Spoilboard supports on large OX

I don’t like the idea of having only two longitudinal supports under the spoilboard on my 1000x1500 OX. I have a bunch of small pieces of 20x40 v-slot, and I’ve been mocking out an arrangement. Before I cut anything, I thought I’d ask whether folks here have thoughts they would like to share about this arrangement:

Did your OX come as a kit and only have the 2 longitudinal supports? My 1500x1500 OX came with 4, and I have added 2 more “just because” due to making my clamping system and the divisions being better with the 6. I’m not sure how much non-flex support you’ll get from piecing together (even dipping down a fraction of a mm at the joints will affect cuts. I would personally be doing 1 or 2 full length longitudinal supports, but that is what I already did, so there is bias there.

Thanks @nlucier!

It’s not a kit, exactly. When Hobby-Fab closed, I bought some random parts for one possible project, then changed my mind and asked Brandon to throw together the rest of the parts (relative to what he had already sent, and what he still had as he was closing down the business) needed for a 1000x1500 OX, which was never one of the sizes he sold. So really I’m more making it up as I go. He had only one 20x40 1500mm piece, and said I should buy another one, and I didn’t yet have a good sense for the machine or I would have bought more.

The two main longitudinal supports are indeed full length, and I’m expecting to also support the sides from the c-beam I used for for the X rails; I have realized at least two ways to do that since taking that picture but I can’t mock them up as easily.

The support as it stands would be primarily from resting on the flat table, and the extrusion would spread the load across the table. The cross members of 20x40 are aligned with cross members under the surface of the table to take the load through.

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@nlucier, did you fasten all your spoilboard supports to the table underneath them? One possibility for me is to screw all of the supports to the table underneath, so that it’s solid when I screw the spoilboard in above.

I bought a couple of 20 Pieces Stainless Steel Bracket (0.78 x 0.78 inch,20 x 20 mm) to use generously to lock the support matrix down. I have lots of t-nuts in the lower slots, and that set comes with screws that are appropriate for fastening to the table. It is pretty sturdy, but if I lift strongly in the middle I can slide a feeler gauge under, so locking it down to the table seems to make sense. I have t-nuts in the tops of the tracks to use to screw down the spoilboard. Not looking forward to getting that all lined up! :slight_smile:

You could always rip some thin pieces of wood that would fit in the grooves to space the t-nuts out. That would lock them in position making the process much easier.

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…Or just buy a few 3/16" dowels and cut them to length, or anything of the sort. That’s a great idea, thanks!

If I count right, this will leave me with 62 holes to drill and corresponding slide-in t-nuts to lock in place. That’s a lot of holes to drill. And some of them I can’t use the router to start because they are at the edge. And that doesn’t include holes for pronged t-nuts for clamps in the bottom.

Maybe I can delay all that a bit since I think my first project will be done with only a down bit… :slight_smile:

For clamping, I am thinking that I don’t need to have a distribution across the whole board of the same pitch of clamp-screw pronged t-nuts through the back of the board. When I’m using clamps, probably I can clamp to a second piece of MDF as a loose spoiler. I’m curious about people’s experience with clamping holes for strap clamps or similar (my experience is on a mill) so I can decide how much work is worth doing here… I mean, I’ve seen people who have put them on like 10cm centers across their entire board, and that seems like overkill to me, but ¯\(ツ)

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Actually my spoil board supports are 20x80s and are only attached at the ends. My router is not sitting on a table, but attached to a v-slot shelf bolted to the garage wall at the head end with a 5-foot heavy duty piano hinge, and the foot end has a pair of legs attached using some Lee Valley swing brackets. This allows me to rotate the entire table up vertically so that it takes about 18 inches of space against the garage wall if I need to.

I was surprised at how rigid the setup was when I put it together and I have to put a lot of weight on the middle of the table to see light under a straight edge in the middle. I normally am working with wood (sign carvings, letter cutouts, flag star fields for a local crafter) but also have done aluminum plates for FIRST FRC Robotics teams that I mentor.

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