@Earwigger Thank you for your post. Just a quick question. Did you use the same process for your Y-axis or was did you have to do something different?
Search āwidth of x axis makerslideā. Pictures will be found.
i completed the mod tonight using 3/16" x 2" x 36" steel bar and furniture bolts as many others have. I had a scary moment with some clamps that werenāt as secure as I thought when I was finishing up the last bolt but things came together.
Looking forward to doing some carves tomorrow, but just inspecting the x-axis manually shows that itās rock solid now. Thanks to everyone for sharing their experiences with this mod, itās going to make my X-Carve better.
3 Likes
I just did the mod. Didnāt disassemble anything. Just slid the bar stock in, drilled the holes, etc.
Almost tripled my cutting speed.
I have a Bosch Colt. Cutting with a .25" straight endmill, 130ipm and .120" depth in red oak.
Cuts like a dream. No chatter, no scary noises when going across the grain.
Itās a new machine.
4 Likes
I love to hear that. When you start out cobbling together a machine out of MDF, you learn a thing or two about the potential impact of rigidity mods. When I ordered the X-Carve, I was so excited because it wasnāt MDF! Then, I was really disappointed because my MDF machine was WAY more capable and sound. So, these are the first two things I didā¦ and the third was ditch the spindle. Still, these mods are no biggie - quick and as you noticed, have an amazing impact.
1 Like
Full disclosure:
I just did a test on 3/4" oak cutting a wedge for a kicktail on a skateboard going back and forth across the grain.
I had to slow it down to 100ipm and .060 cut.
It throws such large chips now I may have to modify my dust collection rig to get all the big chips out of the deep corners. (or buy another shop vac 
)
1 Like
Go ahead and get a real dust collector. It makes an amazing difference over a shop vac.
Soā¦ I did the steel bar mod. And dewalt upgrade. Dear lord made it awesome. But when I do a cut in plywood. And it is cutting against grain I get chatter. No matter the speed of spindle or feeds. Etc. so far. Did research and found the part of the mod I missed was the L brackets for the x axis. Testes the flex without them and wow. No wonder I am getting chatter. Will be fixing that in the morning.
If you want to stiffen the Y-axes and still be able to remove the wasteboard, you may want to consider something like what Iām going to do instead of using L-brackets. Youāll have to cut plates out of 1/8" material, but youāll be able to support it a lot more firmly. I was going to use makerslide end plates, but Inventables doesnāt have any to spare so Iām going to make a custom version out of aluminum. I was thinking about adding 3 plates on each end, maybe 3.5" wide.
Y Axis Mod.pdf (185.9 KB)
A similar idea to yours @RobertA_Rieke .
If the spoil board is cut as shown, it should still be removable without removing the extra y-axis plates.
3 Likes
As far as removing the spoil board, I am not sure that is a big deal for the immediate future. At least for me. But I donāt do much, if any through cutting soā¦
On my machine, the outside of the bottom rail is about 1/8" in from the inside of the top rail, no notches necessary. Is that a custom oversized wasteboard?
Beyond that, it looks like we had the same idea. I just decided to take it a step farther and use the screws attaching the plates to the top rail to also hold a large shield, which Iām making out of mirrored acrylic.
I based my design on measurements from the X-Carve cad files, or so I thought. I did assume that the width of the spoil board was the width of the X-Carve, in my case 1000mm. Iāll go and check that again as I intend to cut the spoil board tomorrow.
The shield is a good idea, perhaps once I have a functioning X-Carve to make them.
Geoff
The waste board is only 940mm wide, 998mm tall. That should leave some room for plates without modification to the waste board.
Thanks for pointing this out.
If I measure between the inside faces of the Y axis rails, I get 945mm. I think I had the x and y measurements swapped.
Not having to mess about with the spoil board means all I need to make is a few plates out of 3mm aluminium.
After I make the X-Carve benchā¦ after I finish making the X-Carve ā¦
1 Like
Iām tempted to just buy some extra end plates and screw them directly to the rails. They already have the proper mounting holes and are the right color. It may be an easy (and inexpensive) bolt-on mod for stiffening the Y axis.
@ChrisSlaten, I was going to do that but they donāt have any to spare. All they have are going into filling orders.
Nice design.
They donāt have any waste boards to sell separately either. I donāt think they were expecting the number of orders they are getting for the X-Carve. They just canāt keep up.
If the y-axis is going to flex, itās going to flex mostly in the x-direction. If you add plates like in your mod, itās not going to do much to prevent that motion, because the lower extrusion will twist quite a bit.
1 Like