor is a bit of a drawback because its not very flat and my wife still treats the area as hers so she does regular inspections for paint, glue and weld marks on the floor :-)

Have to say I did not realise that building the router was going to this much work! Everything is taking much longer than I thought but I'm enjoying every minute of it. Ahhh well ok not every minute but most of them.

[mitchejc]

After Jazz's stern but true words about over design I do feel a little bit guilty to continue posting pictures but heck, if its not right please comment, so we can all learn.

Completed the alu base plates that joins the gantry to the x rails. I've made the plates adjustable in both y and z direction so I don't have issues putting it all together later. Had the spacing of the ball nut mount wrong on my cad drawing so I had to make little adapter plates and pockets.








Ran a belt sander with 80 grit belt over the alu which did give it a rather rather nice brushed kind of finish.






Done and all holes drilled and tapped. Thought these we going take a few hours but ended up more than a days work


Like most of my parts the actual size of these surprised me when seeing them in the flesh and I probably could have gotten away with much thinner material?