So I want to flatten my original wasteboard that came on my shapeoko XXL. Then I am going to make a threaded wasteboard to put on top of that. I wanted to flatten the original wasteboard first since its cut up good (not real deep, just a lot of cuts and pullups from screws in clamps). I bought a whiteside 6210 flattening bit. I lowered to zero and it will not lower enough to zero, and on top of that, about 1/4-3/8" the router cocks sideways, like it’s maxing out. So, is there another option to flattening this board before doing my new threaded board on top? Thank you
Is this on a machine with a Z-Plus?
I don’t even know what that is so I assume not.
I just looked up what that is, NO I don’t have that.
Things to do / not do:
- don’t run the router off the bottom of the V rails
- Mount the router as low as possible — one way to do this is to install the spindle mount adapter from underneath
You should be able to get the endmill low enough to cut things, but we are now terming the MDF as a baseplate/board, not a wasteboard.
I would suggest adding a spoilboard on top of it and machining that.
So to smooth the baseplate should I just sand it smooth to get rid of any raises from screws and cuts, then put new board down and flatten?
That should work — the problem with tramming is you end up with a pocket which can be problematic.
Winston Moy actually has a really good video on making a threaded wasteboard, and why not to flatten the original board.
Basically you remove some functionality by creating a slight lip between your rails and your baseboard, so installing a secondary wasteboard on top and flattening that works better. You lose the vertical space of the thickness of the secondary board, but that’s not a huge issue since you can work around it, using a smaller x and y dimensioned board than the original, say 24x24in, allowing you to use that travel if necessary.
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.