Agree, raising the rails so gantry doesn’t need to raise as high will let you cut more accurately and/or faster. Should be able to use shorter/cheaper bits too?
Originally had lofty dreams of making a “Drop Table”. However, am currently planning to raise rails with stack of sealed MDF strips so only a 1/2" wide dovetail bit is needed to speed through slab flattening using Jamie’s Surfacing gcode generating web script. Will use (register?) bolts to enable quickly adding/removing middle MDF layers without having to figure out belt holder locations each time.
Counter intuitively for me, was learning from folks here that surfacing with a smaller diameter bit will help with overall speed and quality, especially if router isn’t perfectly trammed (consider using layers of tape). Ridges requiring post sanding will be larger with larger bit. Hitting knots with larger surfacing bits seems to not help too. In general, maximizing material removal rate with LR3 seems to involve cutting deeper and slower, rather than shallower and faster.
So, I think (without having tried… ) consensus here is to use 1/2" dovetail bit for surfacing with a LR3?
Thanks for starting this topic. Have a bunch of slabs I need to flatten this summer. Hoping someone who’s tried out different configurations with their LR3 can share what’s working for them? @cnckitchen 