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Framed - or why I prefer a laser to a saw

Fen End Pit

Entry posted by Fen End Pit

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A lot of brain work and a few hours in TurboCad resulted in a design for a baseboard frame cut from 6mm ply on the laser cutter. I've had to make the longest lengths by jointing two bits together but with a suitable joint and a glued plate I don't see it is going to move. Lots of clever joints should make it nice and strong and lots of holes in the cross braces should mean I can feed wires around.

 

I have some hardware, alignment dowels and bits coming from Station Road baseboards.

 

Plan is for the whole lot to get topped with the 15mm MDF which was the original shelf for Empire Basin. This time I will be able to lift it up and work underneath.

 

blogentry-7212-0-04023000-1374184252_thumb.jpg

 

David

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  • RMweb Gold
wenlock
  • RMweb Gold

Looks great! Nothing like good foundations to get the creative juices flowing!

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Portchullin Tatty

David,

 

You might well want to look into CNC routing, rather than laser cutting.  In essence the CAD program controls the movement of a milling/routing head across the sheet of wood.  As it is aimed at much more industrial type processes it can easily deal with bigger sheets and can cut to variable depths depending on the commands it is given.

 

This is how "Brilliant Baseboards" were made (here is a clip from their now site although I am not clear if they are still going

)  and I don't think it costs too much to get some run off (and it might be a machine your Hackerspace people may be interested in getting?

 

One other observation I have is to suggest that you move the cut outs on the intermediates downwards a bit and to make them smaller.  You often find you need to cut things in from above and if a point motor or signal servo needed to go where one the intermediates is located, you will have a problem as the cut will break the integrity of its structure?

 

Mark

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N15class

Will not the 15mm MDF top spoil all your hard work on the ply frame. Why not use ply where the tracks are goining and light wieght material for the rest?

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  • RMweb Gold
Fen End Pit
  • RMweb Gold

Hi Mark

yes, we have a CNC router in Makespace that will chomp through 16mm Ply with no problem. Trouble is I have spent too much time training other people to use the laser cutter that I've not yet managed to get a training session on it!. I have tried to draw up all the 'under-baseboard' fittings and made the bracing to avoid them. However I'm sure I'll still end up cursing with a stanley knife at some point!

 

Hi N15class

I'd agree that 15mm MDF wouldn't be the ideal top were the layout to be in anyway portable but this layout is specifically not portable. I had the MDF from the original 'shelf' that Empire Basin was sat on and I quite like the weight from the point of view of noise deadening.

 

If (when) I get around the rebuilding Fen End Pit I'll be very tempted to get some of the 50mm extruded foam an machine recesses for the servo etc into it and cover the sides with thin ply. By the time I get round it it that will probably be all I'll be able to lift!

 

 

David

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