Do you mean solid maple? The short answer is no. I can point you to many posts here warning against using solid woods. I have built several pieces of furniture and built-ins using solid wood. It is beautiful stuff to work with, but not here. Man-made compositions will work much better for machine design (Ply or MDF). If you are going with Hack’s design, the 80/20 will do most of the work for you. The only place I see as a potential problem is the gantry walls. These could easily be strengthened with vertical stiffeners if you see a problem when you are finished.
Some testing I have done has shown that MDF with thick plastic laminate glued on both sides yields a very strong structure. The melamine coated boards at the local Home Depot are not nearly as flex resistant.
Again, if you are going with Hack’s design, go with his design. The wood parts are the cheapest and easy to replace if for some reason you don’t like them.
Just a thought,
Steve |