Hi everyone I have a new Lead 1075 I am building over here in sunny but cold Spain and its time look & think about getting the spoilboard now while I do the electricals. Can you please advise on what the ideal thickness for one is. I have over here in Europe available to me 12 mm, 19mm, 22mm and 25mm MDF which seems to be the most used board, I did think about marine ply then realised there could be issues in surfacing it. or do i go for a thinner board and a sacrificial board on top that I can surface and toss away every now and then. Either way I am planning on installing claw nuts and cams for my hold downs rather than T tracks unless there is any good reason not to?.... My new spindle is a water cooled inverter 0.8 kw ER11 My old baby CNC had a T track aluminium plate and I used thin slats of MDF in between and then surfaced it but always found the clamps were getting in the spindles way. Many thanks for all your help. Neil
There isn't an "ideal" thickness for a spoiler board - it depends on what you want to do and how much Z clearance you need. I have a workbee - it has two options for the height of the spoil board supports - I did a modification and went halfway between. I use an 18mm thick mdf spoil board which gives me 50~60 mm in the Z axis (depending on bit length). I mostly work with thin materials so I put another layer on top - for repetitive jobs this can have custom fixtures on. Alex.
Thanks Alex good Idea, most of my work will only be on 25 to 30 mm stock maximum I would think. I will give it some thought. thanks again.
I have almost no practical experience with CNC routers but I decided to go with a secondary sacrificial waste board small enough to be fully cleaned up when resurfacing. This allows longer or wider pieces to be placed on the bed without hanging up on a lip. I'm in North America so the main board thickness is nominally 12.7mm and the sacrificial board on top is 19.05mm. If a job requires more Z travel I figure I can remove the sacrificial board.
If you look at the end of my build report (Workbee with Duet controller) you will see the comprise I made for the spoil board supports. I used some (cheap) T-slot instead of V-slot and had to add support under the middle of those longitudinal members. Alex.
You're welcome. I would post a picture if I could. I'm new on the forum and I'm guessing that I can't do this until I have a certain number of posts...
When you are posting, there is the option to upload a file. Also if you click on the icon that looks like photo above the text box you have the option to insert the image url.
Here's the actual Workbee 1050 with the spoilboards installed. These boards are attached with M5 hardware. One of the first tasks with the router once I get it cutting will be to flip over the sacrificial spoilboard and machine it to accept the array of T-nuts pictured in the CAD model.
looks good, after listening on here and on the Facebook group to quite a number of people I have gone down this route and adopted the twin spoilboard, the original to hold the machine rigid at 19MM thick which I will seal with a oil to protect against dampness and and add some weight and a secondary sacrificial board, just need to decide on T Tracks or T nuts or inset nuts now!! I think it will be T nuts or T tracks, I think the inset nuts will pull out to easily if clamped down on as they are designed to bite into a grain and of course MDF has none..... Next stage now needs planning....
Thanks I have taken that route now a 19mm nominal high density MDF green underboard and a secondary sacrificial board, easier to swap when it finally gets trashed as well, saves getting underneath the machine to change it!
The great thing about doing that is that you can experiment with different fixing methods until you find one that suits you and then discard the top layer if it has been too chewed up in the process. Alex.
That was my view in the end because there were so many people saying t nuts, inserts and t tracks or just screw it in or even the old painters tape method, with glue as you say this will leave my main machine board fine and I can play until I decide, I quite like the idea of using a cam system with 15mm pegs that go into the board, A young engineer on YT designed some special cams that push a lot of force against the stock just by moving the position of the hole in the cam, the cams are just the normal ones but its the positioning of the hole that changes the load. thanks
Yes, I came to the conclusion that I didn't want to spend lots of time or money making a beautiful spoil board that would end up getting thrown away. My workshop is in my cellar, so I can't rely on mdf staying flat - I surface my spoil board regularly so it only lasts a few months. Alex.
Hi Alex ..fancy seeing you here ... I've been messing about today in shed and I'm beginning to see some light now regarding this method of a dual spoilerboard
Yes - you just take the top layer off if you need more height. For my magazine rack project I even had to machine a pocket in the lower layer to get the Z clearance I needed, but since I machined the pocket as an interference fit for the workpiece it doubled as a clamp. Alex.
