I've just started building a router based on Joe2006chevy's r2 model. I think his design is brilliant and I know I would be beautifully served with his machine exactly as built. Still, for some reason I can't quite figure out, I find myself wanting to modify it.

I've never built a CNC router before and Joe has built a few outstanding machines. It's not that I think I'm smarter than Joe. Not by a long shot. There's just something inside me that wants to tweak the design.

The mods I want to do aren't real major. In fact, I was thinking of asking Joe if he would make a set of his HDPE pieces for me. It might make sense to get hold of his whole kit and just build and/or mod from there. I'm thinking about minor stuff like aircraft plywood veneers on the torsion boxes, a sleight redesign of the uprights, use of epoxy/fiberglass in a couple of spots including the outside faces of the uprights, and one or two other small things like a bed than hangs over the x-axis pipes to keep the gantry tracks a tiny bit cleaner.

I built a CNC hotwire a while ago but that was pretty lame compared to a router of this size. Would anyone care to share some advice to a first time mill builder? Modify or stick to an outstanding design that has proven itself?

if it were me, and i was going to follow someoneelse's design, i would use thier majors and then just tweak the minor stuff as i went.. that way i would know that the basics and all the major parts would work, and the minor changes that i would make wouldnt hender the performance of what i was building... then use it, find the weak links, and improve them.. anything you build will have some kind of a weak link.. find it and fix it, run it harder, and find the next one and so on...till your either happy, or it exceeds your needs.

My advice - build it the way it was designed, then use the first one to build what you want. Use the experience of building the first one to determine what you want or need to modify on the second machine. Plus it's easier to build a CNC router if you have a working CNC Router. :wave:

Take a look around on this site (and others), there are a lot of people that have tweaked here, tweaked there, and tweaked everywhere but still don't have a completed table for all of their effort.

Just my 2 cents.

Take a look around on this site (and others), there are a lot of people that have tweaked here, tweaked there, and tweaked everywhere but still don't have a completed table for all of their effort.

Holy cow, I've never heard a more persuasive argument.

Gentlemen, thank you both for your advice. It has been taken to heart.