Hey folks,
Currently converting my v3 to a v4. I have gained access to the ability to mill steel and was wondering if making steel strut plates would net a significant increase in rigidity, or if it is not worth the effort. I would love to use an ER20 spindle as well, but that was a bit heavy for my current v3.
TLDR;
Is there a significant rigidity difference between wood composite strut plates and metal strut plates?
Is the v4 more capable of running larger/heavier spindles?
Thank you!
Steel would be VERY heavy, and probably way overkill.
Aluminum, however, is metal, quite rigid, and fairly light. A bit tricky to mill (it melts and sticks to the end mill if your F&S aren’t set up correctly), but with trochoidal milling and/or an Isopropyl Alcohol Mist system, it is certainly do-able on the Lowrider.
Thank you for the response! I am looking at sourcing some aluminum right now instead and just cutting it out using a stencil of the dxf from a plotter using shears or an angle grinder.
That would likely be very rough and imprecise.
You are much better (IMO) to build with temporary printed braces, then use the LR4 to mill the struts.
And if the aluminum is thin enoogh to cut with hand shears, it will probably be thinner than you really want. You may need to double up or use thicker (3/16 or 1/4")
The steel might be more viable if the design was modified into a truss style webbing to reduce weight. You might also be able to step down to 1/8 or 3/16 thick material given the superior rigidity. I considered cutting steel on my plasma table but don’t have the workspace to do so as a one piece for the size table I’m building
Beauty of steel of course is you can cut 2 shorter lengths and any gun jockey MIG welder can join them together.