Hey Everyone,
After my first serious milling project flung chips all over the garage, I decided to build an enclosure because I thought $2k for the sheetmetal enclosure from John was a little steep for what it is. I decided to use 8020 to build it, because I wanted to learn about working with it, and I could use the mill to do some of the work. Probably not the cheapest way to build an enclosure, but I am pretty happy with the way it all turned out. After using 8020, I have about 5 other projects in mind with this stuff. I think I have $1000 in to the project. I could probably do it a bit cheaper now that I understand the jointing mechanisms they use. The actual walls of the unit are 6mm (1/4") PVC encapsulated foam, which I got from the local sign store. (roughly $95 a sheet and I needed 3 sheets). I measured most of the large sections and had the sign shop cut them, but I did have to make a couple of cuts here and there, and my jig saw made short work of the stuff. I did put a door on the right side for work that is really long and needs to hang out the side of the mill. Anyhow, I figured I'd share in case anyone else wanted to build something similar to keep the chips and the coolant in, and the body parts out.