- Joined
- Mar 14, 2014
- Messages
- 74
Pretty much what it says in the subject: I keep running into problems with a lack of of Z-axis height on my SX2 and I thought this would be a good thing to try after seeing that they're fairly common on b-port machines. I found this thread on another forum and am interested in giving it a shot. The two things I'm wondering most about is what material to use and how to finish the top and bottom faces for maximum parallelism. My current plan is to get a 2x3x12 inch piece of gray cast iron from mcmaster and chop in in half and make a pair of 2x3x6 spacers. I can use one or both to get 2 or 4 inches of rise respectively. Is cast iron a good choice for this? Would something like cold rolled steel be better? If the cast iron block is not flat enough to begin with, could I face the top and bottom with a fly cutter and get sufficient accuracy? Also how tough will it be to drill 4x holes for M8 bolts in CI? I'm worked almost entirely in aluminum up to this point. Would this mod completely kill what little rigidity this machine has already? Should I be worried about stripping out the threads in the base casting if I go a little overboard on the tightening?
Thanks!
Relevant picture from the linked thread:
Thanks!
Relevant picture from the linked thread: