I'm with Ajcoholic ... consider raising the gantry. From your picture, the gantry is already off ... that's the hard part. It's well worth the effort. For me, the stock dust skirt was a PITA to work around when changing bits. With the increased z, I can raise the spindle up and drop the skirt clear out of the way. Not to mention the set screw to raise and lower the dust skirt was awkward to reach until I increased the z. Plus, increased z for machining larger parts. The aluminum bed and raising the gantry were two of the three best mods to my machine.
I did not layout my whole plan I have 1.25" tool plate aluminum gantry sides being cut which are taller. I will write a post detailing the build when it is near completion.
I really like what you have. I went to the Hubbard CNC web site and did not find anything like it. Would you by chance have a part number of some sort I could enter to find it?
I have a BT32. It appears that you also added the rollers on each side. Am I correct?
Sorry for so many questions.
Thanks
Phil
BT 32 Standard
2.2 HP Spindle
Aspire Sofrware
Since rollers were mentioned, I'm guessing the question was for me ...
I didn't use Hubbard products on my bot. I used mostly 80/20 parts, specifically the following part for the platform: https://8020.net/shop/1030.html (purchased through amazon or ebay).
The roller side plates were machined from 3/16" aluminum sheet on the bot and the rollers are skateboard wheels with ABEC bearings (8 wheels per side).
The mod required me to fab some small custom parts to make the overall build work, so definitely not a design I would recommend someone try to duplicate ... there are most definitely better ways. The final build was the third iteration of my original design, so there are definitely things I would have done differently from the beginning that would have changed the final outcome and perhaps not required the small custom parts.
The takeaway message: aluminum tables are the way to go if your work area suffers from high humidity.
J