[CarveOne]

'THAT' is gorgeous!

I wonder if there are any DXFs out there for popular shotguns and hunting rifles...

Thanks. Break action shotguns have a rotating joint like this, and I've not seen it used on the Thompson Center frames. Usually the sides of the frame are exposed between the grip and forend.

What I might have to do, is buy some cheap stocks of the most popular rifles and shotguns.. Or maybe I could borrow a couple and get the measurements from those... I guess I could always sell the stocks I buy after getting the measurements...

Making it from measurements is difficult. Probing it as restless1 suggests will give much better accuracy to create a point cloud with. It still will be a lot of effort. Laser scans may be better.

I have about 12" of Z travel, and so far seems to be pretty good at the extreme end of things.. but of course I haven't really pushed it yet or worked with hardwoods...

That should be enough Z range for almost all rifles.

So you're into competition shooting?

No, just sport target shooting occasionally. And not much of that anymore.

CarveOne

[Mountaincraft]

I wonder if manufacturers might give out critical dimension information? I would think that a healthy market for aftermarket products would be a plus for their sales...

[CarveOne]

I wonder if manufacturers might give out critical dimension information? I would think that a healthy market for aftermarket products would be a plus for their sales...

Probably not voluntarily anyway. If you probe or scan one it would be in your favor to reshape the less important areas to make it look different enough to discourage lawsuits.

I haven't looked to see if there are any free rifle stock files out on the web. I just hacked one out on the band saw and went with the flow for shaping it after epoxy laminating the three layers of wood.

CarveOne

[Mountaincraft]

Probably not voluntarily anyway. If you probe or scan one it would be in your favor to reshape the less important areas to make it look different enough to discourage lawsuits.

I haven't looked to see if there are any free rifle stock files out on the web. I just hacked one out on the band saw and went with the flow for shaping it after epoxy laminating the three layers of wood.

CarveOne

Oh, I'd definitely make the overall shape my own design.. I'm just more concerned about the mating surfaces between the rifle and the stock...

[CarveOne]

Oh, I'd definitely make the overall shape my own design.. I'm just more concerned about the mating surfaces between the rifle and the stock...

You can get into all sorts of discussions about how to bed the receiver to the wood stock. I put steel inserts with epoxy glue at the mounting screws in all of mine. Everything else was free floated. How to do it the "right way" is like a religion to some.

CarveOne

[Mountaincraft]

You can get into all sorts of discussions about how to bed the receiver to the wood stock. I put steel inserts with epoxy glue at the mounting screws in all of mine. Everything else was free floated. How to do it the "right way" is like a religion to some.

CarveOne

Guns 'period' are like religion to some... LOL..

[CarveOne]

Guns 'period' are like religion to some... LOL..

How well I know. Been there, done that. I used to do some passable hand checkering also.

CarveOne

[Mountaincraft]

Plastic Router Bit by Amana Tool Router Bits

As you can see from the chart, Amana recommends almost 50ipm at 1xD, or 1/8" doc, and you slow down proportionally as the doc increases. I've cut lexan at 40ipm no problems with the 1/8" bit one pass, so I wouldn't be too worried. These bits are more durable than you think! I try to ramp in rather than plunge, usually at about 1/2 speed. But with your router running full gun, I probably would keep the feedraes up...

Like 'what?' the 50 ipm you listed, or higher than that even?

I'm probably gonna try and cut some acrylic for the first time today or tonite, and want to get all the info i can first...

Designed my dust boot, and it's a monster (although the actual dust collection area is reasonable)... 20" long by 8" wide with a 6.5" round dust collection work area.. It'll work for now, but I will need to redesign the whole thing later to make it more compact.. As it is, it will limit my ability to use the router up close to the gantry... But it's a nice exercise in learning to use all this stuff...

and I designed the light ring mount too, so I'm ready to cut that..

The stuff I ordered from Woodcraft should be here today, so once I get the hose adapter mount, I can put the finishing touches on the design and cut it all out...

Been working on building my vegetable/hops garden while there was a break in the weather, so haven't done a whole lot on the table other than just learning more about Cut 2D, and researching a few things... Got a nice 2D DXF vector of my favorite football team logo the other day, so I carved a couple of those in my sacrifice board.. LOL

Supposed to snow tonight.. crazy

[Mountaincraft]

When I do the dust boot, I need to machine on two sides of the plywood..

So to align it, I was thinking of first cutting the plywood material blank from a large sheet using the CNC to make sure it is perfectly square...

Then I thought I'd screw down a couple 3" wide pieces of MDF or pine or plywood to the sacrifice board at right angles to each other, and have the CNC mill out a square 'corner' in them at exactly half the x/y dimension of the material piece... then I could lock the piece hard against the block, cut one side, and then flip it over and cut the other side with reasonable confidence that things will line up..

Does this sound like a good way to approach this problem, or is there a 'better' way?

Also, this will be my first use of 'tabs'... I set them to .250" long, and .125" high, holding a piece of 3/4" plywood cutting out a 6" and 3.5" circle, and an oval that is 20" by 8".. 4 tabs on each of the three... Does that sound good? I figured I'd cut them loose with a box cutter or a small wood chisel....

[RossMosh]

A couple of ways to do it but I suggest you cut your piece out. Then take a piece of scrap and cut the shape into your scrap so that your piece will fit very snuggly. Do whatever clamping you need. Then finish your machining.

A simpler way when possible is to do two pieces. It saves a lot of time and energy.

[Mountaincraft]

So I had the day off today because it was raining (and snowing if you can believe it)... and my stuff from WoodCraft arrived, so I used the time to move forward a bit...

I got the hose out of the box, and it is indeed different than the 2" hose I already had.. but the interesting thing is that it doesn't matter.. as things are sized so that 2.5" hose fits on the outside of 2" fittings, where the 2" hose fits on the inside of the same fittings...

But it 'did' matter as the hose pass through I made on the back half of my vacuum dust shoe mount was hair too small for the new hose.. Even though I tried to make it big enough no matter what, it turns out that my motor steps per inch setting was off just enough so that my openings were about a 32nd of an inch less than what I specified.. That's all fixed now...

The good news i, that a length of attachment fitting extension for my shop vac fit through there fine.. so I made some adjustments to my designs, and made an adapter from wood to accept it, and all is well.. Although it made the shoe even longer than it already was, and the adapter I bought from WoodCraft irrelevant..

So I started cutting out all the parts I had been designing over the last week while waiting for this order to arrive.. It all fit pretty good except that the opening in the dust shoe for the router and everything associated with it was off by about 5/8".. It works fine none the less.. but bugs the crap out of me... I'll make a new one later after I get the light ring mounted and the dust deputy in place...

This thing works great! It's gonna be nice to not have to follow the thing around with the hose, which only did a half assed job anyways.... Now I can stand back and 'watch' while hugging a cup of coffee...

So this thing is big and bulky, but does the trick.. and the cool think about using the stationary design, is that any dust that happened to get away from the shoe, can be vacuumed up by using the jog controls...

Anyways, once I get the dust deputy hooked up, I'll clean out the vac filter real good and this thing should work great.. and when I cut the next one, with the holes in the right place, I won't have to worry about dust all over the place from cutting that big pocket...

Instead of using weather strip or a brush, I ended up using 1/2" caulk backing.. and then routed a 1/4" cove around the opening underneath to accept it.. then just used a little painters caulk as adhesive...

The new shoe (with the hole in the right place), once made, will get sanded and coated with verathane.. might even carve a logo into it like I did on the front mount.. then I'll cut the rods down to length, and start thinking about a better way to adjust it than wing nuts on threaded rod...

[Mountaincraft]

A couple of ways to do it but I suggest you cut your piece out. Then take a piece of scrap and cut the shape into your scrap so that your piece will fit very snuggly. Do whatever clamping you need. Then finish your machining.

In the end, this is what I ended up doing.. But I had to increase the size of the opening by a few thousandths, as there was no way I was gonna get it in or out without pounding it... It was that tight..

[louieatienza]

So I had the day off today because it was raining (and snowing if you can believe it)... and my stuff from WoodCraft arrived, so I used the time to move forward a bit...

I got the hose out of the box, and it is indeed different than the 2" hose I already had.. but the interesting thing is that it doesn't matter.. as things are sized so that 2.5" hose fits on the outside of 2" fittings, where the 2" hose fits on the inside of the same fittings...

