Manual & small overhead gantry style - moveable bed plans, ideas...

[nadsab]

Hi,

I am interested in building my own manual overhead gantry style milling machine or buy a kit, which could utilize my Festool OF 1400, 2.25 HP router mounted on the gantry, and a manually movable bed design – I figure the manual moveable bed fixed gantry would keep the cost down plus help with holding tolerances. I am not doing any kind of detail milling work using the machine, this will only be used for surfacing end grain wood glue ups for detailed relief hand carving purposes, so I figure the simpler the better.

The maximum sized hunk of wood I need to machine is 10 inches wide by 15 inches long and an inch thick max – I need to mill a flat smooth surface and hope to achieve no more than .001 - .002” variance in the surface and material thickness using a Whiteside router bit and mill both sides of the wood for my carving purposes, need the wood as flat as can be both sides and uniform thickness - my surface planer will only give me about 1/64" thickness uniformity on a good day.

So questions are -

1.) Is it possible to have those kinds of tolerances in a manual movable bed design with this kind of set up and

2.) Can anyone recommend any plans for this unit? Hardware suppliers, etc...


I could probably live with around a .005"-.006 variance but I think that is the most I would want to go...

Thanks very much.

[draughted]

i don't know if you are interested? but sounds like your describing the router i have just
published plans for!

this is my thread of a work in progress, it should at least show you a few ideas for your own.
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=109881

[Matt Clara]

Perhaps a home made thickness/drum sander would suffice?

http://dougberch.com/2007/09/20/a-si...ckness-sander/

[nadsab]

Looks very interesting draughted's.

Do your plans allow for no electronics? I.e. no CNC? So I could just manually move the router over the material in a freehand motion?

[nadsab]

Hi Matt thanks,

I was looking into drum sanders a few years ago, do you think that a home made drum sander could bring wood thickness variation to no more than around .005 inch variation?

[Matt Clara]

Originally Posted by nadsab Hi Matt thanks, I was looking into drum sanders a few years ago, do you think that a home made drum sander could bring wood thickness variation to no more than around .005 inch variation?

No. I'm actually not sure my Performax would be that precise. There's a very slight difference from one side to the other. Flipping and rotating the piece seems to take care of it, but I've never shot for anything that precise. They all need plenty of finish sanding, in any case.

So yeah, bad idea. Forget I mentioned it. It would be real cheap, though.

[tootalew]

I think your referring to a bringe, a gantry is moving bridge. If you want to move it free hand then you don't even need screws.

Ive been in wood working most of my life. Maybe i am telling you something you already know, but, the knifes in your planers are adjustable, and if you can get the knives sharpened straight, its up to you to get them set. That maybe futile though, if your using one of those portable type planers, just too light weight and way too much vibration, to hold to .oo5"