Starting my MM Build - St Louis MO USA
 

Hi everyone my name is shawn and I live in st louis missouri. I am taking the next month off work to build my table.
wish me luck

shawn

Shawn.

If you are going to finish in a month, you'll need to get all the parts figured out and ordered.

Good luck.

Welcome to the club !

The best time to date is 2 weeks.

Happy building!

Welcome and good luck with your build. It can be done, your biggest hurdle will be cutting down and grinding the rails. Seems like they took the longest on my build. Every thing else seemed like it could be done pretty quickly with no distractions.

Breakdown of fabrication.
Table 4 days (1 day cutting, 3 days weld/drill/bolt)
rails 3 days
paint 2 days
electronics and wiring 2 weeks (I am pretty particular)
spider, slide and cable chain 1 week

It's pretty easy fabrication, just keep a good pace and do things in groups.

Good luck....we are all watching!, really we're all here to support you if you need it.

Best,
Sean

Thank you all for responding I really appreciate the fact that there are guys on here that have been down this road. I have been at my warehouse for 2 straight day without going home. This will be my second night sleeping on the couch. I have been grinding and grinding on the rails. Got the rails cut down to 29 mm and i used the sled with my angle clamped to a 3x10inch piece of c chanel.. can anyone tell me some advice on how to make the rails as true as possible,,currently I have mesured with a caliper +- 10 to 20 thousands of an inch,,, to me that just does not seem good enough... any advice on some technique would be great

shawn

Please be reminded that you will have a alignment procedure to carry out when you install the rails, that will take care of the actual rail straightness... So Don't waste any more sleep over getting the rail completely true. As long as you use the skid correctly, & look good to your eye, your rail will be good to go.

Go home & have a good rest...

thank you for the info, It was bothering me but I knew in the beginning when i decided to go with homade rails instead of 5k worth of professional linear guides that there would be some imperfections. Going to lowes this morning to get all my bolts to put together the skate roller to make my profile cuts today

shawn

Shawn, I hope you have luck finding the items you need at Lowes but you may want to look at McMaster-Carr.com for your hardware and look at factorymation.com for some of your electronics. I think you will find a wider verity of items and a better price.

Shawn,
You may also want to spend some time with a real hardware company.
Don't waste time on Stainless or grade 8 (all over kill)

A good source in your area is:

St Louis Screw and Bolt (everything under the sky and nice folks) They are just north of 70 next to the river.

Fastenal (might have to order things depending on the stock of the local franchise)

Good Luck,
Sean

Shawn:

Welcome to the adventure club. It is a lot of fun and very satisfying in the end.

Good luck.

Joe

Shawn,
Don't worry, many of us has been there... :D
We got your back. :)

Ok

Now I have my rails ground, table all welded up, I am now starting on the gantry tonight, and mounting my rails.. any one have some secrets they want to share

shanw

Don't forget to pause and snap a few pictures !!!

Tell me about it,, I have done soo much and I just keep going I almost ashamed of some of my work, and I am a perfectionist, I want to build another mm and once I get more organized I can do a complete build log, with pics, videos, and oh by the way, my wife gave me permission to build another MM,, I think it will be a 6x12 plasma table with a added water table

I have an idea,, maybe someone who has built several mechmates could go put together a builders how to log book,and maybe a dvd, tutorials,pics, videos,
they add it to the forum, or sell them,, with step by step instructions on how to build a MM. This would be so sweet,,

Well actually this forum is the instructions :) !!

this is true,,

Yah, the forum is much better (and more fun) than an assembly manual. In fact, think of it as an interactive construction manual that will answer your questions when you can find the answers in the book (but you better look before you ask too many times:D That is part of the fun)

Hi Shawn, I'm just 30 miles west of St. Louis in Wentzville.
I've been quietly gathering parts for over a year.
Where did you source your steel, and what size table are you planning?

IMHO, no written manual can ever come within a light year to this forum... The Forum not only provide you with instructions to build, you get to learnt all the associated stuff with it. :D

was up again untill 5:30am, and took another shower with the garden hose. lol
I should say I really do appreciate the forum. I have notice myself comming back to it as I move throught each evolution of the building process

shawn

It is addictive! (but in a good way:D)

I wish there was a forum for dealing with women. aka my wife.

Time to paint
 

I got to a point where I did not have anything else to do,
built my table to complete
cut rails ground and mounted threaded all holes
built gantry and it is running true
built z sled and router mount zslide,,

then I realized, now its time to paint
then remount and align all rails,racks and motors

LOL!!! Don't we all wish!!! :D

I'm a 30 year man in that area (28 Really). Better "pause and attend" as family is always first :D !! Or ye shall pay O'fast track builder. :D

In the paint area, you can simply take a small foam roller and disposable cups and brushes to do this.

I expect to see flame art work... etc in your paint job...
Maybe that would slow you down. :D

While you are at it, how about enticing us with some pix of your work?

Come to find out, Shawn is building a mere 4 miles from my shop.
I plan to stop by (he's invited me already BTW, I'm not a MM stalker..lol) and visit.
I'll try to bring a camera and snap some shots, with his permission of course.