But it 'did' matter as the hose pass through I made on the back half of my vacuum dust shoe mount was hair too small for the new hose.. Even though I tried to make it big enough no matter what, it turns out that my motor steps per inch setting was off just enough so that my openings were about a 32nd of an inch less than what I specified.. That's all fixed now...

The good news i, that a length of attachment fitting extension for my shop vac fit through there fine.. so I made some adjustments to my designs, and made an adapter from wood to accept it, and all is well.. Although it made the shoe even longer than it already was, and the adapter I bought from WoodCraft irrelevant..

So I started cutting out all the parts I had been designing over the last week while waiting for this order to arrive.. It all fit pretty good except that the opening in the dust shoe for the router and everything associated with it was off by about 5/8".. It works fine none the less.. but bugs the crap out of me... I'll make a new one later after I get the light ring mounted and the dust deputy in place...

This thing works great! It's gonna be nice to not have to follow the thing around with the hose, which only did a half assed job anyways.... Now I can stand back and 'watch' while hugging a cup of coffee...

So this thing is big and bulky, but does the trick.. and the cool think about using the stationary design, is that any dust that happened to get away from the shoe, can be vacuumed up by using the jog controls...

Anyways, once I get the dust deputy hooked up, I'll clean out the vac filter real good and this thing should work great.. and when I cut the next one, with the holes in the right place, I won't have to worry about dust all over the place from cutting that big pocket...

Instead of using weather strip or a brush, I ended up using 1/2" caulk backing.. and then routed a 1/4" cove around the opening underneath to accept it.. then just used a little painters caulk as adhesive...

The new shoe (with the hole in the right place), once made, will get sanded and coated with verathane.. might even carve a logo into it like I did on the front mount.. then I'll cut the rods down to length, and start thinking about a better way to adjust it than wing nuts on threaded rod...

Looks cool... I think Enco sells the speed nuts that they use for the depth stop on drill press quills; that might make adjustments go faster... though I don't know what thread sizes are avavilable...

[louieatienza]

Like 'what?' the 50 ipm you listed, or higher than that even?

I'm probably gonna try and cut some acrylic for the first time today or tonite, and want to get all the info i can first...

Designed my dust boot, and it's a monster (although the actual dust collection area is reasonable)... 20" long by 8" wide with a 6.5" round dust collection work area.. It'll work for now, but I will need to redesign the whole thing later to make it more compact.. As it is, it will limit my ability to use the router up close to the gantry... But it's a nice exercise in learning to use all this stuff...

and I designed the light ring mount too, so I'm ready to cut that..

The stuff I ordered from Woodcraft should be here today, so once I get the hose adapter mount, I can put the finishing touches on the design and cut it all out...

Been working on building my vegetable/hops garden while there was a break in the weather, so haven't done a whole lot on the table other than just learning more about Cut 2D, and researching a few things... Got a nice 2D DXF vector of my favorite football team logo the other day, so I carved a couple of those in my sacrifice board.. LOL

Supposed to snow tonight.. crazy

Even though my router had variable speed (before the SuperPID) IIRC I was running close to max RPM at 50ipm. That's one of the advantages of single flute bits... I don't know how fast your router spins, but I believe the max RPM of the Bosch I have is 25k, and I waas maybe a notch or so below. With the SuperPID it actually goes to almost 27k, though I never cut anything at that speed yet!

As for you you'll have to do a little trial and error to see how things go, Neaning, you could use my info as a baseline and adjust as necessary. I don't go as much by what I hear, as what I see as far as the quality of cut... so keep your keyboard handy and fine tune the speeds and feeds as you cut, and then make a note of where the sweet spot is for the next piece.

[esmiller]

How about some pics of the overall machine now that it is mostly finished?
Also.. what did you end up with for you total cutting area?
Any suggestions on the parts needed for the framework? the 3060, where you bought your rails, etc..

P.s.. this thing is AWESOME keep it up.. there is a free program available that is specifically designed to do parts layout and nesting of pieces just for cabinets.. something like cabinet works or something.. i remember it was free.. maybe somebody will remmeber the name ??
Ah.. found it: Cabinet Parts pro
CabinetPartsPro

Eddie Miller

[Mountaincraft]

How about some pics of the overall machine now that it is mostly finished?

