question for anyone who's cnc'd a guitar with a home made router

[ihavenofish]

ive got all the parts to make a decent gantry here. it will have 22" x 16" travel, making it big enough for bodies. it will ONLY do guitar and other wood things, as its not the absolute strongest frame.

in any case, my issue is the spindle. i happen to have a bosch colt palm router. its basically a perfect fit to the machine and id like to use it.

is it wise/safe/doable to cut a 2" deep body outline with a bit on a 1/4" shank? anyone done this? what type of bit works best? i really dont want to get a larger multi hp router for this application.

[amplexus]

It is on the light side but if you slow things down it should be fine and you can always upgrade for more power. How is your machine built? Not the absolute strongest frame is a bit vague.
Amplexus Ender

[ihavenofish]

Originally Posted by amplexus It is on the light side but if you slow things down it should be fine and you can always upgrade for more power. How is your machine built? Not the absolute strongest frame is a bit vague. Amplexus Ender

haha, actually its probably very strong compared to some of the hobby machines shown around here. its made from precision grade thk kr46 slides and an aluminium slide with rsr15 rails for the Z. so its "rigid", but because of the way the thing kr slides bolt together with no registration surfaces or pins, it likely cant take the kind of forces you get cutting metals without going out of alignment. its also very fast - 500+ipm and pretty snappy acceleration so it will probably be much too easy to push it harder than the frame would like. i think sticking to wood is probably safest.

i dont want a bigger spindle if it can be avoided mostly because of power and noise concerns, but also because theres not alot of room to mount a full sized router - it would at some Y travel up.

in any case, ive found a router bit with a 1/4" shank, 3/8" cutting diameter, 1.25" cutting depth and about 1.625" of practical cutting depth clearance.

just need to run shallow passes methinks and ill be fine.... maybe. only one way to find out