OK, it's been a slow build due to so many other projects, but progress has been made. I have the support and cutting bed built, but am not satisfied with the bow in the middle due to the weight and length. It's an extended length JGRO at approx 60" long. I put angle iron on each side and the bed is very stiff for cutting, but I don't like the 1/8"-1/4" bow in the middle.
The only solution I can think of is that I'm stuck with this problem due to the design of the JGRO (and the fact that I have a longer cutting bed) and try to work around it later by:
- placing a brace under the middle part of the bed and dividing the project up into multiple "chunks" so that I can make sure the gantry doesn't run into the brace.
I'm really struggling here. I'm contemplating removing the rails and re-designing the gantry to slide on linear rails so that the bed can lay flat. This "suspended" cutting bed seems to really introduce alot of cutting error in the z-axis along the length of the bed.