Give me a day or 3 to re-cut the dust boot, make the mounting adapter for the dust deputy, and cut and install the light ring... and I'll take a series of overview pics and post them..

Also.. what did you end up with for you total cutting area?

Currently 50.5" wide (with a 1/4" bit) by 97.125 long... The length will increase to 99.625" when the table is 'finished' (steel base)

Any suggestions on the parts needed for the framework? the 3060, where you bought your rails, etc..

I plan to start on the rebuild in august... That will consist of a new 2" x 2" x 1/4" square tube welded steel material base... I'll make that first before I tear this apart so that down time is minimal... Initially, I'll just be cutting the sides of this current base down to the height of the current material bed and setting new new steel structure on top of it.. Will build steel legs and what not some time down the road when I add plasma as an option... lot's of road to travel yet between now and then though..

I'll also be building new gantry mounts out of 3/4" aluminum, using this table to mill them... They will be 2-3" taller than these current ones made from plywood..

I need to drill out a few of the CRS mounting holes a little more to allow a slight bit more adjustment, and then get some decent measuring tools and methods together before I reassemble it all on the steel base in the shop... I want to pay a lot of attention to alignment on this re-build...

I will be building 'slide in' steel material bases to which the sacrifice board will be mounted, and these will bolt to the new steel base structure.. They will allow me to raise the work up nearer the gantry for sheet work, and then have about 18" or more of area underneath the gantry for another 'slide in material bed' that will have an indexer attached... and later when the plasma is installed a slide in 'slat bed' and water tray...

The machine currently has just over 12" of Z travel...

I bought the 1530 and 3060 80/20 pieces from automation4less

I bought most of the CRS from a local steel supplier.. bought all the bolts from a local fastener supplier..

Bought the rack gear from Moore Gear

Bought the carriages, motors, motor mounts and R&P system, cables, power supply, and BOB from CNC Router Parts ... Also bought the screw coupling, thrust washers and bearings, and the bearing blocks from him as well..

Bought the 5 start screw from McMaster Carr..

Bought the stepper drives direct from gecko

I'm gonna highly recommend Ahrens BOB at this point too.. Saves using an extra axis in the software, and comes with all the bells and whistles that I might need (so far as I can tell anyways)

P.s.. this thing is AWESOME keep it up.. there is a free program available that is specifically designed to do parts layout and nesting of pieces just for cabinets.. something like cabinet works or something.. i remember it was free.. maybe somebody will remmeber the name ??
Ah.. found it: Cabinet Parts pro
CabinetPartsPro

Eddie Miller

Thanks for that!...
:cheers:

[Mountaincraft]

I know this router is spinning awfully fast, but can I use regular drill bits with peck drilling to drill holes in wood using the router?

I need to drill some holes in a circular pattern that are slightly less than 1/8"

[tjskcnc]

Hi~
Ahren referred me to your build when I asked him how to set up the Z-axis using the High Z Plate.
Very nice machine. Loooong build log, but a lot of info.
I have a couple of questions that may have been answered earlier and may have missed them:
I have CNCRP's Z plate, but I see you attached your router mount directly to the extrusion. I also have a K2CNC router mount (for Hitachi - love that quiet motor) and would like to know how you did that.
You have a very long Zaxis. Have you been able to measure the play in the axis as it extends deeper? How stiff is the Zaxis?
Also, I loosely attached the bearings to the Zplate (new toy - couldn't resist) and I don't see any way to adjust the tightness of the bearings against the steel plate they ride on - the center bearings held in with the dowel and riding on the edge of the steel plate. The bearings bolt down and that's it. Has this been a problem?
Thanks.

[Mountaincraft]

Hi~
Ahren referred me to your build when I asked him how to set up the Z-axis using the High Z Plate.
Very nice machine. Loooong build log, but a lot of info.
I have a couple of questions that may have been answered earlier and may have missed them:
I have CNCRP's Z plate, but I see you attached your router mount directly to the extrusion. I also have a K2CNC router mount (for Hitachi - love that quiet motor) and would like to know how you did that.

