[CarveOne]

This evening I removed one X axis rail and sanded the bottom edge as I did the top edge, then decided to hand sanded that whole side to remove most of the scale. No metal was harmed in the process. This will allow the paint to adhere better. I taped off the edges about 3/8" and spray painted the remainder with Rustoleum hammer finish silver. After the rail has been sanded and sprayed on the other side and cured I will wax the edges with pure carnuba wax to help retard rust and make the bearings run smoother. I'll do treat of the rails this way.

Sample photo below.

CarveOne

[cnccutter]

Great tip on the painting rails....thanks....keep on building.....

[CarveOne]

Thanks cnccutter!

Boy was I not so into proofreading what I wrote in the last post. Very tired last evening.

Well, another day and some more progress. Here is the results of painting the steel parts. I have another treatment that I will use for the scratched up aluminum stepper motor plates instead of painting them. Will post photos of that tomorrow evening. I don't plan to do anything to the aluminum spacers other than to wax them.

I have not installed the DumpsterCNC 5 start anti-backlash nuts yet due to not knowing at this point which direction I will need to face them. Will do that when I start building up the gantry supports.

CarveOne

[CarveOne]

Only worked 1/2 day today, so I came home and began work on sanding and painting the rear X axis rail parts. All of it is done now with the exception of two angle brackets that need two 3/8" holes located and drilled.

I'll assemble the parts tomorrow evening, drill the holes, and paint the angle brackets.

I took a side-by-side photo of an unsanded and sanded rail (before painting) for comparison. I can more easily see some defects after sanding that may cause me minor grief later (hopefully). It is obvious now that I should have taken Ahren's advice and purchased the cold rolled flat stock at a considerably higher price. I don't recommend the hot rolled flat stock to anyone considering it for use with Ahren's linear carriages.

I'll order a piece at the time of the cold rolled flat stock when more money is available and install it later in the year. For now I still need to order the helical couplers, breakout board, and power supply as a higher priority.

I drilled and tapped 8-32 holes at each side of the bearing pockets and installed 3/8" length stainless pan head screws from some old commercial telecom equipment I had salvaged parts off of. The holes were located as close to the edge of the pockets as possible without breaking through the pocket wall. The screw heads lock the outer bearing race from rotating in the pockets. This makes bearing replacement relatively easy.

CarveOne

[ahren]

Don't lose heart on your rails! Yes, I still recommend cold rolled steel, but I think if you just keep rolling with the stuff you have, eventually the bearings will wear the material down in the high spots. Re-tighten, repeat. If you need new bearings, just let me know -- I've got oodles of 'em. You're making great progress on your machine -- don't get stalled out worrying about the rails now.

Ahren
www.cncrouterparts.com

[Khalid]

Hello Young man... We are tuned to your channel... Keep posting and don't disappoint..you are making a great progress... Keep it up man...

[CarveOne]

Don't lose heart on your rails! Yes, I still recommend cold rolled steel, but I think if you just keep rolling with the stuff you have, eventually the bearings will wear the material down in the high spots. Re-tighten, repeat. If you need new bearings, just let me know -- I've got oodles of 'em. You're making great progress on your machine -- don't get stalled out worrying about the rails now.

Ahren
www.cncrouterparts.com

I'll take a wait and see approach but the worst problem I see with them is a small sideways curve about 3" long in a couple of places that the carriages roll past easily enough - but may cause the gantry to get too tight at those places when the gantry is fully assembled. The bearings are snug enough that the carriage has very little looseness when rocked side to side. The carriage is a little bumpy feeling and I expect that to eventually wear down. (Kinda like it is rolling on a gritty surface.) Another problem is the wide side has a little curve over the full 6' length. Over any given 24" section of the length it's not very noticeable. These pieces definitely are not precision ground flat stock.

I can live with it for a while. The rails can be replaced with relative ease in the future. It may be possible to tweak the sideways curve in a hydraulic shop press if it comes down to having to do something about it.

CarveOne

[CarveOne]

This morning, just in the interest of science, I placed a long carriage at each end of the front X axis rail and measured 63-1/2" at the middle of each carriage. With two short carriages it increases to 67-1/2". The right angle brackets can be modified to gain another 2" of travel but I doubt that it is worth the effort at this point.

I will end up doing that as a future improvement while making new brackets that also provide positive end stops for the carriages. I should have given more thought to how these brackets were designed. This will be done when I upgrade the rails to cold roll flat stock. It will involve moving the two 1/4-20 mounting bolts closer together and reshaping the brackets for additional bearing clearance. I will also make the brackets longer overall so that the carriage blocks hit a hardwood or hard rubber pad at end of travel. As it is now, the two bearings under carriage block hits the mounting bolt head and nut.

CarveOne

[Mick40]

I'm following your build closer than the news! Not sure where you find the time but.......Keep it up!

