@BrentSancken we looked at the option of also including the T-25 driver bit as an option but the problem is you can very easily accidentally create threads that are cross threaded or on an angle when using the drill which will ruin the entire piece of makerslide since the screws won’t hold or won’t go all the way in.
Our long term solution to this problem is we are going to be sending them tapped.
I realize this doesn’t help you but wanted to give you the context.
Merry X-Mas!
Sending them tapped is a wise decision and investment. I just received my X-Carve this last wednesday, and am spending xmas buiding it 
and my Z-axis was tapped but none of the other four longer pieces were. The only thing I wish is that the instructions stressed the importance of lubricant when using the self-tapping screws, which are IMO perfectly fine for the machine without a tap, provided that lube is used on them. I made the mistake of attempting to get the gantry built sans-lube, and the first Y plate on the right side wasn’t too bad but the front rail with the X-Carve logo on the 2nd Y plate almost made me cry when the screws started seizing toward the very end because I was worried I wouldn’t be able to get them in far enough to hold the plate to the makerslide. I don’t know why I didn’t have the presence of mind to use the machine oil that I had handy, but after I realized my mistake the rest of the self-tapping screws went just fine.
To my mind, the self-tapping screws was the hardest and most precarious part of building the machine, so it’s a relief to hear that the MS will be pre-tapped for future builders.
Cool. Yea we are rolling the tapped makerslide in. It was too hard to have a clean break because the volumes of the different pieces are different and we order by weight not by pieces.
Feel free to propose an edit to the instructions. They are open source and hosted on github.
Awesome stuff Zach. I will definitely make contributions to the instructions at some point. Keep up the radicalness, I’m super stoked about Inventables as a thing, and imagine it as one of the cutting edge companies that know how business should be done in this day and age of technology and information. One example of such a company that comes to mind is Tesla. Musk’s ideas are so cutting edge that the rest of the business world can’t keep up; selling directly to the buyer, and with their own distribution centers/dealerships. The only reason the other companies and dealerships were fighting against Tesla’s business model is because they couldn’t keep up, and instead of adapting to these modern times they opted to take the unsustainable route and cried to the government to save them from the big bad innovative Tesla…
Growing up my father was a machinist. He passed away this last Easter after a 2 year battle with brain cancer. He had his own machine shop for almost a decade before the cancer took hold, and I spent many a day working for him and learning the ins-and-outs of CNC machining, and modern manufacturing and fabrication in general. One of the things that he always pointed out was how manufacturing was progressively being shipped overseas, and that the skills required to produce actual useful stuff were a dying art and trade in our country.
With the advent of your company, and the companies of others who share a similar vision of empowering the people with better means to live life and express and articulate themselves, our country is having a sort of manufacturing/fabrication renaissance in a really interesting way. People are getting into 3D printing, and CNC machining, and the internet is just paving the way for the decades of expertise and knowledge to flow freely wherever there is a desire. It’s amazing.
I’m excited to see Carvey hit a nerve, because it will. It does exactly what people need. Incidentally, my wife and I run a crafting business out of our home, for the past few years now, and it has been slowly building up. We have a shelf of every type of printer you can imagine, and multiple die-cutting machines, and have been progressively advancing and expanding our product line offerings. With my X-Carve I primarily plan to work on a very specialized and unique personal project, but have no doubt that it will surely become one of the many devices we use to produce items for our online shop.
I’m super proud of you Zach, and your efforts and endeavors with Inventables, and to think that you were able to create jobs for people to work at such a neat company doing neat stuff. That’s super cool. I hope someday I will be able to create something in the same way.
I will be sending you guys something really neato for your shelf there at Inventables once I get my machine running and my process using it nailed down, so as to show your visitors the power of being able to create with a little ingenuity. Merry X-mas, and lets all have the best 2016 we can possibly muster, w00000!!!11111
