Buddy Z travel

[jharmon]

Do other ShorBots have more Z travel than a Buddy? Is there any way to increase it?

It happens that after all the spoilboard/t-track/fixture, etc goes down that I have really reduced my working range.

Thanks
Jim

[erik_f]

Other bots have an inch more of z travel. The only way to easily gain more z is to raise the gantry. Actually its not more z travel as far as I know...just less z clearance.

[dana_swift]

Check out this link.. Bob Dodd clearly solved the Z problem! I haven't had the courage to make that radical of a modification to my machine (yet).

http://www.talkshopbot.com/forum/sho...7662#POST67662

D

[radavis]

I like to add index to my buddy this might be just what I looking for. going to have to look at Bob Dodd plan better before saying to much. has any one look at put a index on there buddy.

[jharmon]

I like what Bob has done there. Nice.

Does anybody know the correct MSC part number (mscdirect.com) for a rack that would be compatible with the ShopBot racks? Then I'm off and running with this mod.

Thanks
Jim

[gerryv]

Hi, I bought Bob's Buddy and found his approach and workmanship on this adaptation to be first class. I believe that Bob is doing consulting work right now including 3D indexer stuff but I'm not really sure. It looks to me that if you're going to be working at speed in hardwoods, etc. and are worried about increased torsional loading on the gantry it would be easy to drop the table a little less. That said, I'm not speaking from experience on this, but my observation is that on the 36" Buddy at least, I'd be quite surprised if it was an issue because that's the same gantry used on 5' wide machines running big spindles. I'm more of a metal lathe/mill guy just getting into this now so appreciate this tank of a gantry and frame and look forward to adding an indexer.