Quote Originally Posted by Neale View Post
- (and this one is probably a bit more contentious) - consider very carefully if you really need a bridge. I'm not sure if it causes problems due to shrinkage or not - I don't think it does but ...
I totally agree that the benefits of a bridge between the X sides does not justify the pain. Like you said you can easily make up that small height difference when you mate your gantry and x base blocks with epoxy putty which one has to do anyway to ensure one doesn't put stress on the bearings when bolting the gantry to the x bases. I've done mine without a bridge and I did not have any issues or weird side effects afterwards with setting up my gantry, so go for it. Others might have had a different experience but my epoxy does not create a perfectly flat surface. The epoxy scrapes VERY nicely so I used a 260mm long planer/thicknesser blade to scrape it to spec.
I guess not needing epoxy casting is first prize and in hind sight, I'd be very surprised if the end result is more more accurate than using the filing and shimming process as described by Jazz.