Router CNC Build

[Alan_H]

Here we go..
Plywood.. Picked up 2 sheets on Saturday from Lowe's, 1 sheet of Birch to complete the gantry and 1 of Sanded Poplar for the table-top. It's fairly smooth, and I think it will work well. Lowe's will make 2 cuts on their panel saw free, so I got each cut to rough size...



Trimmed down the 2x4's to 3" like Dave recommends in the plans. (Does anyone need a yard-stick starter kit? [rofl] )



Pieces for the top..


Pieces for the Base and uprights...


The top... the remainder of the back will go on after it's attached to the base..


The base


Front uprights...


Wheels installed after the back uprights...


Complete Base..


Starting to put the table frame on... working front to back!!


And.. side-to-side as well..


And the base and table frame are done.



I sat the plywood for the top up on the frame after this, I had it cut to 57" thinking I could find the best square side and trim it down to 56". After checking it, it's going to stay that width... I'll have an extra inch to work with so it will definitely get 48" wide on the workable space.

[Alan_H]

Wow!! 360 holes drilled tonight!!



There are 180 holes for T-nuts to use for hold-downs... I first drilled from the bottom with my pilot/countersink bit...



Then I flipped it over and drilled the final size from the top..



This kept the tear-out down to a minimum... Then comes the T-nuts....


Flipped it back over and started hammering them in... got 100 done so far... re-supply comes tomorrow to replenish my stocks and finish the top so I can flip it back over and screw it down.

[Alan_H]

Well, I've been working on this when time allows... not much visible progress until the last couple days..

I got my inner and outer front and back gantry panels drilled and stained. One more step on these before they are ready for assembly... but we'll save that for another post.. [wink]

However, I've been drilling out alot of the holes in the kit pieces as well, installed all of the anti-backlash nuts in their respective pieces, and finally got to assembling the gantry uprights...


I also cut the table guide rails...


Then drilled the guide rails and got the bottom rails attached to the lower pieces...


Next step will be to attach the first rail to the table top, make a reference stick to keep the other side parallel, and then attach the bottom rails to the table.

BTW, the bottom rails will get temporarily attached, then drilled for the outer set of T-nuts. After that, I'll take them off, drive in the T-nuts and then permanently attach them.

[Alan_H]

Thanks for all the words of encouragement and positive feedback!!

So, in my last post, I alluded to another step for the gantry panels before I could begin assembly on the gantry. That step was to go see fellow Gatton CNC forum user and CNC builder. He lives about 15 minutes from me, and I took my Gantry outer front panel and Z-box face panel to him. He has a shapeoko that he used to carve his pieces and was kind enough to do mine as well...


Gatton CNC on the front Gantry panel.


X-Axis directions on the right side of the panel..


And the Z-Axis face panel...


I will do a little sanding on these to clean them up, then use some clear spray-on polyurethane to protect them.

[KCStudly]

When I followed your link^^^ to the Gatton website, the owner seemed like he was making constant improvements to his kits. I bet if you posted these engravings on his forum site he just might start adding something similar.

[Alan_H]

When I followed your link^^^ to the Gatton website, the owner seemed like he was making constant improvements to his kits. I bet if you posted these engravings on his forum site he just might start adding something similar.

KC, I am also doing a double post with a thread on his forum. So he will see it. He could incorporate the Z-axis engraving if he wanted to.

However, the kit that he sells only includes the pieces that need to be cut by a CNC to make the machine work properly once assembled. One of the nice things about the design is that it's scalable. The purchaser can make any size machine they want/need and/or have space for.

As such, and to save on shipping, a lot of the pieces, including the gantry cross-panels, that can be cut with simpler table-saw cuts are done by the purchaser on plywood obtained locally.

The really nice "Gatton CNC" and X-axis engraving on the gantry front panel wouldn't be possible as a result of this. BTW, the font is from Batman Forever.

However, I'm sure he is taking notes. I will make the suggestion, as he does have engraving of "Gatton CNC" on the gantry uprights, so we know he has an engraving step built into his run to make the kits.

Thanks again for the feedback, and I'll try to make some more progress this week. My wife shared her head-cold with me though, so I've been pretty wiped out in the evenings after I come home from work.

[Alan_H]

I have made a little more progress over the weekend and a couple evenings this week... I'll apologize at the outset for all the clutter in the back-ground...

