Hello All,
I am 99% sold that the low rider will work for my needs, but I am looking for that final reassurance from experienced users.
The main purpose for my build will be to cut part blanks for an all aluminum airplane I am building from blueprints. I will need 5 x 13 table as I will be cutting large(4ft x 12ft), thin(.016 to .040) sheets. My lurking about has me feeling confident in the accuracy for the smaller individual parts. I am looking for advice for anything I can do now in my design and planning stage that could help with minimizing walk in the Y direction. I will be making full length cuts for structural components.
I would say welcome to the nuthouse, but you’re building your own airplane…
LR is certainly the way to go. I would say you cut the shapes piecemeal, moving the stock and maintaining reference points, but if you’ve got a 4’ dimension, you need the LR. It will certainly be one of the longest builds out there, and the trick may be keeping that surface flat enough. (For whatever definition of “enough” is, well… enough) Although, as long as the surface is parallel to the movement of the sled, it doesn’t really matter that much, your stock should conform to the surface pretty readily. What’s going to be killer is the time to cut out pieces of that size. That’s a lot of babysitting. Unless you’re building a waterjet or CO2 laser rig…
I think it should work well. And I want to see lots of pictures of it
The long axis isn’t that big of a deal. Things will be a little trickier building it 50% larger, for the obvious reasons. But cutting through thin sheet material should be pretty easy. Cutting just the perimeters, and not 2.5D pockets should still be relatively quick, especially if your material is thin enough to hit it in one pass. I don’t know where you even find material like that.
I’m not sure if the belts will give you any trouble. Because they will be longer and 50% more stretch and slack.
The long axis needs to stay straight. I out guides inside the wheels to keep it focused. It was easy when they were 3’ long. It will be a little harder if you’re trying to make 13’ long rails that stay straight. Some people use a bullnose bit and a router to make a little channel for the wheels to ride in. That’s easy enough, but then the trouble goes into making the outside edges of the table straight.
If you know how to build stuff, these won’t be big problems for you. Straight and square measure a few times and it will be great.
I don’t mind babysitting. I think it will save me time overall. Currently i have to make a two piece pattern, drawn out by hand using x,y coordinates from the prints. Then cut the patterns, index them, sandwich aluminum between the patterns then use a router to cut to match the pattern. Wash, rinse, repeat for every different part.
Ah, the “KCdad” threw me. We used to order from Dillsburg Airplane Works for race car materials, great place/prices, too bad they’re no longer in the business AFAIK.
All my parts are printed and I am getting ready to start building my table. Next on my list is the electronics. The Rambo seems to be the tried and true go to, but is hard to come by currently. The Archim 1 seems to be unavailable and having growing pains. The SKR Pro is available but still in beta. Recommendations anyone?
