Yea, I thought about creating one like Regnar but then thought what happens when it meets clamps?

Going to redesign my shoe not to have full bristles all the way round. It will basically be a chamber from the back of the Z with a circle of brush around the bit area. I found with a full shoe suction disappeared when the back was hanging over the table at max X

Brilliant idea Heath! Will dig out my can and get filling :)

Speaking of my new dust shoe design, it will be sort of based on this one:

http://www.kronosrobotics.com/air-ex...s/airexchanger

I have a bunch of 3mm acrylic panels that will be cut up to give my shoe body some depth. The shoe, as mentioned, will have a removable brush around the spindle only held on with magnets. Its all currently in my head, just need to get it out of there and into CAD :)

Bruce,
I was doing some mdf raised panel doors a few years ago and had a slip on the router table. Bondo came to my rescue more than once on that job. Worked great with the mdf and once painted you would not know it was there.

*Like*! <- Lack of Like button :)

Like is only fair if Dis-Like is also available :D

Nah, according to Facebook CEO dislike is a bad thing hence them not having one. Wish they did though, I'd dislike the whole place :)

That is why I have been tempted, more than once, just to delete my facebook account. But there are some family members that this is the ONLY communications we have (yes, sad, I know, but it is life for some).

I am the minority in social activities, don't have a Facebook account nor feel I need one. I find the 'No' to the dislike is representative of the teachings now; how you can't say no, that is just dumb, what are you thinking, etc, etc, etc... Never hurt any of us. And without those things, building a machine like the Mechmate would cause the newer generation so much stress from failure. It is a learning experience of which failure is a major part of. My 2¢

Found a problem the other day, yup another one :) One of my belt drives was acting weird, jumping teeth on the rack and causing havoc with my cuts. So I pull it apart and it looked like the shaft was bent. Turned out the pinion on that drive was faulty. The center bore wasn't drilled on center, their doing, not mine. Got onto the supplier on ebay and they supplied another via express post. Going to fit that today as we have cousins coming over and I want to carve the little ones room plaques while they watch the "robot" do its thing :)

Hey Bruce
You did it!!
Well done mate, nothing like perseverance to get the job done
I have built my workshop but unfortunately my wife's health has stopped all Mechmate progress (discovered she has a terminal illness).
I have all the metal minus the tool steel and a few other bits and peices so perhaps sometime next year I will get a move on with mine
Again, congrats mate
Bazza

Unfortunately due to personal circumstances I must sell my beloved MM. But before I do I need to do one more job and that involves aluminium.

A friend of mine wants me to cut out and engrave some panels for his barbecue. This will involve cutting 3 mm sheet and engraving and cutting 2mm sheet. My question comes about the engraving bit as I have never engraved/vcarved anything but timber. I have a couple of V-bits, namely a 60 degree laser point CMT bit and its brother the 90 degree bit. Are these suitable for engraving a logo onto 2mm ali? As for cutting them out, I already have a 1/8 and 1/4 Viper bit specifically for aluminium so am good to go in that respect. Its just the engraving part that has me stumped. Any help appreciated

Sorry to hear your beloved #122 will be sold. Condolences. The good thing is if life changes you can build another if you want!

Sorry, I have no recommendations for the aluminum cutting. I am also sorry to hear of the retiring of your machine. Just do what is best for you and yours, another machine of some type can be built later if you require it.

Feel sorry for you...after all this trouble shooting !!! not much time to....have fun with it ?!
Was your chatter only from the off center pinion ?....or some other issue too ?
Best of luck on all what's heading :)

Thanks guys, I am now giving myself until mid April to improve things and if it doesn't happen she will go. I really don't want to sell, too much time and energy has gone into the beast.

Well, the good news is I don't have to sell my baby, I lucked out and got some casual work. Bad news is I don't have that much spare cash to buy stock to make things but that is way better than getting rid of the beast!

Good for you Bruce.
Any furniture makers or woodworking shops near you ?
They might have offcuts to give away or sell.

I think there are a few cabinet makers around, will try and do some "dumpster" diving. In the meantime, I have been collecting small pallets from work in the hope that all the small bits of timber can be glued into something workable :)

Bruce,you can cut plastic`s also so there is another market that you can tap or go to your cabinet makers around you and do their cutting service for them that way they supply the material and you just cut away.

Custom 3D work on cabinet doors and drawers is another. Sell yourself, not the machine. That is the problem that plagues most. You can have a great machine but people buy from you not the machine.

Thanks for the ideas guys, appreciated. Will hopefully be able to start doing that in the coming days. I was planning on doing a few samples with some MDF and foam I have at the moment.

