Plan AHEAd
There were a number
of pieces of the design/build process that were not as well thought out
as I would have liked. There were a few that were thought about in
passing and then forgotten until much later.
- When
I was drilling the 48" 1530 side rails for the base, I decided for some
reason that It made sense to locate the cross pieces an inch in from
the ends of the side rails instead of at the end. I thought reducing
the "unsupported" span would be important (like 4% would really
matter!). It was done on the spur of the moment, without looking at the
3d design. It was a bad choice. Undoing that decision meant tearing down most of the router.
- Once
everything was assembled, I discovered that the Bosch Colt router was
too close to the cutting surface. Raising the router mount meant
drilling and tapping extra holes into the Z-Axis plate. I had to
disassemble the Z axis to do that. Easy enough, but still a pain.
- During the 'back of the envelope' design phase, I sketched out several methods for mounting the cutting surface. I
knew I was going to havc to bolt it down somehow. I never gamed out
which fasteners I would use or how many I would need. They never got
ordered when I purchased the rest of the router hardware. I didn't
order the T-nuts that I'm going to put into the top to use as hold
down's either.
- All of the end mills I have for my sherline mill are 3/8" shank. The Bosch Colt trim router I purchased for this project has a 1/4" collet. I also purchased a 1/8" collet. I have some 1/4" shank router bits, but no end mills. I had to order end mills from Enco (which I could have done when I purchased the thrust bearings!)