Leo Voisine
Member
- Messages
- 5,734
- Location
- East Freeetown, Massachusetts
Well, this is the first real upgrade to my machine.
I had predetermined this upgrade long before I bought this machine. When I was machine shopping this upgrade was one of the top reasons for wanting the rack and pinion system. The insides of the machine are W I D E open.
Also one of the reasons for the height of the feet I put under the machine is so I could "fit" stuff inside the machine.
Well here is the beginning of the upgrade.
When I bought my smaller 24x24 machine for $250 it was on an aluminum extrusion frame table. The 3" square extrusion as well as other sizes made up the WAY oversized table. The top was a 5/8 thick 6061-t6 plate. The aluminum alone is with well over $1500.
Sooo - I cut the 3" 8020 to fit inside as cross members. I am going to bolt it to the steel machine frame with 1/2-20 hi strength bolts and 1/4 steel plate as washers. It's going to be an engineering overkill, but hay - it's what I can do.
I removed the "T" track table top. There are 14 sections. I will cut the sections to make the front part of the machine available without removing the back section. OR They could be opened independently.
I do NOT plan to mount my Porter Cable dovetail jig in the machine - this is just to show some intent.
I DO plan to build a more versatile fixture to mount on the machine as I need it.
The new Aluminum Extrusion cross members allows for vertical clamping. The machine bed allows for horizontal clamping.
I am finally getting to building kitchen cabinets and there will be many drawers. To start I am building two cabinets with 4 drawers each. I want to get the machine upgraded to make the drawer dovetails.
If I really needed to I could put this whole cabinet in the machine and do CNC to it.
This is the stuff I was thinking of when I was thinking about upgrading from the 24xc24 machine.
I ordered all the nuts and bolts and other hardware I need. McMaster is so fast I am sure I will have a lot of it next week.
I had predetermined this upgrade long before I bought this machine. When I was machine shopping this upgrade was one of the top reasons for wanting the rack and pinion system. The insides of the machine are W I D E open.
Also one of the reasons for the height of the feet I put under the machine is so I could "fit" stuff inside the machine.
Well here is the beginning of the upgrade.
When I bought my smaller 24x24 machine for $250 it was on an aluminum extrusion frame table. The 3" square extrusion as well as other sizes made up the WAY oversized table. The top was a 5/8 thick 6061-t6 plate. The aluminum alone is with well over $1500.
Sooo - I cut the 3" 8020 to fit inside as cross members. I am going to bolt it to the steel machine frame with 1/2-20 hi strength bolts and 1/4 steel plate as washers. It's going to be an engineering overkill, but hay - it's what I can do.
I removed the "T" track table top. There are 14 sections. I will cut the sections to make the front part of the machine available without removing the back section. OR They could be opened independently.
I do NOT plan to mount my Porter Cable dovetail jig in the machine - this is just to show some intent.
I DO plan to build a more versatile fixture to mount on the machine as I need it.
The new Aluminum Extrusion cross members allows for vertical clamping. The machine bed allows for horizontal clamping.
I am finally getting to building kitchen cabinets and there will be many drawers. To start I am building two cabinets with 4 drawers each. I want to get the machine upgraded to make the drawer dovetails.
If I really needed to I could put this whole cabinet in the machine and do CNC to it.
This is the stuff I was thinking of when I was thinking about upgrading from the 24xc24 machine.
I ordered all the nuts and bolts and other hardware I need. McMaster is so fast I am sure I will have a lot of it next week.