A huge part of my business model is cutting radius templates for a local millwork shop, an opportunity I didn't even know existed pre build.
They supply material, all I buy is bits and paper to bill them with.

Wouldn't have thought of that in a million years Darren, thanks for the heads up! :)

Check with any casting facilities. They have molds that need made. Where I work they have asked if I was interested about making the templates out of wood and plastic for forming their sand molds. That is another choice.

You guys are awesome, thanks for all these great ideas!!!

Me neither, Bruce. They came to me. It seems they have a handheld router set up on a 10' compass or trammel, and cut their own blanks for any radius below 120". Over 120", its easier for me to cut it out, exact width of their finished piece, they then use a pattern bit to get their final blank size to run through the molder. They usually draw the part too, so all I do is import and toolpath it. Easy Peasy.

There is a guy here with a big iron machine who makes molds for a precast concrete company, for things like address plaques and odd shaped, one off caps for brick columns... They keep him pretty busy.
The work is out there.

Decided to make some improvements to my machine after seeing some weird stuff in the cuts. I have always had these "strange" noises coming from the X motors so I decided to check things out a little more. Turns out the PFC beams, although level across the machine between the two of them, are not level within themselves over the whole length. Each beam seems to twist at various points producing a wave effect, which in my opinion, is causing issues with everything above it.

So I set about removing the angle and taking the racks off.... what a job that was. That damn industrial tape does not want to let go... in most cases. I ended up using a plaster board saw to basically removed the guts of the tape from between the rack and the steel. In a way it was lucky I did as one side wasn't actually stuck to the steel very well and had started to pull away.

So now I have the beams without the angle I will devise a method to get each ones tops level in relation to the base that will, in effect, make the angle sitting on top perfectly vertical. One way I am thinking of doing it is using levelling epoxy on the tops which in its liquid form finds it own level. If anyone else has another idea I am all ears :)

Just remembered Pete's machine and I think I will try the grub screw method. As my rails will need to go both ways I will install 2 grub screws per bolt, one on the inside, one on the outside, which should allow me to get them level at any point along the length. Off to count how many I need :)

You beat me to my suggestion. A cheaper option could be any bolt, any length, after leveled, cut off flush, and slap a tack weld on it. Good luck.

Great idea with the bolts.. but I already grabbed 100 m5 grub screws for under $20. Just gotta drill the zillion holes to put them in now :)

You only need 100,000,005 holes:D

Touche Al! :)

I calculated it as 100,000,042 holes, but I tend to overkill things.
I'm sure Al is right.

With that many holes I think I better get a few more 4.2mm drills, only 1 isn't going to hack it! :)

Yep, but 1 can get started while the others are on the way!

leveling beams
 

here a suggestion to make the beams flat
what if you place two straight strips to the outside of the c beams. make some slob holes in those strips so you can adjust the height. clamp them with some bolts to the outer side of the c beams and let them stick 1 mm above the c beam. level the the 2 strips with a beam across and a machine bubble level (0.02mm / meter) yes I am metric
fix the strips to some points inbetween the outerside to avoid bending during level off.
use epoxy or polyester filler (used for repairing cars) not the quick drying but you should have half an hour work time. wall tile glue will also do the thing i guess

put it on topside of the beams and level off with a straight, not bending strip over the 2 leveled beams.
same method they use for plastering walls..
afterwards drill holes through the polyester/ epoxy.. into the beams and make the thread in the beams to fix the guidings. counter drill the into the top layer a bit, so it will not come up when fixing the bolts

in the past I led made some straight metal strips. they lasered them instead of using scissors. they stay straight make in one time the slob holes.

one time some effort, big smile on your face when its flat

before I painted my c beams and guidings i sand rough (size 60) sanding cloth, mounted on a piece of flat wood from +/- 40 cm to remove pollution / particles from the surface

Thanks Rik

Sounds similar to what I was proposing to do with epoxy. I am all setup now for the grub screw method so will run with that

Cheers

When using epoxy, beware that even the self leveling stuff will bulge at the edges (your levelled strips) , due to capillary effects. Will need to sand that down to rest of the surface after curing (if your linear rails will use that area when mounted that is) .

I took a hand held belt sander, with the most coarse sanding belt I could find. Running it up and down the I beams made it remove all scaling and other rough spots, yet not enough to make the surface uneven. Then shimmed rails according to mm plans. Worked super quick. But my frame was welded super straight on a industrial welding table, not something most will do.

Use flathead grubs, and locktite