NEW X carve first upgrade, dust shields and Y-rail stiffening

OK so i was getting bad chatter on the X axis, I hope by doing this mod it will fix some of my issues…

Do you have the single piece wide maker rail on the x axis or the older two piece x axis? I just installed the single piece today and it made a significant difference in taking flex out of the x and z axis’.

Also what brackets are you using for your Y stiffening mod?

yes I have the new carve 2 but when the gantry is in the center of the rails i can still easily move it with 2 fingers I think 1000mm is just too long of a span for aluminum. The brackets are just some steel corner brackets 2.5"x2.5" from lowes , I cut them down and painted them black.

The brackets look nice. Very clean setup.

In regards to the chatter, I can’t imagine the y stiffening fixing that. I’ve also had chatter issues even with conservative feed and speeds. Especially through hardwood like oak and walnut. There is a sweet spot on the v wheels and delrin nut tightness that seems to do the trick.

I also replaced the washers that are in between the two bearings in each of my z axis wheels and that took a whole lot of slop out of them. If you try to twist your router side to side, you may see movement in the v-wheels or even hear and feel a pop. From another thread, these are the washers I used - My local Home Depot had them in stock.

I just ran the first test after the mod and it was a success , i was milling a pocket in 1/4" birch plywood with a 1/8th compression endmill and it was chattering like crazy at 40 ipm , I just ran a similar job with 3/8 ply at 100 ipm with zero chatter its night and day , check out the post i made yesterday watch the video, I’m fixing to post a new video showing results in that thread.

Just watched your new vid at 100 ipm – wow that is a huge difference. I stand corrected :slight_smile:

I’m rather pleased myself, cuts like butter!

Can we see how they are mounted behind the MDF?

I would have to unbolt the entire dust guard to show you, I used the same bolts to hold the brackets in place.

I used these, made sure my machine was as square as possible
https://www.lowes.com/pd/Stanley-National-Hardware-2-5-in-Metallic-Corner-Brace/3037544#

I measured the rail divided it into 3 equal sections.

I drilled a hole and ran a bolt all the way through the rail I used nylon lock nuts, the part that is screwed down to the waster board was cut with a dremmel cut off wheel so it wouldn’t stick out so far

Answers my question still, thank you. I wanted to know if you ran a bolt through or used t nuts

Did you only use the L brackets to stiffen the rails?

Yes , it’s seems to work really well .