My 1st Router - PEU

[PEU]

New upgrade, Tooling plate!

Always start with a plan! Made a wood piece to test fit the idea



Standoffs for the current table:



Center punch every hole, all 301 of them! That's the CAD blueprint



Drill



Tapping with a tapmatic, thanks God my partners had this device in their arsenal of tools, all 301 holes were tapped in less than 2 hours, if you ever come across a cheap one at ebay don't let it go, this one is self reversing with torque adjust, amazing tool, really amazing! Look at the high tech torque arm support



The machine I used with the tapmatic, heavy and sturdy old french iron



Shimming! the drill press I have at the office does not have enough throat to make the second holes at the front standoffs.



Finished!



The plate is not dead flat, there is only 0.1mm (0.004") across the whole table between peaks and valleys, I can live with that, an extra standoff in the middle of the table could help improve this a little.


Pablo

[FandZ]

Man that table top looks nice. That table top would have been a disaster if I had tried. The only bad thing is your table top looks nicer than your machine. But that's a good problem to have. Good job.

[PEU]

Today I finished the clamping kit for the new tooling table:




And here is what I first machined with it:





The hardwood is Quebracho, it has natural inner crackings, you may see them if you look closely. It's a paper weight


Pablo

[PEU]

Added eccentric clamping tools to my arsenal

Eccentric clamp - YouTube

Eccentric clamp - YouTube

Details
1/4" (6.35mm) 20tpi screws
head turned to 8mm diameter
Eccentricity is 1mm on the diameter

Nut big hole is 8.75mm
Lip hole is 6.5mm



Pablo

[harryn]

Hello Pablo,

I hope you and your family are doing well.

On my side, I am now at attempt number 2 to build a router, and of course the linear rails are always a question for capability and price. On many DIY builds, people will change this part many times in order to improve it, but interestingly, you were only forced to change this part to gain more length.

I worry a bit about using these high precision type rails for several reasons:
- Will I be able to align them well enough using simple home methods, since they talk about machining ledges for them in the brochures
- Of course the cost
- Dust getting into the mechanism

It seems though, that you are so far quite successful with these.

Take care,

Harry

[PEU]

Hi Harry,

Is not that difficult, it takes some hours align everything properly, but it can be done. Aligning the rails is the easiest part IMHO then you need to align the ballscrew to the already aligned rails, thats a little more complicated, but there is a small compromise you can do, remove the back support bearing and allow a little play, the loss in precision is insignificant.


Pablo