I have a tm3 that I have just finished putting together and am wondering what width flat you guys think best 3/16x?. I now 3 or 4 inch will work but there is a fair difference in price between the two. I am more than willing to spend the money for wider if there is a good reason. The machine is a 6x10 there are 40 slots that each span a little over 7 feet. TIA Nick

I am about ready to put my 5'x6" by 12' long water table together and I am using 3/16" flat bar for my material slats, hope this helps. They will be supported on both sides of course and at 2 places in the middle also .

I used 1/4" X 4 for slats on my table (5' X 10') Of course slats are a bit over 5' long I spaced them on 3" centers. I priced 3/16" & 1/4" material before I bought slat material. to my surprise 1/4 was less expensive than 3/16. 3" tall should be fine as far as supporting your material. I went with 4" thinking I might be able to turn them over once the top surface became all gouged up. I'm not sure whether this will work or not. I haven't used my table enough to even be close to needing a new bed surface. They may be to warped up or require to much cleaning to ever be able to turn them over.

I cut the same patterns over & over for the production work I do. I made indexing tabs to set each sheet against on my table. That makes loading & aligning each new sheet a snap. Then the program(s) cut right back through the same nicked out spots over & over. At this point it's looking like the same slats are going to last a very long time.

Spend the money and get the wider stuff. 7 feet is a ways to go, and a few extra bucks will give you a better table. Just remember that once you start cutting you will probably gouge out your bars up to about an inch.

If you purchased the laser cut slatted support brackets from us, then 3/16" thick is what they are designed for, we usually recommend 5" tall, but anywhere from 3-6" will work.

On my homebuilt CNC Plasma / Router I make the slats from 16swg Mild Steel
I cut them on the plasma and they are 'Sawtooth' design with the points every 1 1/2" apart.
They are approx. 2" Tall
They are double sided so I can turn them over when they get worn. :)
They are spaced about 1 1/2" apart and I also cut them a fraction longer so that they 'bow' when I fit them into my water tank.
They are only supported on each end.
When I first built my water tank I made some supports for under the slats, but I have never needed them.
I only cut 16swg material, so if I cut thicker they might need some extra support.
3/16" thick slats seems way OTT to me :)
I have seen commercial laser machines that can take a 8' x 4' sheet of 1/4" Plate and they only use 14swg (2mm) Mild Steel thick slats.
Thats where I got inspiration for my design! :D

Andy

We have a 4x8 tm3. We made our slats 6", after you wear out the top of the slats, all you have to do is turn them over for a brand new table. One of the tricks we did to our machine was to incorporate some "dust covers" over the sides of the table to cover up the slat holder. This will help out alot when you're cleaning the table out, if it's not covered the slag will almost weld the slats in place. Not fun getting them apart.

Mike

I use 4" 12ga strips 4" apart and supported in four places in my 5x10 water table. I can put a 4x6 sheet of 1/2" on it with no problems although I am usually cutting 11ga or 1/4".

-Mark