Hi I'm Saymon, I live in Cascavel, Paraná - Brazil, I have a CNC Plasma and bending company, a long time ago I ventured into casting small parts but nothing professional. The plasma CNC was built by myself, and now I am interested in building a CNC laser, but I would like to make the gantry in cast aluminum, I would like opinions on what would be the best process to manufacture this part I found this forum through Kelly's videos. Yours sincerely Saymon Miguel Cervantes.
Ola Saymon! For a CNC laser or plasma machine, maybe it is better to use a lighter structure since they do not need to push down on the cut material? A cast gantry would be quite heavy and take lots of metal for a pour. When I operated oxyfuel and plasma cutters 2.5 x 4 meters bed and up 150mm cutting mild steel, they were make from mild steel, rectangular tubes and welded with rack and pinion drives. This is a similar machine but we had a water tank/table under it: One might also think about aluminum extrusions, like on this surfboard shaping machine: It would be fun to see what you come up with for a design and build for your machine. All the best!