Mick

[CarveOne]

Thanks Mick,

My contract work leaves me with too many days off sometimes. I would rather be working at something that provides a more steady income. I was between projects last week and part of this week. Flexible hours makes it nice sometimes also. Made a lot of progress for that reason alone. The next few weeks should keep me busy on two new job projects.

I finished the two remaining angle brackets this evening and will complete the second X axis rail assembly tomorrow morning. Then I start figuring out if I need anything for the gantry uprights and begin working on those. I think I may need to pick up a 2' piece of the 1/4" x 4" flat stock at Fastenal tomorrow. More photos to be posted by tomorrow evening.

CarveOne

[CarveOne]

After a slow start this morning I completed the gantry upright support construction. I went to Lowes to get some 5/16" hex bolts and a piece of 1/4" x 4" x 12" steel that I had seen there recently. I cut the other 12" plate from the gantry rail material. All I had to do to the plates was locate the holes and drill them. I used a piece of 6061 aluminum flat stock to make the shorter 1/4" x 4" x 6" plates.

The rear carriage bearings are a little too snug and will have to be readjusted tomorrow. The front carriage bearings are just right, and roll with almost no pressure and no binding anywhere along the rail. The adjustment is not so easy to get to due to the way the carriages are faced in order to get maximum Y axis cutter travel and place the lead screw in the correct position to mount the anti-backlash nut to the gantry plates.

Tomorrow I will cut the gantry rail to length and mount it and the 1" x 2" steel box tube stiffener to the uprights. There will need to be some thought put into how to stiffen the gantry against racking. There is no option to put something under the table top to connect each side. The best option may be to use the drafting table cable/pulley system that has gained much popularity lately.

There will be 3/4" thick red oak trim plates covering the outsides of the gantry supports to clean up the looks. Most (maybe all) of the hex bolt heads will not be visible.

CarveOne

[micke h]

Really nice job!
Will it be the same sliding system on the other axis to?

[CarveOne]

Hi micke h,

Yes, all three axis will have the linear carriages from Ahren Johnson's http://www.cncrouterparts.com. Two each of the longer carriages on each X axis rail, Two of the shorter carriages on the Y axis rail, and two of the shorter carriages on the Z axis.

I noticed in your router build log the way you added the T-slot boards. Did you make those yourself and are they MDF? I have been considering something similar instead of using a T-slot cutter. My plan was to mill some hardwood boards and glue them to a 1/4" plywood base. Then use the router to surface plane the boards just enough to get it flat.

The weather here has been 32F to 34F all day and it's been raining since yesterday. It's supposed to change to snow late this afternoon and dump a few inches of snow by Monday morning. It was 70F two days ago. My shop heater ran out of propane late yesterday evening and I haven't been out to the work shop much at all today. Just catching up my drawings to the current state of the changes I've done lately.

CarveOne

[micke h]

Yes it's just MDF i cut out them with my circular saw and then routed of one side as you can see in the pictures.

Screwed so just take them of when its time for change and put new ones on there. works very well, especially if you look at the price. almost nothing just some MDF thats really cheap

My first thought was also to have T-slots but didn't find any good seller near me and I thought it was little to expensive.

[CarveOne]

micke h,

By the way, your router table looks very good. It should work well for you.

I can surface plane the boards flat and edge joint them straight. Then use my router table to make the dado edges. I will have an order in tonight to get some small knobs and will make hold down clamps myself. The individual boards that get carved the worst can be easily replaced without replacing all of them. Maybe the slots can be vacuumed out easily enough when they fill up. Slots not being used can be covered with something anyway.

Update:
I checked the gantry supports this afternoon with an old Sears Roebuck low cost gravity operated dial type angle finder. Both uprights show within 1 degree of perfect in all directions which is not bad considering that it was purely accidental, and considering the furious pace at which I was building it up yesterday. They will be tweaked into compliance soon enough.

One other thing I will be getting in this order is a digital protractor for setting up the rails and gantry supports. It will also be very useful for my milling machine setups.

CarveOne

[CarveOne]

Nothing much to report on this end. Since last Saturday it has been steady rain, windy, cold, frigid, snow, and various combinations of all of these conditions. This morning it is 9F. Monday we had 2" of snow or more. By Saturday it is supposed to be 79F. (Global thermal shock?)

I have only been out to the work shop a few times to make quick measurements for updating my drawings, and thinking about how to recover from any potential problems due to using a two stepper drive on the X axis, stiffening the gantry corners if needed, and the potential for lead screw whipping on these 6' screws.

Below is a new snow scene for Khalid that was taken on Monday.

CarveOne

[Khalid]

Hello young man .. very nice progress and we addicted to it... I love the beautiful scenery you posted above..enjoy the weather and snow

[contactirfu]

carveone - thats a nice looking table.

RGDS
IRfan

[CarveOne]

From your photos it looks like the weather was very much nicer in your area of the world. Enjoy sir.

I should make more progress on the gantry while it's warmer this weekend. (And post more photos, ok?)

CarveOne

[CarveOne]

Thanks Irfan,

It will get better looking over the upcoming weekend.

CarveOne