I drilled out the back plate of the K2 mount, and used 5/16" carriage bolts to attach.. The carriage bolt heads in the extrusion, and nuts on the other side of the K2 plate...

You have a very long Zaxis. Have you been able to measure the play in the axis as it extends deeper? How stiff is the Zaxis?

No.. but the gantry is pretty beefy.. as are the gantry to X carriage supports I built.. which should only get stronger when I make the aluminum versions.. But I'm not 'that' concerned at this time, as this 'wooden based' version is not the end game.. I plan to make one of heavy steel, and use 'slide in' material beds that will move the work up to within about 4 inches or so of the gantry... In it's 'long' mode, it will be primarily be used with an indexer... or on deep materials...

Having a long Z travel is no different than having a short one when the actual work is the same distance from the gantry in both cases.. That's how the physics work in my mind anyways... It's just that the Z travel give me more 'flexibility' to do 'special' projects when needed... All other times, I'll just raise the work up near the gantry (fulcrum point), and the cutter head and forces applied by it should all be the exact same as if it was a shorter Z with the work the same distance form the gantry (fulcrum point)... In either scenario, the distance to the fulcrum and the force applied to that fulcrum should be exactly the same... I have a little extra weight moving around with the gantry is all.. but this machine has plenty of power for that....

Also, I loosely attached the bearings to the Zplate (new toy - couldn't resist) and I don't see any way to adjust the tightness of the bearings against the steel plate they ride on - the center bearings held in with the dowel and riding on the edge of the steel plate. The bearings bolt down and that's it. Has this been a problem?
Thanks.

At times, these bearings don't seem to be always firmly seated against the edge of the CRS... Sometimes one bearing or two (never both on the same carriage) are loose enough to slip a little... However, I have not noticed any problems with what the machine produces.. even at such a long extension below the gantry.. I can't really weigh in on this until I get some decent measuring tools and rebuild the machine 'for real production'

But from my machine, this what I see as how it adjusts... The Hi-Z plate is tapped for 5/16 inch bolts.. yet the carriages are drilled to be tapped for 3/8"-16 bolts.. this means there is a slight amount of 'play' in the bolt holes...

So what I did, was to use irwin quick clamps to compress the sandwiched 4" CRS between the two carriages.. Tightened 'em up pretty good, and only then finished tightening the bolts that hold the carriages to the Z plate...

Like I say.. I see a little play.. but thus far, all cuts and what engraving I've done have been pretty crisp and clean.. with the exception of one time where I jammed some loose material in between the bit and the work.. I got some stepped cuts from that.. I accidentally snapped the bit just after that, but a new bit and a new project and all was well... Although I did reduce the acceleration in the Mach 3 motor configs after that.. just in case that was a part of the problem...

Thus far, I'm very happy with the machines performance.. but I haven't really asked that much of it yet.. nonetheless, when I rebuild it later this summer, I will be paying a lot more attention to detail and tolerances... So things should only get better as a result...

One tip I'll give you now.. Go ahead and tap 'all' holes in the extended carriages for 3/8-16 threads (both axis of holes).. except where you absolutely 'know' you're not going to need them, like the holes for the 5/16 bolts that hold the carriages to the High Z plate.. but even if you were to tap these too, I can't see how that would cause problems if you didn't use the threads... You have no idea how many times I had to take things apart and tap them, realizing I needed to add a bolt 'right there' down the road...

Also, pay attention to how far bolts extend into these holes, as sometimes they will interfere with other bolts and what not in this system..

Ahren really needs to put together a recommended bolt schedule for his system... and a tips and trick FAQ... I may start something like that at some point... Bolt lengths were a constant issue during this build.. That being said, his system greatly simplifies the process...

I really appreciated not having to figure out motor sizes and power supply size and cable configuration and all that... It was a little more expensive this way.. But it was worth it for me not to have to worry about it all... Just bought it all (no kit was available at the time) and plugged it all up and turned on the power... (readers digest version there.. LOL)

[Mountaincraft]

I wanted to re-ask this question in case it got lost, as I need to cut this part today or tomorrow if possible..

From yesterday:
_____________________________
I know this router is spinning awfully fast, but can I use regular drill bits with peck drilling to drill holes in wood using the router?

I need to drill some holes in a circular pattern that are slightly less than 1/8" per hole