universal carrier board

[rlzangerl]

Has anyone built or used universal carrier base? will this work for carving lithopanes where the material is only 1/4 inch thick?

How is the seven inch extra board length handled?

Approximant cost to build?

Thanks for any information available

Rudy zangerl

rlzangerljr@gmail.com

[Mugsowner]

With any luck bergerud will step in and answer your questions, as he is the designer of the UCB. There are others that way be able to help too. If you search universal carrier base in the search window in the upper right corner, you will find a lot of info on the carrier and the answers may be there as well. From my understanding of the carrier is that it will handle 1/4" material. As far as the 7" rule, I do think that in the early stages of the carriers life that most points of the carrier were discussed in detail by bergerud .

[Dale]

Well since Bergerud hasn't chimed in yet I'll give you my opinion. I use the UCB quite often and it works well, my concerns with using it for 1/4 lithopone material is that the corian or what ever you are using may give in the center since the material is only supported by about 1/2" on each side in the X axis. That could easily be remedied by using a piece of wood or plywood the exact size of the corian and double sided tape. The 7 " rule is taken care of by placing the material in the UCB 1/8" above the sides of the UCB, the machine will detect the edge of the material but the rollers will still be riding on the side rails of the UCB. The actual procedure is spelled out in the plans.
As for cost I would guess around $20.00 for the MDF, 2 threaded rods, and some other small hardware.

[bergerud]

Thanks Dale. Sound advice. (I do not check the forum as often as I used to.)

[Digitalwoodshop]

If I was doing this I would go with a similar single board sled like I use to cut out plastic tags. Except I would add side rails as your litho will remove material in depth and the side rails will hold the sled down to the table. I would use a piece of scrap material 4 inches long as the head end. Then your good piece, then another scrap piece. I use double stick tape to hold the stuff down. You will need to shim the side rails to height. If you are going to do a standard size you could use something the same thickness like White Board they sell at Home Depot and cover a board with it then cut a rectangle in the middle for your good piece. You could use double stick tape and tape around the edges of the good piece to hole it in place.

I use place on END rather than center on board. It is more predictable. Where the board just measures down to the project end. Then starts cutting. If you use Center on board it measures TWICE and any measuring error could result in a wrong placement. LOTS of options....

Remember... Your Y Axis is going to do a lot of WORK cutting your project. I would replace the Y Gearbox Bearings BEFORE you start... OR you will be posting Y Offset Photos. And use a new bit... Plastic is HARDER to cut than wood... A Dull Bit can fail to cut and cause a Z error.

Good Luck.