After many, many upgrades and most recently an xcarve update to my Shapeoko 2 I’ve realized that I more or less have an entire tiny g based Shapeoko 2 sitting around in pieces. So next weekend I’m going to start a 4x8 makerslide based project. It’s mostly an experiment because we had most of the parts already and we have some 1800mm makerslide coming. We are going to start by reusing the end plates and literally just scale up a machine to handle a 4x8 sheet of plywood. I’m thinking that with minimal additions this might even be enough to do some cabinet work with a bosch colt. After we have it assembled we will start addressing rigidity issues, maybe adding a smooth rod or two on the x axis, milling out new end plates etc… . I’m not an expert in this area but I’m thinking that with minimal support the y axis should work just fine, assuming we can mate two pieces of makerslide and leave a smooth enough groove for the vwheels. So we will probably focus on making the x axis more rigid at that width. This got me thinking about the design of the x axis itself. Wouldn’t we get better support and rigidity if we mounted the router in between the two x axis makerslides fully supported by each? this would completely center the weight of the router and make rotation much less likely. I haven’t seen anyone use this design and I’m trying to figure out what I’m missing? I’ve got a what seems to be a “working” solution sketched out in my head.
1 Like