Newest number ripping up hardwood #75 - Arlington, WA

[imakechairs]

yes, i noticed when you were showing that skate grinder you made.
(out standing job!)
i noticed the rail, was seperate from the main table, so you will bolt to the table after you grind the angles
i was wondering
maybe i am missing some big piece of information,
but i wonder if it would not be more accurate to just buy the Vee rail from the same manufacturer that supplies the Vee bearing , rather than grinding by hand?
As i have been examing, the set up on some of the manufactured routers
Ez- router, shop sabre, shop bot, i noticed they all use the similiar type vee rail most likely supplied by the vee bearing manufacturer.
what are your thoughts?

[Travish]

Superior Bearing makes the hardened rails at a good price that come pre-drilled or blank so you can pic your holes. As it turns out, there are a handfull of people here that are using this setup. Take a look at the plans for more details and have a look thru the build threads as well. At 1st I was going to go that route but was challeged by making my own, and saw that others where doing it with great results so I said why not. I can always go that route later on, but I dought I will. If anything I can re-dress the rails with my Jig I built.

The rail grind you see in the photo is just a test pc of material I had to try on, not the actual rail going on the machine.

[imakechairs]

yeah it would be good to know how the grinding set up compares to the premanufactured rails, might be there is no real noticable difference, or might be that only after many hours of service life , that is would become evident which set up was better....
I do nto know if you have decided on the rack and pinion drive yet, but i found this company Nexen that makes a set up that has better contact between the pinion gear and rack, they say zero back lash in either direction.
seems to be better than the standard zig zag pattern..
i did nto get as far as pricing with them yet. but here is the web site if you are interested. http://www.nexengroup.com/rps/

[imakechairs]

how is hte build going? you grind the rails yet?

[Travish]

Build is going well, but slow and steady. I am close to grinding the rails. I spent Sunday drilling and tapping the 32 M8 holes in the main beams and thru holes for the X rails.

[fredkehler]

Nice work... I like the I beams that you used for your table... on a next build I would definitely go to I beams as well, my 8" C channel table doesn't feel nearly as solid as I had expected when the machine is running and the gantry is slewing back and forth..
cheers

[Travish]

I thought that I could get the rails done outside on the weekends, but it has been raining here a ton. After getting frustrated with the progress and the setup time moving in and outside I finally setup the grinding inside. I opened up the doors and tuned a fan on and started grinding like mad. The whole process took longer than I was expecting, but there was a huge learning curve with the grinding as we all have found. I have the X rails finished. I spent about 10 hrs yesterday semi-finishing and finishing up the rails. They turned out really well in the end. Over the past couple weeks I roughed them down and roughed the 45's and then skimmed the tops and then finished off the rails. The rails were parallel within .002 all the way down before I finished the 45's, so I was really happy with the results. My grinding fixture was very pleasant to use and rolled like a champ. Here are a few pics for those awaiting the results.

Enjoy,
Travis

[jehayes]

Travis:

Beautiful job! Well done! Am looking forward to seeing the beats move.

All the best

Joe

[Travish]

Thanks Joe!

I finished off the Y rails saturday. It only took me 3.5 hrs to rough and finish them off. I'm sure glad to be over and done with them. I'm off the the Gantry now. My steel pile is finally all off the floor. I plan on having it rolling by the weekend.

Cheers,
Travis

[KenC]

Good stuff! Now the hard work is over, should expect to see some smooth progress here on.

[smreish]

That is some clean and precise work. Nicely done. I love that skate!

[Travish]

Thank for the encouragement Guys!

I have gotten a few requests about the size and weights of the material used for my table so I thought I would post it here for others to use if they wish.

Main Beams- Wide Flange 8.0" at 15lbs per foot
Legs Beams- Wide Flange 4.0" at 13lbs per foot
Table cross members- Channel 3.0" at 5lbs per foot
Truss Tubes- Square tubing 2"x2" .180" thick wall
Gantry tubes- Rect Tube 2"x4" x .120" thick wall

For more details about the exact sizes, they can be matched up with the info here- http://www.everettsteel.com/steel.html Just match up the pounds per foot.

Travis

[Regnar]

Travis are you going to notch out the I beam so that the rack can be mounted to the angle iron or are you going to mount the rack to the I beam. Good looking build. I ordered the same size steel the other day. Hope mine turns out just as good.

[Travish]

Hi Russell,

I'm going to mount the Racks right to the underside of the I beam for a clean look. My table came out really Parallel so I'm able to get away with doing on this build. I do see a few detals that do need need to pay attention to, but I think it will work just fine. I made some new motor mounts that have and offset of .315" to drop the motors a bit.

I finished off the Gantry welding last weekend. That was fun putting it together as there was a lot to watch and keep an eye on. I really took my time here ensuring it stay square and true. It payed off here. Followed Gerald's weld sequence, and worked like a charm. I made sure to put the same length of welds at the adjacent corners all they way around to minimize the pull of the welds being uneven and causing the Gantry to scew. It is really nice to see the thing roll along the rails. It was a beautiful thing to see everything match up and come together. I was thrilled to say the least.

I ordered the Mikes special time savers for the proxy switches. They are both drilled and tapped and bolted up.

