On Monday, January 31, 2011 11:31:02 am andy pugh did opine: > On 31 January 2011 12:32, Mark Wendt <mark.we...@nrl.navy.mil> wrote: > > Interesting idea. �However, using either a planer, or Stuarts > > Cincinnati will still not make the vacuum hold-down bed flat to the > > cutting head. It would be flat to Stuart's machine, or to the planer, > > but my gantry still has to ride on it's own linear bearings, > > I was suggesting using your gantry as a planer head.
So would I, but first, because its alu, I have to ask: Is is alu for some reason related to interaction with the bamboo?, or just for the expediency of construction? I would, because the alu will eventually wear, consider overlaying the alu with twin strips of steel, epoxied to the alu bed so that the vacuum slot is not effected, but raised by the thickness of the steel strip. This would, I think, give a longer wearing surface after the top of the strips were ground dead flat to whatever sag may be in the carriage rods, using the gentle touch of a drill doctor wheel to do the actual grinding. That would of course bring up the thermal effects on the flatness as it would probably only be truly true to the carriage at only one temperature, tending to warp up and down with the thermometer reading. I can think of ways to control that, all of which are a bigger PIYA though. Grinding the alu to flat is not a workable idea because of alu's tendency to plug up the grinding wheel, not even the drill doctor wheel would be immune to that. Thought, flood the alu with k1, lots of it, recycling the runoff, and still use the drill doctor diamond wheel, but turning slowly enough so as not to throw the K1 all over. This should help prevent the wheel from plugging up to a large extent by keeping its surface wet. Move the carriage slowly, say 2-4 hours to make one pass, feed it a thou closer and retrace, repeat till a clean cut is obtained. I have no idea how long an aquarium pump would last pumping k1, but that should be an ample flow rate to keep the area flooded and clean. You would, with the diamond wheel, be cutting an un-oxidized surface once the initial cut has been made, or as least an only slightly oxidized surface due to the oxygen reduction the film of k1 assures, making the wear of the diamonds much less. Can you show us a piccy of this track from the end on view? With a tape measure for scale? -- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) <http://tinyurl.com/ddg5bz> Pollyanna's Educational Constant: The hyperactive child is never absent. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Special Offer-- Download ArcSight Logger for FREE (a $49 USD value)! Finally, a world-class log management solution at an even better price-free! Download using promo code Free_Logger_4_Dev2Dev. Offer expires February 28th, so secure your free ArcSight Logger TODAY! http://p.sf.net/sfu/arcsight-sfd2d _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
