Zen mounting rail thickness

I’m in the process of building my table based off Ryan’s plans and hit a snag with the mounting rails.

My initial plan was to use the leftover 1x4 to make the cross rails but now I realize that this puts the magnet 3/4" away from the glass. Even after adjusting the magnet, I’m left with roughly 1/2" of gap and I don’t think a spacer would be able to compensate for that.

Would I be able to get away with 1/4"x4" instead? I see that Lowes has them in stock and they’re roughly the exact length I need. I figure this only needs to support a little bit of EMT, plastic, and a couple of steppers so it should be adequate, but I thought I’d get some outside opinions before running out and buying it.


2 magnets, stacked should work.

I don’t have a ZenXY, but looking at the STL models, it should be easy to 3D print an “extender” that raises the magnet. I’d be glad to model one up if you need someone else to do it.

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That’s more or less what I’d suggest. A 1/2" cylinder, 13mm long, flare it out over 5mm and have it hold the magnet on tip of that.

Either that, or put the bottom glass to the underside of the support.

If you ran a dado cut on the edge of your 1X4 1/8" or closer to the edge, that would keep the surface closer to the mechanism.

Thanks for the suggestions everybody! I unfortunately have to let the project sit for a few days but I’ll update when I make some more progress. I think the printed cylindrical spacer with the magnet glued inside might be the way to go but I’m still considering buying at least 1/2" wood rails in order to tuck everything inside the frame a bit more.

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