Building a 1000/1500 Ox, and today was attaching the 1000mm 2060 Y crossmembers to the Blue Ox plates I ordered, and discovered that the V-Slot for the OpenBuilds Part Store is not cut square on the end. When I tightened the bolts down on the side plates they wind up hopelessly out of square with the cross members. Has anyone else had this problem? Is there a solution short of asking for replacements? Obviously, I could cut these down myself to square, but then I wind up with a smaller bed, which is not what I wanted. In the photo attached you can see the V-Slot and side plate from above - notice how the outside edges of the v-slot is about 1.5mm of the side plate while the inside edges are tight against it. If I reverse this so that the "gap" is on the inside for both rails, and tighten slowly, perhaps they will stay square? They seem to be off equally, cut on the same machine not properly set up. Thoughts?
This is not at all out of the ordinary and is a reality of the extrusion process. The aluminum comes out of the extruder in one long continuous ribbon and is cut into pieces on the fly while the endless flow of aluminum is still moving which is kind of difficult to get square. Discussions regarding squaring the ends are found in multiple threads throughout the forum. Most just take a file and a square to the ends and quickly level them off. Others just tighten the corner brackets in a manner that holds the end square to the plate regardless of the gap.
Also, it is usually longer that 1000 mm to allow for the purchaser to square it up. I thought the store web page used to advertise this fact, but I am not seeing it now. I have a piece of 1500 mm 2080 and it is 1505 mm.
