emily, blinkenlight witchFeb 26
ChonkNC build progress: did some more fabrication. Planning to bolt the gantry legs to the base, but undecided how to attach the gantry to the legs; I'd like to be able to shim it for leveling (which suggests "not welding") but there's no obvious place to put bolts up there.

#theWorkshop #cncmachining
Show threadPalmAndNeedleFeb 26

@emily I would also go with externally welded on tabs and threaded rod. Just would like to add that standard threads have a lot radial and axial clearance in the mechanism and therefore make for poor alignment features.

But also: welded 50mm square steel tube? For a bench top mill?  you could build a gantry 5 times the span and height with that stuff. Why so overly chonk? What's wrong with aluminum extrusion and bolts?

Show threademily, blinkenlight witchFeb 26
@PalmAndNeedle more rigidity more better

and also I have a local supplier that sells their remnants to me cheap, this is ~$100 of steel
Show threademily, blinkenlight witch
@PalmAndNeedle (I have built, slowly upgraded, and later disassembled an aluminum extrusion machine before, about half this size. A lot of the parts that are going on this frame were originally on that one. This is kinda a "what if I do that again, but overkill?" project.)
Feb 26 at 9:41amWeb
Show threadPalmAndNeedleFeb 26
@emily That makes one and a half more than I've built. And yeah, use what you have. I just can't help my engineering brain. Seeing overdimensioned heavy structural builds always makes my spidy senses tingle