I started my CNC adventure last March with an off-the-shelf CNC Shark Pro+ (from Nextwaveautomation/Rockler) and learned a lot. But I found quickly that this machine (while fun for light duty woodworking and carving) did not fit the bill for precise mechanical prototyping in plastic and aluminum due to lack of rigidity and control software features.

So, I decided to build my own machine with the focus on rigidity, also a bit bigger. The intent was to use the Shark Pro+ to cut the critical components of the new machine and to sell it when finished as to recover most of the cost.

Now, I started buying some stuff before I ran into this forum, so some may be sub-optimal (i.e. overkill) as I learned but at least I got some good design advice from Ger21 and others.

The design is as in the picture below, with a 36" x 31" x 8" motion range, 80/20 T-slot table and all structural parts made from 3-ply 3/4" Bamboo plywood. I mentioned that in another thread and there was some doubt about the suitability of bamboo but i did a lot of research and found it:
- has the same weight/stiffness ratio as aluminum (slightly more than Birch). The lower absolute modulus does however require larger cross-sections compared to aluminum.
- it is unfortunately also a bit more expensive than Birch
- is very nice to machine precisely without much fuzz
- is very hard, i.e. metal parts bolted to it won't sink in easily
- well, it also looks interesting..... and I can get high quality flat sheets locally

I just started the build. More info in following posts.