Questions on using a moving gantry style mini-mill...

[Davek0974]

Ok, lets run this up the flagpole...

This is the job - two parts. Outer line is the base metal - 5mm Aluminium, the three point down the centre are M6 screws for fixing to the bed.

Looking at it now I can pretty much see why it failed - once the last pass of the roughing cut is made down the centres there is bugger all holding the two parts to the central stub - just the centre holding tabs which were way too thin to stand up to the cut.

This is my next plan - place some full-depth tabs maybe 10mm wide where the red dots are, make all the cuts, including the finish passes, then using the 2mm finish tool add some cuts to nibble away at the tabs after maybe fixing a couple of clamps - as suggested.


Doomed to failure or possible plan ?