[evilbetty]

hi all

well i joined this site way back in 2008 , with the intentions of
building a solsylva table machine, kind of started it and got a few parts
made, but then stopped as i decided to do a full restortion and engine conversion on my car, that project has taken just over 3 years of hard core
work, now the car is nearly at an end, iv been thinking about building a cnc machine again,
always had the interest there just not the time to do it,
but now free time is about to become available and i think im going
to go for it!!

so into the cupboard i went and pulled out a few of the bits and pieces i had made, a bit of umming and ahhring and i arived at the decision that i would continue on with what i started and try get the thing working.


ive made the gantry and most of the z caridge , ill get some pics up soon,

im in melbourne australia,so not sure about where to source parts from at this stage,

any advice on where to get acme lead screws or the like from here in melbourne that would be great!<

im on a tight budget so will have to just take what i can get on this one,

im working from the older version book of the solsylva plans , and everything is in imperial , so thats a little trickey just converting everything over and finding parts that are close to the stated sizes,

but any way please welcom me back! 2008 and now im back 2012!!
i have lots to learn hoping this build ill teach me alot ,the main reason im
interested in cnc , is i want to cut guitar bodys ,im a guitar player and have
build many guitars all by hand , but thinking a cnc machine could cut down a huge amount of labour on cutting the bodys and possibley necks as well??

i guess ill build this machine and test it out with small stuff untill ive learnt enuff to get serious about the guitar side,


heres some of the bits i had made, to be honest it was that long ago now i cant even remember building them haha , but any way heres the gantry,



and the carridge

[revwarguy]

OK, welcome back! I built a Solsylva, and have made lots of things with it - a great machine to learn on. Good luck with your build, and keep up the pictures!

[louieatienza]

Looks great so far! Get it done, you won't be disappointed; I built a Solsylva from those same plans as well...

[evilbetty]

thanks guys! im very keen now! im going to put it in my spare room ,
mite be a bit loud for the neighbours tho lol but i think ill do some sort of sound proofing once its all going,
all encouragement welcom!

last nite i spent the whole nite after work building a table or bench ,just something to mount the machine on once i start getting building,

not that exciting but heres a few shots of the table ,
its a good size and i made it so the legs unbolt from the base and the top,
so it could be pulled down and moved if nessasary,

im a car painter so i gave the wood a quick paint to seal it up and keep
moisture out,

heres a shot of my spare room , its spose to be a bedroom but i use it for my work shop for various tinkering and such,
cleared a bunch of junk out and layed some cardboard to protect the
carpet,



drew up a ruff sketch



started building a frame for the table top



the frame finished for the top






after finished building the legs and the base ,sanded it all up quickly
and put the parts in the ovem and gave them a quick spray ,



after that got the parts home and started putting it altogether,



and finished ,one work table very study and strong hope to see some things made on this table!!

[evilbetty]

ive started to make some parts,
nothing to exciting but making slow steady progress,
i originaly was following the guide pretty much exactly,
but now that ive learnt a bit more ,i decided to change the
all thread rods to ball screws, i fair bit more expensive mind you,
and a few mods to get them to work well,but i think i should be able to pull it off,

the table is huge! i didnt realy realise it was going to be that big haha,
but any way it should be a decent size to cut guitar bodys out,

im having fun tho playing with wood again , been stuffing round with cars for several years now so its a nice change, l0ove the smell of cut wood!


enuff of my burble heres a few pics of the parts ive started to make:

stepper motor mounting plates i cut out of cutting board plastic,




4 legs for the machine cut from wood



2 end plates cut and drilled

[evilbetty]

I built a Solsylva from those same plans as well

did it work ok??

[evilbetty]

starting to get some parts made now, i have the basic wooden frame parts and i got them all sanded and painted heres some pics of my efforts

parts in the oven ready to paint




parts painted ready to start assembling stuff

[Kazik_Wichura]

Hi

It looks awesome. What kind of spray you are using to get such a nice painting?

[evilbetty]

Hi

It looks awesome. What kind of spray you are using to get such a nice painting?

haha thanks ,yeah its starting to look the part i guess, im using car paint actualy, im a spray painter by trade so just using so paint at work to tidy it up,got some more pics coming just finished the z carridge .....

[evilbetty]

so ive just finished the z carridge! it looks great but more importantly ,its working smoothly , i spent several hours very fine tuning the bearing rails and all the parts,
the other thing i should mention is ive slightly changed a few things ,

first the way the spindle mount is made up and held together,
i threaded an alloy bar for each side ,these sit inside the steel pipe,
and bolts go thru to clamp the pipes to the wood,

next i decided to use ball screws instead of all thread,the massive increase in cost is abit of a downer but i think in the long run it should work alot better,
how ever several mods are needed to get these to fit!!

first i had to drill out the top bearing from a 22m to a 28mm dia with a 12mm id,
this takes the shaft of the ball screw,



next i had to get brutal on the ball nut,something i didnt want to do,as this 200mm piece of ball screw cost me 100 dollars! but it had to be modded to fit ,

i had to remove about 5mm total from the steel flange on the ball nut, then i also had to cut a large slot in the front of the z carridge wood
and a slot out of the back of the spindle mount piece of wood!
the ball nut is huge !!! but it runs so smoothly up and down the screw,
i was realy impress of the quailty,
so done all the modds and got it working great,
i lost a little bit of travel ,due to the lenght of the ball nut ,
but i have a total of 5.5 inchs up and down travel ,so should be enff


any ways heres some pics ,make more sence than my burble

parts for the spindle mount


assembled



can see the slot made in the back piece of wood




assembled spindle mount to carridge



assembled the rear skate bearing trucks



spindle mount extended can see how thick the ballscrew is! 16mm thick

[evilbetty]

ive assembled the main frame now and have it screwed down to the bench i made,



also made the gantry motor mount and fixed that to the motor



had a slight battle with the gantry lead screw ,but got it sorted, had to make up some mount blocks for a 12mm id bearing and on the end a 10mm id bearing, got it all spinning smoothly tho ..



another big step forward was i got the carridge attached to the gantry beam, then made a block to attach the ballnut to , a fwe small brackets and screws took care of that





now im working on the main rails ....

[evilbetty]

rails in place





got the gantry sitting on

[Devastator]

Wow, looks really nice. Shiny, like a grand piano. The dust will show, but wipe off really easy. I've been building/redesigning/rebuilding a Solsylva 24x48 on and off for the past year. Mine is black texture paint, nowhere as nice looking as yours and the dust sticks to it.

[evilbetty]

Wow, looks really nice. Shiny, like a grand piano. The dust will show, but wipe off really easy. I've been building/redesigning/rebuilding a Solsylva 24x48 on and off for the past year. Mine is black texture paint, nowhere as nice looking as yours and the dust sticks to it.

haha thanks alot,its sort of just turning out this way, i had rust on the steel pipes and sanded it off then polished up and it came up abit better than i thought, as for saw dust etc, your right, i didnt even think of that at the time of painting , but it wipes off the bench and machine realy easy,
its coming along ok ,i havent changed too much in the plans as this is my first one ever and im only learning as i go, only thing is ive used alot of metric measurements in stead of the imperial, as im in australia,just easyier to sorce parts here in metric,
the only big mod to the plans ive done so far is changed the allthread for ballscrews and ball nuts, a bit of adjusting and choping and changing to fit the parts so far but i think it will pay off in the end,
i attached a hand drill to the gantry lead screw and gave it abit of a spin,
the caridge moved along prety smooth i hope it works simular with the steppers......