As I stated previously, I would need to attach one of the rails to one side of the table, and then make an alignment stick to use in installing the opposite side rail.. I installed the left rail first as that seemed to be the side that was most square to the front of the table... Here is a pic using the stick I made to install the right rail...


And a close-up of it's High Falutin' label that I put on it.. so I don't trash it later...


This kept them parallel so that the gantry runs front to back (Y-Axis) without any binding in it's travel. I spent a lot of time on this step, and my OCD seems to have paid off... I have less than 1/32nd width variance front to back in the travel of the 2 sides.

Then I installed the bottom rails by putting the gantry up-rights onto the rails and making sure they were vertical along their travel front to back. No pic here, I didn't want to drop my good level..

Uprights on rails with reinforcing block glued and screwed for the gantry cross panels.


And a couple with the panels on ( had to try it, even though the X-rails aren't cut and installed on these yet...)


And with the Z-axis front panel. (Gotta get the z-axis box assembled too.. )

[crpngdth2001]

Great progress and attention to detail! I'll be watching as I'd love to do something like this in the future.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Alan_H]

The fun continues...

I got the rails for the gantry and the Z-box cut, drilled and installed... Obviously I also got the Z-box assembled as well...


Then I installed the front and back panels onto the uprights, with one screw front and rear on each side (It was still rather wobbly at this point.)...


After measuring and re-measuring for alignment, I was able to measure then length for the top and bottom panels. I also measured the width to confirm on each, and had to trim the top by 1/32".
Then they got their outer surfaces poly/stained...


I then installed the bottom panel, these are secured with 2-1/2" Deck screws...



I also made and installed 2 more spacer blocks to help keep it more rigid... These were installed with Tight-bond II.


Then the top panel...


This really stabilized things!!!

Next comes the Z-axis plates!

It's been so hot here that I've been working on it late in the evenings after the wife leaves for work (night shift nurse... leaves around 10 PM) so I only get about 1-1/2 to 2 hours a night.. More updates soon I hope...

[migal0412]

I reckon what you are doing is great but I also think I completely built my tear in less time than you are spending setting up your CNC, but I can also see that it would come in very handy for later projects.

[Alan_H]

I reckon what you are doing is great but I also think I completely built my tear in less time than you are spending setting up your CNC, but I can also see that it would come in very handy for later projects.

Thanks for stopping by. If you built a TD in 2-3 months then I'm very impressed. I would like to have that much time on my hands. I've only got about 30 working hours wrapped up in this thing so far, but I'm enjoying the build.

This will definitely be used for many more things than just building my tear. Hopefully it will be a small income generator once it's up and running.

Plus my theory with the TD is, build what you want the first time and you only cry once.. So hopefully the extent that I'm going to do on this tear will keep me happy for many years.

Thus, I won't get the itch like others and start building a second one shortly after the first is done... Unless someone falls in love with it and pays big bucks to either buy it, or commission one for themselves.

[Alan_H]

Well... this photo bucket thing is most annoying, guess I'm in search for a new photo hosting site.

[aggie79]

Well... this photo bucket thing is most annoying, guess I'm in search for a new photo hosting site.

As the song says, "Another one bites the dust..." I think all "free" image hosting sites will ultimately be pay sites.

For this forum, I post photos directly. I do, however, send Apple $0.99 per month to store my photos in the cloud. I'm sure this price will increase over time, but I like the convenience and having easy access to multiple Apple devices. Now...if I change platforms...

[Alan_H]

Well... this photo bucket thing is most annoying, guess I'm in search for a new photo hosting site.

As the song says, "Another one bites the dust..." I think all "free" image hosting sites will ultimately be pay sites.

For this forum, I post photos directly. I do, however, send Apple $0.99 per month to store my photos in the cloud. I'm sure this price will increase over time, but I like the convenience and having easy access to multiple Apple devices. Now...if I change platforms...

I thought about storing them here, but I'm also running the same thread on Dave Gatton's CNC forum. I have a website for my business, checking into how much storage space I have there, might just do that. Or, I might try another service.

[Alan_H]

The images are fixed (mostly.. ) and I will be uploading some more soon. I've made a little more progress, but had to put it on hold to work on a project for a youth group that I do volunteer work for... Another update soon!!