I’m glad y’all noticed that about the work area. You were right. I just moved the rails up on the plate. I’m going to cut the bottom part of the plate off and that will give me a total of 7” of work room, before the spoil board.
Seven inches is a generous amount of work envelope in the Z axis. That should suffice for just about anything you are apt to do.
@Paul_Frederick Yes, I’m happy with that.
You should move your x rails to the outside, slot further apart the better.
@Paul_Shaw Yes, they were initially on the top and bottom ones, but the plates are already cut, so that would have to be changed at a later time. Another issue was the length of my X beams. But, I’ve got to conserve some $$. Recutting plates won’t be done until I can do it with a CNC.
@George_Allen What kind of a cut do you need that you need to CNC it? You can cut aluminum using just woodworking tools. It is a bit more intense but it is still doable. Just be prepared for hot chips and more noise. I tend to feed work slower and hang onto it tighter too. Aluminum ain’t soft pine, but it isn’t steel either. And yeah I don’t use my best carbide blade on my table saw when I am cutting aluminum on it either. Any cheap 7.25" blade does the job.
Never forget the aluminium window guys on site who used to set up their drop saw with the 4 way power board underneath on the ground. Made a pretty big mess of it once all the aluminium shards inside shorted out!
@Paul_Shaw my table saw has a TEFC motor on it. So no chips can get into the motor. http://i.imgur.com/8bjDS.jpg
