Tumbler Build - For cleaning plasma cut parts.

I would say go find some big heavy tube, but knowing you i am afraid you will come back with some 1000x2000x50mm tubing !
For that size, something like 600x400x10 to 15mm thickness would be nice, easier to fill and plenty of meat for the screws and for grinding the rail mountings directly on them. But as the ballscrew is usually thicker than the rails, using thinner material or several pieces welded together and adding square metal rods about 5mm wider than the rails will do just fine. That 5mm wider is for a lip or bump on one side when grinding or milling, so mounting and aligning the rails will be much easier.
Oh and B.Th.W., no need for moulding anything.

this was the one i was talking about. this tread is actually two builds in one. the first small machine does really well with high speed machining of Aluminum for a DIY build. but if you look through the tread the gantry is filled and the tube frame is filled with E.G.

the machine has a nice high speed spindle so it does Aluminum well. the only thing that is not good is the lack of lower speeds with usable torque with that type of spindle. rigidity wise the machine would handle mild steel i think just would not get very good tool life running that fast. that was why i traded off the high speed spindle choices for what i used. i can't go nuts with light fast tool paths but i can get into slower cuts with a little more step over.

spindle choice is important based on needs you might have. and tool life is important since tools are not that cheap. so you want to get the most out of them to keep things cost effective. insert cutters are nice but they like brute force to drive them around.so that's where spindle HP comes into play.

www.cnczone.com/forums/uncategorised-met...lling-aluminium.html

With the T Slot table that the parts to be machined sit on, can I buy them or do I need to make one? What are they called?

tommylight wrote: For that size, something like 600x400x10 to 15mm thickness would be nice,

Spoke to my steel supplier and the largest tube I can get is 400x200x12.5. I might have to make a welded tube from plasma cut plate. I can make it any size I want if I do that. I really should not go off on tangents until my other projects are finished!

t slot tables can be bought but they can get expensive going that direction. as far as work holding goes you can do that may ways. most common way is vises but like i said it can be done many ways based on the type of work you are doing.

the t slot tables just act as the attaching point for your work holding. they sell basic clamping sets for the size of t slot that is on the machine.the picture below is about as common as they get. this is what is used to hold the vises to the t slot table often.

Would you recommend buying a table to suit my machine from China or should I buy some colded rolled flat bar and make my own? I do have access to a manual milling machine.