Well I finally got my finger out and ordered some linear shaft and bearings from Marchant Dice (www.marchantdice.com).
They had some attractively priced shaft, supports and bearings on Ebay for £148.50+vat for a complete kit. Worked out at around £185 delivered.
Not cheap but its going to be a lot easier to use this than the original drawer slide design I originally planned on using.
Just for those who are wondering why I called it the S.H.I.G - well it stands for "see how it goes" machine . There is nothing written in stone on how this is going to be built and while its being built on a budget its not a very strict budget.
The shaft and bearings evenutally turned up at 5:45pm the next day after a lot of discussion with the couriers and a lot of excuses. It was all very well packed so top marks to Kevin at Marchant Dice for that.
While I was waiting for the shaft to turn up I fired up good old Corel Draw and had a hack at working out how I was going to stick it all together.
The main use for this machine will be to drill PCBs and to mill out plastic panels. I came up with the following specifications/requirements :
Drill/routing area : around 12 inches by 12 inches by 4 inches
Accuracy: better than drilling by eye with a Dremmel on a stand
Speed: not really bothered but would like to drill a 160mm x 100mm board in the time it takes me to solder one up to keep production going .......
Noise: who cares - I can turn the in-workshop hifi up to compensate
Drive system: allthread/stepper with the option to upgrade to Acme when I get bored of the allthread
Fixed gantry design
Bipolar motors (just to be awkward)
Cost today: £185
Cost so far: £185