The original plan was to make a 4x8 steel construction table with ballscrews and Hiwin linear rails and affordable hobby grade servos and components, not cheap but doable with proper budgeting. That plan all changed when work decided to get rid of an older Thermwood CNC machine that had been sitting in the corner for years as a pile of spare parts to the main Thermwood CNC machine. Well that machines' parts became the new basis for our machine's design. Having to redesign a lot of the machine to fit the new found freebies.
We were able to save a 5' x 10' frame from an old assembly jig from the scrap yard. It was made of 6" x 6" steel tube with six 6"x6" - 3/4" thick steel pads welded on the 4 corners and the middles then all machined flat as mounting plates for assembly jigs.
The Jig had legs on it, making the 5x10 working platform vertical. In order to convert it into a horizontal table for the basis of our CNC machine. The 2 legs had to be cut off and turned into 4 then re-welded together. Instead of scrapping the legs and starting over, we ground off all the left over welds and made it smooth again. We also saved the base feet of the jig, the feet which were 6x6 and about 48” long with ¾” plates already welded to the bottom for jacking screws