Well it's been a while since any real update, but I assure you i have not been at rest. My biggest hurdle now is getting a chip cover for the Z axis. After looking around trying to find one that I can adapt to my use, I've decided that I'm too cheap and I should try making my own. So I've been trying different combinations of materials to get the chemical resistance and structural rigidity that I desire. So fast forward thru lots of failed attempts and I think I'm headed in the right direction. I bought a 1/16" thick sheet of buna-n rubber that I'm going to use as the external surface. Great water and chemical resistance, but it's pretty floppy by itself and will never hold a bellow shape. So I went off to the hardware store trying to find something that's flexible but stiff enough to hold the rubber in place. After stumbling around for a half hour I wandered into the window section and saw it....Aluminum window screen....It's everything I needed and super cheap...So the real challenge was how the heck do you secure it to the rubber...My first attempt was contact cement, and while it worked OK, it wasn't quite the end all solution.
!st, I needed a backing material so the cement wouldn't stick to itself when folded. I tried plain old paper and some scrap fabric I had kicking around. The paper worked REALLY well while the fabric just let the cement ooze thru. The problem now was after bending it back and forth a few dozen times, the aluminum separated from the rubber.
So thinking, i remember they sell buna-n oring chord that you can glue together, so a quick google search later I found out that the glue they use is nothing more than common household super glue. That worked GREAT
So I think I've gotten the pieces together, now I just need to figure out how to fold it to get the shape I want. That said, I'm open to suggestions on better methods....