Stopblocks are made and the X's are welded on in place.

I cut and welded the Racks and thankfully that went well. I cut the 2 mating ends 1st then welded them 1st then I cut them to length, so in case I messed up the welding or welded the 3 pcs of rack together, I could just cut them apart and do over.

[jessyjames]

I get what you are saying about mounting the racks to the underside of the I-Beam. So I take it you are going to flush the rack with the edge of the I-Beam than.

Also thanks for those table base measurements as it will give me something to work off of and adjust accordingly.

Keep it up...

[Travish]

Still working away at it. I lost a handfull of progress pics, but finished up a lot of amall detail work. Made and welded the y car stops, made the cable chain racks and tapped some more holes and drilled the holes in the racks. Welded the spider up last night and will be milling off the tops of the bearing stand-offs tonight.

I finally tore it all down, and did weld cleanup and de-greased and washed and prepped for paint. I'll be tarping off the garage this weekend and laying down a couple coats of primer.

Travis

[Regnar]

Travis what are you using for paint? I can recommend POR15 for the primer and Valspar Tractor and Implement paint.

[Travish]

Hi Russell,

Thanks for the recommendation on the paint. I have all ready bought the Imcron 3.5g and primer. I'm curious to see how well it goes down. I'll has to try that POR15 sometime.

I Finished off the spider lastnight. Amazing how much the it releived on the bends after applying heat from weld. Here are a few pics of how I tamed the spider by re-squaring it, before I faced the bearing standoffs. I put a steal bar across the tops and put a clamp in the middle and bent both ears at once. This worked better than I was expecting. Was quick and easy and with the square I could see how much more I had to go.

[Travish]

Harbor freight had a big sale on tarps and rope, so I tarped the garage off and started on the primer. With the tarps on the rope, it made for easy opening and closing of the tarps. Here is a pick of my parts.

Travis

[jhiggins7]

Travis,

Great idea for a "paint-room". Thanks for sharing.

[smreish]

Harbor Freight has the Organic style respirators on sale too...just saying.

[Travish]

Thanks Sean!

Those filters can be pricey. A respirator was defiantly needed for this paint. With the main garage door open and three sides covered plus the floor in the garage, it worked better than I anticipated. Before I have always just made a full hanging enclosure with fans and furnace filters, and it was always a pain. The small tarps were $2.99 each. I bought 10 of them, and was perfect to do a 2 car garage.

Harbor Freight is funny about sales, the online sales don’t match the shelves prices sometimes. You have to watch and make sure to look up the sales online and print the item out and bring it with you. When I got to the store they were $5.99, so I had to come back later, otherwise I would have paid double.

[qroger]

Once my work caused me to help clean out a 20' or 30' diameter above ground fuel oil tank. We were sloshing around in 3 or 4 inches of fuel, using brooms to push it out of the drain. We had respirators, full face, most likely because I don't remember my eyes burning. It was summer in South Carolina and about 100f degrees. My nose started to itch and I pulled the mask away for a second. Hoooweee! I found out that mask had been working hard to keep my air breathable. Those masks actually work!

[Travish]

Hey Fella's

It's been a while since I last posted. I took a long break after all the painting. I let the pcs cure for several weeks to let it fully harden. That paint in really amazing stuff for the price.

I have the machine all painted minus the rails. I have spent many days reading and figuring out details. Recently I have Mach 3 configured correctly with the jumpers all in the right spots, charge pump setup with all the e-stops working.

I went with the C6 Spindle Control Board and have it wired up the the Delta VFD and spindle. After programing the VFD and working thru the setup problems, this works really slick! We have speed control now!

[Travish]

Here I have the spindle side of things done. I wound up getting a 50 lb strut with 14.0" of travel for the beast. The diameter of the strut was .875" so I modified the mounting of the gas strut to hold the weight of the assymbly. Everything weighed in at 52 lbs so the strut fit right in.

Here are some pictures of my alignment. I 1st leveled the rails with shims, then aligned one rail, then I made some alignment gages to set the rails parallel to eack other with an indicator and some stock I made. This worked out sweet and I could get the rails easily within .001" // all the way down. This made it go really fas. I didn't want the gantry to be riding up on the rails causing uneven wear. Everything rolls really nice.

[Travish]

Here you see thing starting to come together.

I spent hours on the blue pad wiring everything up together. Here are the completed pictures of my control boxes. I have some tiding up to do, but things are working well together with out interference.

[MetalHead]

Man that is looking great. I like that dial indicator for checking your spacing.

[Robert M]

Nicely done Travis, look like your close to « take-off » day
BTW, Would you consider sharing your skate cad file, some may enjoy another alternative !?
Later, Robert

[Travish]

Thanks Robert,

Yes I'm going to have to put together the files and put them in a zipped format to share with the forum Members. Those who are interested, please PM me your email address. I'm headed out of town so I'll get to it in a few days.

Thanks,
Travis

[jehayes]

Travis: Great to see your progress. Let me know when you are running and if I can come for a visit. I would love to see it in action. Similarly, if/when you find yourself coming over the causeway to Whidbey, please stop by for a visit to see my machine.

Joe